Florida Man’s anti-freedom mind-control agenda must be quashed

Associated Press news photo

“Freedom from indoctrination”? No, it’s that we’re to practice the Repugnican-fascists’ blatant indoctrination. Their backasswards, far-right-wing indoctrination is so good and true that it’s not indoctrination, you see, and every other viewpoint is “indoctrination.” (Repugnican-fascist Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a serious threat to our freedom despite claiming to be all about freedom, is pictured with his human props pushing his anti-freedom agenda in April 2022.)

Growing up in the Arizona public school system in the 1970s and 1980s, I was, indeed, indoctrinated.

Among much other bullshit, I was taught, at least indirectly if not also directly, that homosexuality is bad — sick, criminal, sinful, etc. (Mostly, it just wasn’t brought up at all — the erasure of an entire group of people is fun!)

Today, of course, we have same-sex marriage as the law of the land — and he-man Nick Offerman just very effectively played a gay man in a long-term same-sex relationship (with Murray Bartlett of the first season of “The White Lotus”) in the zombie-apocalypse TV series “The Last of Us,” a turn that no television show ever would have taken when I was growing up* — and in many if not most parts of the United States, many if not most of the homophobes who still remain among us keep their ignorant, hateful, bigoted, homophobic thoughts to themselves in polite company.

I was taught in the public school system that capitalism is perfect — Godly, even (in high school I had to take a pro-capitalist course propagandistically titled “free enterprise”) — and essentially I was taught that there is no viable alternative socioeconomic model, and that you’re crazy and/or evil for even suggesting (or even thinking) that there could be or should be (Love it or leave it, Commie!).

Seriously, though — how nice it is for the sociopathic profiteers among us to ensure that our public schools teach that our socioeconomic exploitation, in which millions of us are just wage slaves who in a nation whose beyond-ludicrous degree of income inequality grows larger and larger with each passing year are barely surviving, is the only option available to us.

This degree of mass mind control is nothing if not fucking Orwellian.

American history was taught to me in public school as an ever-progressive** march forward by overwhelmingly white people with a few minor oopsies and boo-boos along the way, but overall, God bless (white [that part always was understood if not always spoken aloud]) America, land of the free!

Conservatism, being all about keeping the stupid white man firmly entrenched in power and dominating the rest of us in perpetuity, still believes that today’s public school students should have the same experience that I did in the 1970s and 1980s. (Well, actually, I’m sure that even the public education that I received in the backasswards state of Arizona in the 1970s and 1980s is too “liberal” for them.)

It’s funny, because despite the right-wing attempt to indoctrinate me with the “right” sexual orientation, I’m nonetheless an out gay man in a long-term same-sex relationship. The years-long attempts to indoctrinate me didn’t succeed; apparently I am immune to such toxic indoctrination. (I’m an atheist, too, so “Christo”fascism, of which homophobia is part and parcel, didn’t get to me either; “God” and “Jesus” to me are on par with other mythical figures, such as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny…)

And for decades I have had deep issues with capitalism — which for the most part is just systemic, legalized thievery that so often results in injury, destruction and even death — and I would much prefer to see a hybrid socioeconomic model in which the essentials of life are not for-profit and in which OK, sure, the non-essentials, including the luxury items, can be capitalized. (And I’m a strong supporter of Bernie Sanders, of course.)

And yes, American history, as it is taught in our public school system, is, of course, whitewashed, to say the least; I seem to remember one U.S. history textbook with the maudlin title of The Pageant of American History or the like. I’m sure that Nazi Germany taught the history of Germany something like this: The nation was forged by strong, manly, God-supported white men! Get in line behind God’s soldiers or die, unGodly bitches!

So of course I oppose Repugnican-fascist Ron DeSantis’ fascist attempts to control what is and what is not taught in the public schools of Florida — in the name of “freedom from indoctrination.” (Indeed, you’re free to believe and to teach whatever you want — as long as stupid, evil white man Ron DeSantis agrees with it. Freedom! Yay!)

If our public schools don’t give our students the tools they need to be well-adjusted and successful in modern life, then our schools are failing them (which, of course, they are, but that’s another blog piece…).

And teaching like it’s still the fucking 1950s is not setting up our students for success. It’s setting them up for failure as future wage slaves to our corporate overlords, believing that the socioeconomic exploitation of them is what God wants and is the only kind of life that they ever can have.

On a related note, Advanced Placement courses are high school courses for the college-bound and are voluntary, and so their curricula should be hands fucking off to opportunistic political swine like the First Amendment-hating and freedom-hating Ron DeFuckingSantis, whose attack on the Advanced Placement black American studies course induced the College Board, which created the course, to water it down.

Of course, what DeSantis would prefer is that black Americans (as well as other non-white and LGBT Americans) just be erased entirely, so I doubt that the AP’s watering down of its black American studies course will please Gov. Florida Man.

As the Advanced Placement cave-in demonstrates, DeSantis already is winning his war to control all American minds.

Obviously I agree with age-appropriate teaching; of course your average kindergartener won’t understand the nuances of human sexuality, socioeconomic systems, the good and the ugly of U.S. history (including, of course, racism and the struggle for women’s rights and for LGBT rights as well as for non-whites’ rights), debates around religion, etc.

But an Advanced Placement student should be mature enough to handle the more adult topics, and further, DeSantis is trying to limit not just what Florida’s public elementary and high schools may teach, but what Florida’s colleges and universities — which are supposed to be bastions of independent thought and free speech — may or may not teach.

Former “President” Pussygrabber, at least, is so juvenile and self-absorbed (he’s the fucking poster child for the baby boomers) that he doesn’t bother to attack our public schools and universities; he’s too busy pettily attacking his legions of enemies (and as it is with every dictator and would-be dictator, it’s very easy to get on his shit list: just refuse to ardently lick his ass) like a petulant, perpetually miffed teenaged girl, apparently unaware that the majority of the nation is way, way beyond his endless grievance bullshit and knows fully well that he lost the 2020 presidential election.

That Ron DeSantis wants to institute mind control not only in the nation’s third-most-populous state, but in the entire nation as president, makes him much more dangerous than is Pussygrabber, in my book.

DeSantis’ goal is to indoctrinate all Americans into believing that any kind of life outside of the fascist hellscape that he has in mind for all of us — with him as our Dear Leader, of course — is our only fucking option.

Thankfully, barring one of the many criminal probes into his many crimes actually taking mob boss Pussygrabber down within the next two years or so (I’m not holding my breath), I expect Pussygrabber to win the 2024 Repugnican presidential nomination.

Why?

Because too many other deluded narcissists within the Repugnican Party apparently also are going to run for the Repugnican presidential nomination for 2024 — including people who have a snowball’s chance in hell, such as Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence — and, because the Repugnicans anti-democratically award all of a state’s delegates to the Repugnican National Convention to whichever Repugnican presidential candidate garners the most votes in that state, in 2024 Pussygrabber would benefit from a crowded Repugnican presidential field, just as he did in 2016.

Could Pussygrabber win in November 2024, though?

Um, he lost the national popular vote by millions of votes not only 2020, but in 2016 as well. History, methinks, is a guide on whether or not Pussygrabber could win back the White House in 2024.

Further, Pussygrabber eked out a “win” in 2016 only because of the anti-democratic Electoral College — and he did even that well only because at that time he was largely unknown, as least as a U.S. president.

Two impeachments, the deadly January 6, 2021, insurrection that he treasonously led, and innumerable investigations into his mob-boss-level criminal activity later, the kind of “president” that Pussygrabber was and would be again no longer is an unknown; we know the treasonous asshole abundantly well.

Therefore, no, I can’t see Pussygrabber winning the presidency in 2024. (Well, maybe he could if he were running against Kamala Harris, who we’re still waiting upon to finally find her political legs, but that’s another blog piece…)

Pussygrabber and 2024 aside, Ron DeSantis must never be president of the United States of America — and so I hope that Pussygrabber beats DeSantis for the Repugnican presidential nomination, because I can’t see Pussygrabber winning (well, “winning”) the White House ever again.

I can, however, see a fascist demagogue like DeSantis, who offers cut-and-dry, “common-sense” “solutions” to our problems and who freely and giddily scapegoats others for his own political gain, winning the presidency, especially when as a president he is unknown, as Pussygrabber was in 2016.

Our freedom of thought, on which all of our other freedoms depend, depends on those of us who truly value freedom — including, ironically, freedom from (fascist) indoctrination — stopping the fascist, anti-democratic, freedom-hating DeSantis in his fucking tracks.

DeSantis is a cancer that must not be allowed to spread outside of the backasswards state of Florida. He must be contained within that fucking swamp.

—

*Seriously, though, the only reason I started to watch HBO’s “The Last of Us” is that it received good reviews, and I find the angle of zombification via fungal infection to be an interesting twist on a worn-out genre. (I tried to get into “The Walking Dead” several years ago but just couldn’t; I found the zombie genre to be tiresome already.)

So after two episodes of the establishment of the fungus zombies in “The Last of Us” (an aside: Can you kill them by spraying them with an anti-fungal, such as for athlete’s foot or jock itch?), I was surprised to see this “Brokeback Mountain”-like storyline plopped into the middle of the zombie action, and it actually works.

And while I had known that Nick Offerman would be in the third episode, I’d had no idea of the direction in which they took his character.

I mean, I imagine that plenty of homophobes have stopped watching the show after that third episode replete with man-on-man action, but to me, if you can drop in a gay love story in the middle of a zombie-apocalypse story and do it in a way that’s not too cheesy and actually works, then you’ve reached peak TV, in my book…

**”Progress,” you see, was white people taking over more and more of the nation under “manifest destiny.” The land’s natives had to be dispensed with and their territory taken from them, slaves from Africa had to be instrumental to profiteering, environmental destruction for the purpose of profiteering had to be done in the name of “progress,” etc., etc.

California’s next governor might take office with a minority of the vote — but wouldn’t be governor for very long

Fascist-Repugnican talk-radio host Larry Elder, shown with his buddy former “President” Pussygrabber in a Tweet that Elder posted himself in July 2018 (and again in October 2020), just might become California’s next governor in the September 14 gubernatorial recall election with millions of fewer votes than the number of votes for current Gov. Gavin Newsom to keep his job — but there’s no way in hell that Elder could win election outright in November 2022, which he’d have to do in order to keep the job.

Having lived here in California since September 1998, I think that I’m qualified to state that with each passing year, I’ve agreed more and more with the assertion that the nation’s most populous state inherently is ungovernable.

Nonetheless, the nation’s most populous state has a governor, and soon, the right-wing nut-job minority of the state might be handed the reins of governance.

California has a gubernatorial recall election — the second one since I’ve lived here — on September 14, and, as two law professors correctly and importantly pointed out a few days ago in a piece in The New York Times, we could see the scenario in which current California Gov. Gavin Newsom loses his job by falling just short of the 50.0 percent of the vote plus one vote that he needs to keep his job. Yet thus far, only 18 percent is the highest that I’ve seen for the candidate who is polling the best of the 46 potential gubernatorial replacement candidates who are on the recall ballot.

This means that even if, say, 49.9 percent of the state’s voters elect to keep Newsom in place, a much smaller amount of voters (say, only around 18 percent of them…) could override the wishes of the much higher amount of voters who essentially had voted for Newsom — and put right-wing nut-job talk-radio host (of course…) Larry Elder (the aforementioned front-runner for Newsom’s job, according to the polling) in the governorship.

This is the dream scenario for the increasingly fascist, increasingly authoritarian, increasingly anti-democratic Repugnican Party: rule over the majority by the minority. (Indeed, we saw this in 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote yet loser George W. Bush became “president,” and in 2016, when Billary Clinton won the popular vote, yet loser Pussygrabber became “president.”)

Politico reports on this issue: “‘The [recall-election] ballots are out, so I don’t think a judge is going to unwind this [election],’ said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School. A [law]suit could be more ripe after the election, she said, if it turns out that Newsom loses but receives more votes than the winner of the recall.”

Indeed, that’s exactly what should happen if a “new” “governor” is put into place by a smaller number of voters than the number of voters who voted to keep Newsom: it should be challenged in court as unconstitutional, violating the democratic principle that the candidate who wins the higher number of votes is the one who wins the election (any other outcome is blatantly anti-democratic, and yes, for that reason, the antiquated, blatantly anti-democratic Electoral College must go, too).

In the meantime, California’s recall process needs to be fixed so that the will of the higher number of voters always fucking prevails. (Even just requiring a run-off election — instead of allowing a candidate with a small plurality of the vote to become governor — would be an improvement in California’s recall process.) This is, after all, supposedly, a democracy.

Of course, even if fascist-Repugnican Larry Elder becomes the next governor — and his lovely political stances include opposing a minimum wage, opposing the right to an abortion, opposing the idea that there is systemic racism in the United States, and, of course, being a fucking homophobe — he very most likely wouldn’t be governor for very long, and in the quite foreseeable future we even could see the return of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Why?

Because if Newsom is recalled, that doesn’t mean that he could not run for governor again, even in the next cycle, which is next year; he could if he wanted to. And regardless of who wins the September 14 gubernatorial recall election, whoever wants to be governor as of January 2023 must run in the regularly scheduled June 2022 gubernatorial primary election and be one of the top-two vote-getters in that primary election to be able to move on to the November 2022 gubernatorial general election — and then must win that election, too.

I don’t see any Repugnican doing that, not in a state whose voters are 46.5 percent Democratic to only 24 percent Repugnican at last count. Indeed, so deep blue is California that Newsom won election in 2018 by 62 percent to his pathetic Repugnican challenger’s 38 percent, and Joe Biden won California by 63.5 percent to Pussygrabber’s 34 percent.

Despite these daunting numbers, however, fully expect the fascist-Repugnicans to claim that if Newsom keeps his job, as he probably will, it was only because of “election fraud.” (An election is legitimate only if the fascist “wins,” you see; that is a central tenet of fascism, as we’ve seen played out as Pussygrabber & Co. still fascistically, treasonously and anti-democratically claim that Pussygrabber actually won the 2020 presidential election despite having lost it by more than 7 million votes.)

Newsom could lose his job in next month’s recall election, though; for quite a while now California’s voters have been run through the fucking wringer, as California experiences perhaps an unprecedented number of big problems all at the same time, including wildfires (mostly in the northern part of the state, along with Oregon), recurring drought, a serious lack of affordable housing and rampant homelessness* and, of course, probably first and foremost in most voters’ minds, the never-ending novel coronavirus pandemic that probably would have been over by now had the mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, MAGA-cap-wearing fucktards** not have tried to turn efforts to beat the pandemic (such as by the use of the three available vaccines and the use of face masks) into some backasswards tribal, political statement.

I mean, it’s ironic that the Repugnicans help to create the problem, such as the wholly unnecessary and wholly preventable extension of the COVID-19 pandemic, and then seek to benefit politically from the problem that they helped create, but we’ve seen this page from the fascist’s playbook before, such as with the Reichstag fire (and even with the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election, in which Repugnican Arnold “Baby Daddy” Schwarzenegger had had a secret meeting with Enron — and then used Enron’s raping of the state via a manufactured electricity crisis to get himself into the governorship in that recall election).

Whatever California’s big problems are now, however, under a fascist-Repugnican like Larry Elder (who wholeheartedly supports former “President” Pussygrabber, of course), the state would get even worse.

Therefore, of course I’ll be voting “NO” on Gavin Newsom’s recall, probably within the week (I should receive my vote-by-mail ballot within the next few days and probably will mail it back within a day or two).

I’m not wild about Gavin Newsom — I’m a “Bernie bro,” not a Democratic Party hack (indeed, I’m registered as an independent because I have real fucking problems with the pro-corporate, income-inequality-loving-but-nauseatingly-“woke” Democratic Party establishment) — but right now Newsom (for whom I did vote in November 2018) is our best bet to be at the helm of the nation’s most populous state (which, because it has the highest number of people, of course should have the highest number of problems…).

If we Californians think that we have it bad now, all that we need to do is to allow a Repugnican to take the reins — even if for only a relatively short period of time.

—

*California has only about 12 percent of the nation’s population, yet has about a quarter of the nation’s homeless. The fascist-Repugnicans like to say that this is because California is an inherently failed state, but no, clearly, homeless people are coming to California from other (I surmise mostly red) states, knowing that much if not most of California not only has a more favorable climate that do most other states, but that California isn’t nearly as mean-spirited toward the homeless as most other (supposedly “Christian”) states are.

**Indeed, it seems to me that Afghanistan right now is being overrun by its own type of teatard/Pussygrabber-loving/Q-Anon/anti-vax animals. Indeed, the only difference between the members of the Taliban (“Islamofascists”) and the “Christo”fascists here in the United States is the content of their backasswards religious beliefs. Otherwise, they’re remarkably similar, including their hatred of democracy, science, logic, reason, human rights, actual religious freedom, etc.

Transgender is the new Jew

His approval ratings perpetually mired below 40 percent, mega-coward “President” Pussygrabber now must resort to attacking the least of us: the comparatively tiny minority of Americans who are transgender.

Pussygrabber announced today (via the very presidential Twitter, of course) that “After consultation with my Generals [sic] and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government [sic] will not accept or allow … [t]ransgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military [sic].”

Reuters notes that there are “thousands” of transgender individuals in the U.S. military and that “Trump spokeswoman Sarah [Huckabee] Sanders said the administration has not yet decided whether transgender service members already in the military would be immediately thrown out, saying the White House and Pentagon would have to work that out.”

I’d joke that Pussygrabber’s biggest concern is that when he goes to grab another pussy, he wants to make sure that it’s the real deal, but this really isn’t very fucking funny.

The New York Times reports:

… The sweeping policy decision was met with surprise at the Pentagon, outrage from advocacy groups and praise from social conservatives.

It reverses the gradual transformation of the military under President Barack Obama, whose administration announced last year that transgender people could serve openly in the military. Mr. Obama’s defense secretary, Ashton B. Carter, also opened all combat roles to women and appointed the first openly gay Army secretary.

Mr. Trump’s decision to announce a substantial policy change on Twitter raised immediate questions about how the shift would be put into effect and what would happen to openly transgender people on active duty.

The Pentagon referred questions to the White House, where several officials did not immediately respond to questions about the reasoning and timing behind Mr. Trump’s decision. …

The “reasoning” is to create a distraction from everything else that has been keeping the lame Pussygrabber regime mired in the political muck for months now, and to make a cheap appeal to the ignorance, bigotry and hatred of Pussygrabber’s base of mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging troglodytes, which, thankfully, is not even 40 percent of the American people.

And the “timing” is that more than six months into his presidency, the wholly presidentially unfit Pussygrabber continues to flounder spectacularly with no end in sight, so Why not attack transgender people? Everyone hates them, right? So it’s safe, isn’t it?

Except perhaps to a self-professed groper of genitalia like the “president,” it does not matter what is between someone’s legs. Character matters, and what matters in the workplace is whether or not one can do and does do his or her (or, in the common non-gender-binary parlance, their) job. (Clearly, that’s a test that Pussygrabber, probably the worst “president” in my lifetime, fails miserably. He does everything bigly, and so yes, he is a colossal fucking failure.)

To make employment decisions based on anything other than the individual’s qualifications and abilities is to discriminate against that individual.

I am confident that in the future, perhaps sooner rather than later, the federal courts overwhelmingly will rule that discrimination against transgender individuals (as well as non-heterosexual and otherwise non-gender-conforming individuals) constitutes illegal and unconstitutional sex discrimination, because it is sex discrimination — or, Congress will act to expand existing federal non-discrimination law to protect, explicitly, these groups of individuals (such as with the Employment Non-Discrimination Act). Or both will happen.

Ironically, “President” Pussygrabber very well might have sped up the inevitability of federal anti-discrimination laws being expanded to include non-heterosexuals, non-gender-conforming individuals and transgender individuals.

In the meantime, though, thousands of transgender individuals who already are serving in the U.S. military have just been told by “our” illegitimate “president” (yes, losing the popular vote by millions makes you illegitimate) that they no longer may serve in the U.S. military.

This – to tell a whole class of individuals who already are serving in the U.S. military that they no longer may do so – is unprecedented, and again, I expect it to go to the federal courts, and I expect the “president,” who doesn’t know his baby-boomer billionaire asshole from the U.S. Constitution, to once again lose in the federal courts.

This hateful message that transgender individuals may not serve in the U.S. military, coming from the “president,” also gives the potentially soul-crushing message to the many thousands of transgender individuals in the United States that it’s wide-open season on them.

This is ignorance, bigotry and hatred – and since this is meant for political gain, this is, in my book, a form of terrorism – that starts at the top.

This is Nazi-like bullshit: to pick out an already politically weak group of individuals for special persecution for political gain. Hitler did this.

Der Fuhrer Pussygrabber has to go – as soon as is possible.

At this point, I don’t fucking care how that happens.

We have a neo-Nazi in the White House, this is intolerable, and this cannot go on.

The unelected Pussygrabber regime is now attacking schoolchildren. Sick!

The small-mindedness and the mean-spiritedness of the unelected Pussygrabber regime won’t stop.

Today, the fascist regime targeted schoolchildren.

Reports The Washington Post:

The Trump administration [today] revoked federal guidelines specifying that transgender students have the right to use public school restrooms that match their gender identity, taking a stand on a contentious issue that has become the central battle over LGBT rights.

Officials with the federal Education and Justice departments notified the U.S. Supreme Court late [today] that the administration is ordering the nation’s schools to disregard memos the Obama administration issued during the past two years regarding transgender student rights. Those memos said that prohibiting transgender students from using facilities that align with their gender identity violates federal anti-discrimination laws.

The two-page “dear colleague” letter from the Trump administration, which is set to go to the nation’s public schools, does not offer any new guidance, instead saying that the earlier directive needed to be withdrawn because it lacked extensive legal analysis, did not go through a public vetting process, sowed confusion and drew legal challenges.

The administration said that it would not rely on the prior interpretation of the law in the future.

The departments wrote that the Trump administration wants to “further and more completely consider the legal issues involved,” and said that there must be “due regard for the primary role of the States and local school districts in establishing educational policy.” Although it offered no clarity or direction to schools that have transgender students, the letter added that “schools must ensure that all students, including LGBT students, are able to learn and thrive in a safe environment.” [Wink, wink!]

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement that his department “has a duty to enforce the law” and criticized the Obama administration’s guidance as lacking sufficient legal basis. Sessions wrote that the Department of Justice remains committed to the “proper interpretation” of the anti-discrimination law known as Title IX but said deference should be given to lawmakers and localities.

“Congress, state legislatures, and local governments are in a position to adopt appropriate policies or laws addressing this issue,” Sessions said.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos echoed that sentiment, saying that this is an issue “best solved at the state and local level. Schools, communities, and families can find — and in many cases have found — solutions that protect all students.”

DeVos also gave assurances that the department’s Office for Civil Rights “remains committed to investigating all claims of discrimination, bullying and harassment against those who are most vulnerable in our schools,” and she noted that she considers “protecting all students, including LGBTQ students, not only a key priority for the Department, but for every school in America.” [Wink, wink, wink, wink,wink, wink, wink!]

The decision — delayed in part because DeVos and Sessions hit stalemates regarding timing and specific language — drew immediate condemnation from gay and transgender rights advocates, who accused President Trump of violating past promises to support gay and transgender protections. Advocates said the withdrawal of the federal guidance will create another layer of confusion for schools and will make transgender students, who are already vulnerable, more so. …

Wow.

The fact that the old, bullshit “states’ rights” “argument” has been used to justify slavery and all kinds of other civil-rights violations aside, it’s awfully interesting that the Pussygrabber administration, replete with a member of the KKK as U.S. attorney general and a U.S. education secretary who has never worked a day in a public school, are screaming “States’ rights!” to advocate for the discrimination against school students but would argue, only when it suits them, of course, that states don’t actually have rights, such as the right to declare a jurisdiction a “sanctuary” jurisdiction or to legalize the use of marijuana.

But worst in all of this is that transgender students, who already have plenty of problems in a backasswards society in which those who don’t conform are hammered down like the proverbial nail that is sticking out, now have been told, by the Pussygrabber administration, that their civil rights are so negotiable that we’ll leave it up to the states to decide.

Transgender school students hear this message loudly and clearly: The Pussygrabber regime doesn’t give a flying fuck about them and their welfare.

Expect youth suicides and instances of violence and other abuse against transgender students to go up now. Count on it.

The scrapping of equal human and civil rights for transgender students in all 50 states now means that transgender students living in enlightened states, such as my state of California, which by state law has protected transgender students’ civil rights since 2014 (the first state to do so, I’ll add), are going to have a very different experience than are those students living in the unenlightened states, the states that have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into this millennium.

Of course history will show that the Repugnican Party was wrong on the issue of transgender rights as it has been dead wrong about the rights of non-whites, of women and of non-heterosexuals, among others. History regularly looks back upon the Repugnican Party in shame, but, of course, the Repugnican Tea Party traitors are entirely without shame.

The 2018 midterms will be quite interesting. The slice of the American electorate that the unelected, fascist, white supremacist, patriarchal, misogynist, LGBT-phobic, xenophobic, all-around bigoted and retrograde Pussygrabber regime hasn’t offended and alienated is shrinking by the day.

And rather than “making America great again,” the unelected, fascist Pussygrabber regime is only looking for all of the ways in which it can try to drag the nation back to the Dark Ages (which it calls “the good old days”).

I’m not transgender and I am not close to anyone who is, but this bullshit — attacking and refusing to protect schoolchildren, for fuck’s sake — pisses me off to no end nonetheless, because this is some fucking sick and twisted, wrong, wrong, wrong bullshit, and the unelected Pussygrabber regime and the Repugnican Tea Party must pay for their mean-spirited, cold-hearted, ironically absolutely anti-Christian attacks on the well-being of millions of human beings.

The pink-triangle bullshit continues

Associated Press photo

Repugnican Tea Party U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas (he looks like such a nice guy, doesn’t he?) recently took time out from his important task of treasonously sending letters to the leaders of other nations meant to undercut the foreign policy of the twice-democratically-elected U.S. President Barack Obama to essentially tell us non-heterosexual and non-gender-conforming Americans that we should sit down and shut the fuck up already and just be grateful that we aren’t executed, like non-heterosexuals are in Iran, and that speaking of which, A nuclear-armed Iran! is all that we Americans should be thinking about anyway! After all, we need to get our priorities in order!

Same-sex marriage now is the law in 36 states and in other jurisdictions, covering more than 70 percent of the American population. Not that same-sex marriage is the be-all and end-all for equal human and civil rights for non-heterosexuals and non-gender-conforming individuals, but it’s not a bad start.

So, of course, the heterosexist and homophobic “Christo”fascists are agog and apoplectic.

Losing the battle of same-sex marriage — for which I expect the U.S. Supreme Court to rule for all 50 states this summer (arguments in the matter of the constitutionality of denying same-sex marriage are to begin in the court late this month) — the wingnutty haters now are focused on trying to legally allow businesses that serve the public to deny service to non-heterosexual and/or non-gender-conforming individuals on the basis that the business owners’ religious belief is, in a nutshell, that God hates fags. And surely the most important right that we Americans possess is the right to hate and to discriminate against certain groups of people. It’s apple pie, man!

I’m not a lawyer (I probably should have been), but, as I have noted, my reading of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which states that businesses serving the general public legally may not refuse to serve customers based upon those customers’ race, color, religion or national origin, is that the act does not expressly prohibit discrimination based upon sexual orientation or gender expression, because those minority statuses are not listed in the act as protected classes. (Indeed, in 1964, which was more than 50 years ago, non-heterosexuals and non-gender-conforming individuals were considered so lowly, so subhuman, that their protection by the Civil Rights Act was not even a possibility.)

While it’s beyond pathetic that an historically oppressed minority group should have to be listed expressly on a do-not-discriminate list in order to be treated with dignity, respect and equality — you know, as Jesus Christ taught that we should treat everyone else — federal law does need to be updated in order to add non-heterosexuals and non-gender-conforming individuals to the list of protected classes. (That won’t happen as long as the Repugnican Tea Party traitors control both houses of Congress, but they won’t be in control forever.)

The “Christo”fascists also are losing the battle (at least in the court of national public opinion, if not in the courts of law) to enable businesses serving the general public to discriminate against non-heterosexuals and non-gender-conforming individuals, but never fear, “Christo”fascists! We have Repugnican Tea Party U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas on the front lines of the battle!

Apparently the new “argument” against equal human and civil rights for non-heterosexual and non-gender-conforming individuals in the United States of America is that everything up to the point of their execution for their “crime” of not being heterosexual and gender-conforming should be tolerated.*

After all, Tom Cotton, a U.S. senator, defending states’ “right” to enact “religious-freedom” laws that are meant to allow business owners to discriminate against non-heterosexuals and non-gender-conforming individuals, proclaimed on CNN on Wednesday:

“I think it’s important that we have a sense of perspective about our priorities. In Iran, they hang you for the crime of being gay. They’re currently imprisoning an American preacher for spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ in Iran. We should focus on the most important priorities that our country faces right now.”

Cotton went on to say that “a nuclear-armed Iran” is “the most important thing that we be focused on.”

There is a lot in there, so let’s unpack it:

We Americans have priorities, and we have to have a sense of perspective about our priorities. Equal human and civil rights for non-heterosexual and non-gender-conforming individuals — equal human and civil rights for all Americans, which are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution — is not one of our priorities. (Duh!) We have to have perspective!

After all, it’s a crime to be non-heterosexual and non-gender-conforming, and in Iran, they hang you for that crime! Non-heterosexual and non-gender-conforming Americans should sit down and shut the fuck up already, and just be thankful that here in the U.S., we’re not executing them for their crime of being non-heterosexual and/or non-gender-conforming (yet)!

Besides, an American preacher is imprisoned in Iran, and his rights are far more important than are the “rights” of all of the millions of sodomites in the United States of America combined! (We have, after all, established that they are criminals!)

And besides all of that, a nuclear-armed Iran is all that we really should be focused on anyway! For the love of God, why are you just sitting there, reading this? Why aren’t you doing something right now to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran?

That is, more or less, the propagandistic spirit of Cotton’s remarks. What a fucking neo-Nazi Tom Cotton is. (Recall that the Nazis put tens of thousands of gay men into their concentration camps.)

The attitude that an historically oppressed minority group’s equal human and civil rights aren’t at all one of our national “priorities” is the slippery slope that leads to slapping inverted pink triangles (or the yellow Star of David) on us and putting us into concentration camps. And even executing us, because it’s well-established fact that God hates fags (as well as Jews).

When Cotton referred to “the crime of being gay” on CNN, I don’t believe that he was referring only to the Iranian perspective that being non-heterosexual is a crime. I believe that Tom Cotton and his ilk — being as theofascist as any Iranian could be — also hold that being non-heterosexual and/or non-gender-conforming is a crime (indeed, for years and years it was — you know, in the good old days), and I’d call Cotton’s wording on CNN a dog whistle to his fellow “Christo”fascists except that every mammal could hear his message loudly and clearly.

Besides trying to advance the “Christo”fascist agenda, which includes the persecution of non-heterosexuals and non-gender-conforming individuals (because that’s what God wants), Tom Cotton, whose letter to Iranian leaders of last month already has demonstrated that he is an anti-democratic traitor (the majority of the American people twice elected Barack Obama, not Tom Cotton, to represent us and our interests on the world stage), also is trying to advance the treasonous Repugnican Tea Party’s tactic of having Americans so terrified over Iran that the Repugnican Tea Party can do whatever it wishes, just like the good old days when the unelected, treasonous regime of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney used 9/11 and Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” (replete with the “threat” of “mushroom clouds” here at home) as political cover with which to ram their treasonous, right-wing agenda down distracted, terrified Americans’ throats.

It’s classic George Orwell: The fascistic oligarchy always has an enemy nation with which to terrify and distract the masses. The designated enemy nation sure changes a lot over time (such as, here in the U.S., first Russia, then Iraq, now Iran), but that’s not the point; the point is that there perpetually is an enemy nation that (we, the masses, are told by the oligarchs) threatens the very existence of our home nation. This is critical to the oligarchic fascists’ grip on power.

And it’s funny that the likes of Tom Cotton (who, pathetically, very well might be a closet case himself) should try to spook us Americans with the bogeymen of the Iranians, when Cotton and his Repugnican Tea Party ilk are just jealous that they can’t get away with executing non-heterosexuals for the “crime” of being non-heterosexual.

Iran? No, I’m much more concerned about the enemies here at home, such as the “Christo”fascists who comprise the treasonous Repugnican Tea Party. They’re a far bigger threat to our national security than those evil Iranians ever could dream of being.

—

*Not to pick on just Tom Cotton, of course, it’s important to note that the intention of the proponent of the widely-reported-upon “Sodomite Suppression Act” of California, on which I blogged here, also might have been (at least in part) to raise the specter of the mass execution of non-heterosexuals and non-gender-conforming individuals because once that specter has been injected into the public consciousness, then anything else short of execution that is done to non-heterosexuals and non-gender-conforming individuals will seem, by comparison, to be no big deal at all. (After all, we have to have our priorities!)

And I want to provide this update on the “Sodomite Suppression Act”:

Last month California Attorney General Kamala Harris asked a superior court to kill the “Sodomite Suppression Act” by relieving her of the obligation to issue it a title and summary, after which the proponent of the “act,” a right-wing, bat-shit insane and evil lawyer who should be disbarred, could begin to gather the signatures of registered California voters who want the proposition to appear on the ballot. (I rather doubt that the proponent ever has had any actual intention to significantly try to gather the required amount of signatures [365,880 of them], by the way.)

In a March 25 press release, Harris proclaimed:

“As Attorney General of California, it is my sworn duty to uphold the California and United States Constitutions and to protect the rights of all Californians. This proposal not only threatens public safety, it is patently unconstitutional, utterly reprehensible, and has no place in a civil society. Today, I am filing an action for declaratory relief with the Court seeking judicial authorization for relief from the duty to prepare and issue the title and summary for the ‘Sodomite Suppression Act.’ If the Court does not grant this relief, my office will be forced to issue a title and summary for a proposal that seeks to legalize discrimination and vigilantism.”

On that note, I neglected to note in my original piece on the “Sodomite Suppression Act” that one of its lovely provisions does indeed call for vigilantism. It reads that:

The state has an affirmative duty to defend and enforce this law as written, and every member of the public has standing to seek its enforcement and obtain reimbursement for all costs and attorney’s fees in so doing, and further, should the state persist in inaction over 1 year after due notice, the general public is empowered and deputized to execute all the provisions hereunder extra-judicially, immune from any charge and indemnified by the state against any and all liability.

I know of no other way to interpret that language other than that should the “Sodomite Suppression Act” be passed by the voters (it would not be, even if it actually makes it to the statewide ballot), and the state of California does not start executing non-heterosexuals as the “act” requires, after one year Californians may take it into their own hands to execute non-heterosexuals on their own (the “act” calls for non-heterosexuals to “be put to death [by the state of California] by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method”) — with impunity.

Again, the lawyer who explicitly wrote in a ballot proposition that the extrajudicial execution of an already oppressed group of persons in California should be allowed should be disbarred. Not only has the lawyer, a Matthew McLaughlin, advocated for the patently unconstitutional and thus patently illegal (and, indeed, reprehensible) execution of a whole class of persons, but he has advocated for extrajudicial actions (a.k.a. vigilantism), demonstrating his contempt for the legal system of California and of the nation. (Yes, the U.S. Constitution prohibits vigilantism/extrajudicial “remedies.”)

McLaughlin has demonstrated that he has no place within the legal system of the state of California — or, indeed, of any state in the nation. He doesn’t get to hide behind “free speech.” Lawyers are admitted to the bar only on the condition that they uphold the respectability of the legal profession as well as the state constitution and federal constitution under which they practice law.

You can, and if you haven’t yet you should, sign the petition to the California State Bar to disbar McLaughlin here.

No queer duck for the American Taliban!

“Duck Dynasty” “patriarch” Phil Robertson looks a bit like Osama bin Laden to me, which isn’t that shocking, I guess, given that you could call him and his ilk the American Taliban — “Christo”fascists instead of “Islamofascists.”

I’ve never watched A&E’s “Duck Dynasty” and probably never will. A “reality” show is bad enough, but a “reality” show about rednecks is even worse.

Go into a Wal-Mart (yes, I’ve seen the insides of a Wal-Mart — recently) and you’ll see “Duck Dynasty” merchandise all over the fucking place, and given Wal-Mart’s main target audience — the redneck — you don’t have to have seen the show to have a good idea about what it’s all about.

So, was I shocked to learn that the “patriarch” of the show, 67-year-old Phil Robertson — who, on top of being a redneck, is a baby boomer — is a homophobe?

Um, no.

Does Robertson, who has been suspended indefinitely from “Duck Dynasty” apparently primarily or entirely for his homophobic remarks to the magazine GQ, have the First Amendment right to publicly vocalize his bigoted views?

Absolutely, yes, he does, just as the members of the Ku Klux Klan do, but does A&E, which is a joint venture of Disney and the Hearst Corp., have to keep Robertson in its employment, especially if Robertson, as I suspect he did, violated the terms of his contract with A&E?

Fuck no.

The Associated Press notes:

… Sarah Palin posted a picture on her Facebook page of her with the reality show clan with the message, “Free Speech is an endangered species.” And Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal also lamented the suspension on free speech terms.

“It’s a messed-up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended,” said the governor in a statement [today] (the show is filmed in his state). …

Well, of course, to my knowledge, Miley Cyrus never publicly made an offensive, bigoted statement about an historically oppressed minority group — she might be a bit skanky, but I’ve never heard that she has uttered hate speech publicly.

But Bobby Jindal is a stupid fucking piece of sell-out shit who can’t lick the asses of the whiteys who hate him because he isn’t white ardently enough — you know, in order to “show” them that he’s one of them — so that’s to be expected from the likes of him.

But what about the whining and probably-faux hand-wringing about “free speech”?

The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Fact is, only the government may abridge your free-speech rights as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

Did Phil Robertson have to accept a gig with A&E? No. But he signed some contract, I’m sure, and when millions of dollars are at stake, I can’t imagine that the team of lawyers who drew up his contract did not cover what A&E and/or its parent companies may do in the event that Robertson should make public statements and/or commit certain actions that A&E and/or its parent companies deem damaging to them.

If Robertson has been legally wronged, then, of course, he can sue his employer. (I wish him luck with that…)

I find other comments of Robertson equally as interesting as his homophobic ones, which include his apparent assertion that the definition of “sin” begins with “homosexual behavior.” (Wow! Does he really think of “homosexual behavior” that much? I, a gay man, don’t think of heterosexual sex all that much, so why would an alleged heterosexual man think of male homosexual sex so much?)

According to the AP, Robertson also stated in an interview published in the January issue of GQ “that in his Louisiana youth he picked cotton with African-Americans and never saw ‘the mistreatment of any black person. Not once.’

“‘We’re going across the field. … They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, “I tell you what: These doggone white people” — not a word!’ Robertson told the magazine.”

Wow. 

So blacks in the South didn’t need the Civil Rights movement because they all loved whitey? They were all “singing and happy”? Really?

Assuming that Robertson’s report is true — that he heard “not a word” uttered by a black person against “these doggone white people” — could it be that they were so powerless and so terrified of retribution that of course they were very careful about what they uttered around whitey?

Could it be that Robertson’s memory is faulty? (He does, after all, admit to having done his share of drugs during the Sixties.)

Robertson also reportedly said this to GQ: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers — they won’t inherit the kingdom of God.”

Um, did he omit female prostitutes from his list of the hell-bent on purpose? What about heterosexual “offenders”?

Straight white men seem to benefit an awful lot from Robertson’s selective list, don’t they?

What’s most shocking of all, I think, is that A&E ever decided to put this man and his family on the tay-vay in the first fucking place.

P.S. In more good news for equal human and civil rights, it’s great to have heard today that former Olympic figure skater Brian Boitano finally came out (we all knew, but it’s great that he now has talked about it openly), and it’s hilarious that he and out lesbian athletes Billie Jean King (the tennis great, of course) and Caitlin Cahow (a medalist in women’s hockey) will be part of the United States’ delegation to the homophobic Russia’s 2014 winter Olympic games in Sochi, of which no high-ranking members of the U.S. government will be a part. (The Associated Press notes that “For the first time since 2000, the U.S. will not send a president, former president, first lady or vice president to the Olympics.”)

And, of course, today the state of New Mexico became the 16th state to institute same-sex marriage.

The “Christo”fascists and other assorted haters can slow progress down, but they cannot stop it altogether. It marches on!

On ENDA: Haters gonna hate

Reuters photo

Repugnican Tea Party House Speaker John Boehner, apparently pulling a Miley Cyrus in the photo above, refuses to even allow the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to come up for a vote in the House of Representatives, even though a solid majority of Americans oppose discrimination against non-heterosexual and non-gender-conforming employees in the workplace.

Repugnican Tea Party House Speaker John Boehner gives a novel “reason” for his refusal to even allow the House of Representatives to vote on a federal prohibition of discrimination against non-heterosexual and non-gender-conforming employees, which just passed the filibuster hurdle in the U.S. Senate, with 61 votes: “The speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs,” Boehner’s spokesweasel proclaimed.

So much for the kinder and gentler, more inclusive Repugnican (Tea) Party that we were going to see after November 2012, when presidential wannabe Mittens Romney went down in flames.

“Current federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, race and national origin,” notes The Associated Press, adding, “But it doesn’t stop an employer from firing or refusing to hire workers because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.”

So, presumably, the Repugnican Tea Party is perfectly A-OK with an employee being fired primarily or even solely because he or she is not heterosexual or gender-conforming.

And, presumably, the Repugnican Tea Party also views the current federal prohibitions against discrimination in the workplace based upon sex, race and national origin as equally bothersome — you know, “increasing frivolous litigation and costing American jobs, especially small business jobs.”

Wow.

Of course, it’s not about jobs, which benefit the working class, what’s left of the middle class, and the poor; it’s about profiteering, which benefits only the rich.

Civil rights? Equality? Fairness? Liberty and justice for all?

Fuck that shit!

To the Mittens Romney/Richie Rich wing of the Repugnican Tea Party, all that matters is the ability of profiteers to profiteer. And to the Repugnican Tea Party traitors, an employer should be able to treat his or her employees however he or she wishes. (This is, I think — in all seriousness — a remnant from the days of slavery, in which the owners, the masters, had all of the power; the former slave states, of course, are all red states today.)

But it’s not all about profiteering. The likes of John Boehner also want to keep the “religious”-whackjob wing of the Repugnican Tea Party happy, too, and the “religious” whackjobs love to believe that God (very conveniently) hates everyone whom they hate, which includes, of course, the queers.

Yet here are 61 of our 100 U.S. senators voting that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) at least should come up for a vote in the Senate, where it is expected to come up for a vote and to pass soon.

While the Senate is more progressive than is the backasswards, Repugnican-Tea-Party-controlled House, the current Senate isn’t exactly known for being radical (except to our farthest-gone wingnuts, of course).

ENDA, in fact, doesn’t go far enough. The AP notes: “The bill would bar employers with 15 or more workers from using a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity as the basis for making employment decisions, including hiring, firing, compensation or promotion. The bill would exempt religious institutions and the military.”

Fifteen employees is an awfully arbitrary number, as though it were perfectly OK to fire someone (or otherwise discriminate against him or her in his or her employment) for being non-heterosexual or non-gender-conforming if there are 14 employees, but not OK if there are 16 employees. Really?

And while perhaps I could hold my nose and accept an exemption for “religious” institutions (which are, in this case, just hate groups), I wholeheartedly disagree with a military exemption. Our tax dollars should fund discrimination? I don’t fucking think so!

A poll by the Public Religion Research Institute conducted not that long ago (in May) found that more than 70 percent of Americans favor or strongly favor laws that protect non-heterosexuals from job discrimination. (Sadly, Americans are significantly less accepting of the non-gender-conforming, especially transgender individuals, than they are of non-heterosexuals who more or less are gender-conforming.)

And Reuters notes that “Nearly 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies now extend workplace protections based on sexual orientation and more than a third on the basis of gender identity, said supporters of [ENDA] in the Senate.”

The AP similarly notes that “About 88 percent of Fortune 500 companies have adopted non-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation, according to the Human Rights Campaign. About 57 percent of those companies include gender identity.”

If non-discrimination against non-heterosexual and non-gender-conforming employees is so damned detrimental to profits, then why do the vast majority of the Fortune 500 companies support it?

I hope that John Boehner doesn’t give up drinking any day soon.

His incredibly shitty, short-sighted judgment, which includes, of course, his stance on ENDA, which is wildly out of step with the beliefs and the wishes of the solid majority of Americans, is only driving his pathetic, uber-dysfunctional party to extinction all that much faster.