It will be hard to top Ben Carson...

... for the most offensive and idiotic statement of this offensive and idiotic campaign season:

 “I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away.” 

--Dr. Benjamin Solomon "Ben" Carson, Sr., October 6, 2015

But how many bodies with bullet holes are necessary to protect our holy God-Given Second Amendment?

How Much of the Constitution Are GOP Candidates Willing to Change?

Thanks to Common Cause for pointing out on Twitter earlier this morning that today is the 95th anniversary of the 19th Amendment.

The 19th Amendment turns 95 years old today, guaranteeing women the right to vote! #usethe19th #VotingRights pic.twitter.com/6nqLPcehmM

— CommonCause (@CommonCause) August 18, 2015

When I saw that celebration of the 19th, I couldn't help thinking about the current universal rage against the 14th Amendment being expressed by Republican presidential candidates and the right-wing media.

After the GOP is done repealing the 14th Amendment, will they combat their gender-gap problem by repealing the 19th? https://t.co/ikcF8couyb

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) August 18, 2015

It makes you wonder at what point the GOP will stop thinking it's OK to mess with the Constitution (if nothing else we know they'll stop before touching the Holy And Sacred God-Given Second Amendment).

Today's Fine White Whine comes from a Great White Rhino Hunter

2016 GOP Clown Circus Update: The New Fat Clown Throws His Hat Into the Ring

VOTE FOR ME!!

It has seemed clear all along that the role of the fat egotistical clown played so well by Newt Gingrich in 2012's GOP Clown Circus would be filled by Chris "Krispy Kreme" Christie in 2016, and the Governor of New Jersey made his ambitions obvious at the end of last week when he vetoed a ban on .50 caliber sniper rifles, a ban which he had proposed just last April.  He announced his veto on a Friday evening when the local news outlets might miss it, but the gun rights groups keeping score on such matters definitely would not.

It's official. He's running for the GOP Presidential nomination and a place at one of the 8 or 9 podiums (podia?) on the traveling 2016 GOP Clown Circus stages.

While having the role of the fat egotistical clown filled is good news for Clown Circus aficionados, there was bad news on Friday as well. The Republican National Committee and its chairman who goes by the improbable name "Reince Priebus" announced that CNN and NBC would not be allowed to host episodes of the highly-anticipated 2016 Clown Circus because those networks are considering the broadcast of a documentary and a miniseries featuring presumed Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.  The RNC's real goal, of course, is simply to deny us the pleasure of seeing their clowns showing their true colors on two more networks.  If "Reince" could, he'd simply anoint Jeb Bush or Paul Ryan or Chris Christie with the title of nominee without any of the party's dirty laundry being aired for the entertainment and edification of America's voters.

If You Were a Republican ...

... you might say to yourself about the following bald eagle photographed along the Potomac River last spring:

"If we were free of the repressive Endangered Species Act and the EPA Gestapo, I could use an American Assault Weapon rather than a Japanese Camera to capture that beauty forever, stuffed and mounted on my office wall to show how fucking patriotic I am!!"

Bald Eagle in Arlington, Virginia
March 30, 2012

The Charity Arms Race

If it comes down to a shooting war, does Planned Parenthood have a light blue gun to counter the pink Walther P-22 Hope Edition pistol in this listing?

Gabrielle Giffords Steps Down: "I have more work to do on my recovery"

All the best.

The Fine White Whine of the Day (about events under the Tuscan sun)

I couldn't help reproducing the text of this email from the Independence Hall Tea Party Association here in all its glory. I didn't do anything to the original press release but crop the white areas surrounding it and add the highlighting to the various spellings of Tuscan/Tuscon/Tucson (they finally got it right - temporarily - the third time).




This post isn't simply about the need for geography education among those who believe in home schooling. It's about the sense of victimization and entitlement among those who condemn victimization and entitlement in anyone other than themselves. It's about presenting another example of the constant Fine White Whine emanating from the political Right.

Finally, while they ask for Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz to step down to atone for her criticism of the Tea Party, they are not above stating that "the perpetrator of the Tuscon [sic] shooting was an unstable individual with left wing sympathies, someone whose world views were more like Occupy than Tea Party."

"Whine and then blame someone else" could be the motto of these groups, but they should watch their spelling -- and study an atlas containing Italy and Arizona -- if they want to gain any credibility beyond their true believers.

Which Wedge Will Win the Republican Primary?

When the dust settles from the debates and caucuses and primaries, we'll finally know which candidate the Republicans will be sending to face President Obama, but a larger question may remain. Which wedge issue will win? What phony peripheral concern will be the twenty twelve equivalent of twenty oh four's Swift-Boat idiocy? How will the GOP attempt to get millions of Americans to vote against their own economic self interest?
1. Birtherism?

2. Guns?

3. "In God We Trust"?

4. Flag Burning?

5. Evolution?

or 6. Abortion? or 7. Gay Marriage? or 8. "Illegal Aliens"? or 9. Dirty Filthy Hippies Occupying Wall Street (and elsewhere)? . . or something we haven't even been told we need to hate or be afraid about yet? Will Americans sacrifice Social Security and Medicare for assault weapons and prayer in the schools?

Thirty Years Ago Tomorrow

It's hard to believe that it's been thirty years already since we lost this beautiful soul and voice of reason.

THERE'S  ROOM AT THE TOP, THEY ARE TELLING YOU STILL
BUT FIRST YOU MUST LEARN HOW TO SMILE WHEN YOU KILL
IF YOU WANT TO BE LIKE THE FOLKS ON THE HILL


 A WORKING CLASS HERO IS SOMETHING TO BE

The Quote of the the Day from Charles M. Blow

If you don't want to immediately read the rest of Charles M. Blow's column,"G.O.P. Grief and Grieving," in this morning's New York Times after reading this first paragraph, then you're probably reading the wrong blog here at TrueBlueLiberal dot org:

The attack on the Republican establishment by the tea party folks grabs the gaze like a really bad horror flick — some version of “Hee Haw” meets “28 Days Later.” It’s fascinating. But it also raises a serious question: Are these the desperate thrashings of a dying movement or the labor pains of a new one?

His thesis is that American conservatism is going through the clichéd stages of grief over the Democratic triumph in 2008 -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance -- and that the teabaggers are now in that angry stage where many of us found ourselves in the early years of the Dubya regime.
One less humorous take on the tea party movement is hinted at in a companion opinion piece in today's Times from Gail Collins prompted by the Washington Wizards' Gilbert Arenas and his recent problem with gun possession. She cites the fact that the vast majority of Americans, and even 82% of NRA members, want to be able to prevent terror suspects from buying guns at unregulated gun shows, and wonders about the minority opinion.

Let us pause for a moment to consider the 9 percent of respondents who said they thought this was a bad idea. Perhaps they live in the same compound with the 1 out of 10 dentists who did not think patients who chewed gum should go for the sugarless kind.

My guess is that all 9% of these gun nuts are also angry teabaggers. This angry minority on the right wing's fringe is much better armed than the hard-core opposition to George W. Bush was in 2002-2003.

Maybe Americans are too stupid to elect Barack Obama.

Here's the latest evidence leading me to that conclusion: Man Installing Satellite TV Shoots, Kills Wife

Power drills don't kill people, guns kill people. And TV's not too healthy for you either.

OK, Senator, it's probably good that I wouldn't be able to sue those poor harassed gunmakers if my family were gunned down with their legal product

but don't they still have the right to sue me? What am I supposed to do if the civil avenue of the courts is taken away? Respond to them in some UNcivil way? Why is this playing field now so uneven that corporations have unlimited power with no responsibilities for the crap they sell? Yet makers of poisoned cow flesh can sue Oprah Winfrey for slander and music billionaires feeding us Britney Spears can shamelessly sue high school downloaders. Wasn't there another system of government in which corporate control was the ultimate ideal? I can't remember the name (and I hate to use the F word), but I think they tried it in Italy and Germany in the first half of the last century.

Read this Bill "Kitten Killer" Frist blog entry about the successful GOP efforts to protect the gun industry from American courts and American citizens. And then read the "moderated" blog comments that, surprisingly, are all in complete and enthusiastic agreement with the sadistic vivisectionist. Try to add a comment of your own. Mine, for some strange reason, will not show up. All I wanted to know was whether Doc Frist had any good stock tips.

--True Blue Liberal

Why I Am Not A Democrat.

"Liability Shield for Gunmakers Near Passage" Washington Post, 29 July 2005:

"Supporters believe they have the votes in the Senate to pass as early as today a bill making it virtually impossible for victims of gun violence to file civil suits against the industry -- a testimony to the political clout of gun manufacturers, which have become increasingly vulnerable to civil lawsuits in the District and several states. Twelve Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), are joining with the Republicans to support the legislation."

My son, a Philadephia Eagles fan, just called because a player on his team was shot in Jeb Bush's gunnut paradise. Thank the mythical-bearded-father-of-jeebus-who-lives-in-the-clouds that he and/or his survivors, won't be able to sue a gun manufacturer.

True Blue Liberal

The NRA should hold its convention in some state that actually voted for the Bushies.

CNN.com - "Assault weapons ban triggers NRA cancellation" - 19 July 2005. Columbus, Ohio is located in a "red state" on a technicality. Let the NRA conventioneers bring their assault weapons to Texas or Wyoming where their presence fits more closely with the philosophy of the natives and where they can ogle the lubricated barrels of each other's weapons without threat that the local constabulary will pry their semi-automatic rifles from their cold dead hands.

(There have been a lot of visitors to TBL lately, but very few of them have been commenting. Maybe THIS post will attract some comments. Gun Nuts -- yes, I mean you -- are psychologically incapable of keeping their mouths and keyboards quiet when they are told that they are using a .357 magnum to compensate for a lack of anatomical size elsewhere, or when the name of their God, Charlton Heston, is taken in vain. Charlton Heston couldn't even stop a gang of effete British apes from taking over the earth, so what good is he?)

Now let me have it,
True Blue Liberal

"Stand your Ground" by Boycotting Florida

This story came to my attention from the ALWAYS interesting Shakespeare's Sister, with her blog entry "The Land of the Freaks and the Home of the Deranged". The long and short of it is that the Florida legislature has just made it easier to inflict your own brand of good old-fashioned vigilante capital punishment (please don't call it lynching) on the streets of The Sunshine State®.

The "Stand Your Ground" act is extending the "Castle Doctrine" that made it easier to kill baddies in your home, place of business, or car. Now the legislature (94-20 in the House / 39-0 in the Senate) is removing the last impediments to killing wherever you feel threatened.

Outside the home, however, courts have ruled that most victims must at least attempt to escape before using deadly force, a provision gun advocates say puts victims at greater risk. The proposal removes that requirement if a person has a reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm.
Critics say the measure could lead to racially motivated killings and promote deadly escalations of arguments.
"All this bill will do is sell more guns and possibly turn Florida into the OK Corral," said Democratic state Rep. Irv Slosberg of Boca Raton.

The NRA of course is crowing over at their website about this great victory. Next up, arming American teachers with weapons that have a little more killing power than the traditional paddle. And if a kid comes to school wearing a trench coat . . .

Shakespeare's Sister asked" Who in his right mind prefers to go on the offensive and take someone else’s life on the chance that the other person means to take his?" While her "right mind" proviso may have excused him from competition, the obvious answer is George Dobeliou Bush (and his friends -- I passed a quote from Condi somewhere today about the danger of "under-reacting" to insufficient intelligence). Killing pre-emptively is a national foreign policy that will now be extended domestically -- with the inevitable stroke of Dubya's little brother's pen -- to the streets of Miami, Orlando, and The Magic Kingdom.

And while Jeb and the other "Culture of Lifers" thought it was wrong to kill Terri Schiavo by removing her feeding tube, I guess it would have been OK to shoot her if you mistook an involuntary twitch for a threat. After all, no one is ever held responsible for bad intelligence in today's modern America.

Let's stand OUR ground. Spread the word about this latest legislative atrocity in your own way, and please think twice before planning a vacation in Florida.

Is there an Activist Judge in the house?
True Blue Liberal

"Culture of Lifers" Dealing in Death

Just as evil as what the Republican Congress and President are doing to the separation of judicial and legislative powers is their continuing destruction of the meanings of common English words.

Claiming of the title "Culture of Life" by these active defenders of and dealers in death (in Abu Ghraib, Iraqi and Afghan killing fields, and the active death rows throughout the former Confederate States of America) is even worse than their "Clear Skies" for polluters, "Healthy Forests" for clearcutters, "Peace Keepers" for [our] weapons of mass destruction, and Social Security "Reform" for those who would happily return us to the status quo ante FDR. Their contempt for everything, except money and the votes of the gullible, continues to amaze. I can no longer think of a single fucking thing that they could do that would surprise me.

Just wait until they claim that Democrats and Liberals killed Terri Schiavo (it's probably already happening on Fox and Limbaugh, but who has the stomach to check? -- not me).

Meanwhile the school killings (killings of bright young people in non-vegetative states) continue, but none of the Culture of Lifers will ever call for gun control. The hypocrisy is incredible.

True Blue Liberal