Coming up, re-scheduled

I hope you'll be able to join us TONIGHT, at 9:PM EST on RainbowRadio.FM, when I'll (finally) be talking to Dave Garcia, Executive Director of Affirmations, Ferndale Michigan's local LGBTQIA+ community center. (Technical glitch prevented the show from airing last week.) We'll be discussing all of the services that the organization provides, FLEX a little for the awesome city of Ferndale, and touch about the unfortunate incident from a couple of weeks ago regarding a local hate group and how that was handled.

Then, NEXT WEEK (17 April, 9:PM EST on RainbowRadio.FM), we'll be joined by Bria, the creator of the Life of Bria Comics as well as several graphic novels including Coming Out Again which released last month on Amazon. Immensely talented artist and a very personal interview, I had such a great time talking with her, so be sure to catch it!

Then on April 24th, (9:PM EST on RainbowRadio.FM) my good friend and many time guest, Brynn Tannehill returns to talk about her new book, American Fascism: How the GOP Is Subverting Democracy, which will be available on Amazon in the next few days. This book is MUST-READ for anyone who wants to understand WTF is (and has been) going on with America, how things got SO BAD, and why it will be so difficult to fix them in the foreseeable future. Scary stuff, but an easily 5***** essential read for anyone who cares about the direction the country is heading in. SO DON'T MISS IT!

Coming up on IMHO, RainbowRadio and YouTube...

A great conversation on Rainbow last night with E.B. Coternord about sex work, and the attitudes, laws and issues surrounding it.  This is one show that really challenged me and forced me to change some of my attitudes more than most do. If you missed it on Rainbow, you can play it below, and it will live (along with the rest of this year's shows) in the IMHO-2021 tab at the top of the page. 

 

The shows are also being migrated over to my YouTube Channel. All of the 2021 shows will be posted at the same time that they drop on Mixcloud (which is what this blog links to.) In addition the audio-only content that airs on Rainbow (and is included here) the YouTube channel will also included the uncut, unedited VIDEO footage from these intervioews as well. SO check that out if you want to put some faces to the voices you hear, and occasioanlly see how awkward and clumsy it gets sometimes. Lol.

I'm also slowly but surely working through the back catalog of shows to get all of those uploaded to YouTube as well. I'm about a third of the way through 2015 at this point, and the newer software and faster upload speed is really making short work of it. 

OH, and you can also find my series of WEAPONS VIDEOS there! Just me talking for a few minutes about the pieces in my collection.

Coming up NEXT WEEK, Saturday, 20 March, at 9:PM EST on RainbowRadio.FM, we've got Suzanne and Declan DeWitt Hall. Suzanne is the Author of the Rumplepimple series of children's books and the Where True Love Is series of affirming Christina devotionals covering everything from LGBTQIA+ relationships and identities, family, abortion, sex, sexuality and ultimately deconstructing faith and doubt. And Declan manages the incredible outreach and online community that has grown from these works. These are two of my favorite people in the world, and easily two of my favorite Christians. I strongly encourage you to tune in and check out the amazing work that they're doing.

And then, the following week, Saturday 27 March at 9:PM EST on RainbowRadio.FM, I'll be talking with Joanna Harper about the research she's doing into the performance aspects of transgender athletes and the effects that hormone blockers and hormone replacement have on (assigned) male (at birth) athletes as they go through transition to compete FAIRLY in the Female division of their sport. Transgender athletics is the Right's latest moral panic du jour, so if you have any questions or doubts about the SCIENCE that allows trans women to compete fairly, be sure to tune in!

IMHO Returns to Rainbow Radio!

In case you missed it, last week, after a nearly four year absence, IMHO aired one again on RainbowRadio.FM! Although there will be off weeks, we will generally air at 9:PM EST on Saturdays.

My first guest was a frequent visitor to the old podcast, Terra Snover. Back in the day, Terra was the writer and artist behind the Mock Girl webcomic. Since then she's run for congress and published her first novel Another Online: All Hail the Queen. We take a look back at the past four years, talk about all the WTF that happened, and look at how we might move forward. The show can be accessed below, and in the newly added IMHO-2021 tab, above.

 

And coming up TONIGHT at 9:PM Eastern on RainbowRadio.FM, we've got acclaimed and convicted Nazi Puncher and Bastard Psychopomp of Punk Skarrlett Krow!

And while there is no show on the 6th of March, we'll be back on the 13th with a truly mind-opening discussion about sex work and the issues surrounding sex work with EB Coternord!

Thanks again!

Had another great show last night, thanks again to all who tuned in. And thanks again to Danah Gaz and Chris Hazelton from joining me! If you missed it, you can find the record on the IMHO Radio page.

THANKS EVERYONE!

I want to thank everyone who tuned in last night, and helped make the premier such a success.  In case anyone missed it, there is a link to the audio file in the top-right page, "IMHO Radio."

So THANK YOU, and I hope to have some of you back next week!

Don't forget...

Rainbow.FM Program Schedule

Tuesday, May 5th

7:00 - 8:00 pm est -  The Paul And Matty Show

8:00 pm - 10:00 pm est - Cutmore 

10:00 pm - 11:00 pm est - In My Humble Opinion with Niceguy Eddie

with special guest, Danah Gaz

IMHO Radio

Rainbow.FM Program Schedule

Tuesday, May 5th

7:00 - 8:00 pm est -  The Paul And Matty Show

8:00 pm - 10:00 pm est - Cutmore 

10:00 pm - 11:00 pm est - In My Humble Opinion with Niceguy Eddie

with special guest, Danah Gaz

Found on my Tumblr...

Yes, I have a Tumblr. (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/niceguyeddiecabot)

FWIW, I also am on Twitter (@niceguyeddiecab) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/eddie.cabot.96)

I am still most active HERE, but if you want to hook up on any of those platforms, there you go. I'm a lot more active on Facebook now that I've been banned from Media Matters (more on that later, if you're interested.) But THIS is still my primary blog.

ANYWAY, something amusing from Tumblr:

sarahseemssilly:

theycallmethemoose:

everkings:

gildatheplant:

pragtastic:

fifty-shades-of-gandalf-the-grey:

leomoriat:

poesdaughter:

Or, y’know, that thing called “Passover.”

Or the whole thing with Noah’s Ark where he killed off everything in the world except Noah and his family, and two of every animal. Y’know, no big deal. Just millions of people.

90% of the Old Testament is about God killing people in temper tantrums

Are we not going to mention Jesus?

Nailed it.

*wheeze* 

Oh my god.

Nailed it.

Will reblog this every time until the rapture!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Last comment mine.)

I'm not suggesting that this is how I view abortion, but I always find it hilarious whenever someone invokes God in an argument and clearly has *NO FUCKING IDEA* what they're talking about.

*a-hem* Not that anyone HERE ever does that. *cough* *cough*

And of course there's the Jesus joke, which is in HIGHLY poor taste and yet really fucking funny despite. (Sorry - I can't account for my tastes, poor as they are! I was born with them after all!) ;)

Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot! (Or some such thing...)

It's been a rough year so far for Rush. And today he lost another battle in war against people being able to access adequate health care. Well... since every liberal blog should have at least ONE really good Limbaugh-thrashing piece in it, I think he provided me with enough material over the past couple weeks to do one some justice.

Yesterday we got this little chunk of gold from the great gastropod, regarding "liberals":

If we have people who want to take over the government of this country via elections for the purpose of remaking it and eliminating all of the institutions and traditions that made us great, then that's evil to me.

The utter absurdity of this quote will be self-apparent to all of the thinking students in class, but for all the C-students out there (that would be “c” for conservative) let’s break it down...

people who want to take over the government of this country via elections

Well. That IS one way to do it! The other would be to baselessly smear your opponent, via the media, all the while whining about how the media is actually against you, split the vote so finely that you need all seven republican appointees on the supreme court to STOP a recount, as was required by state law, because a proper vote count looks like it might cost you the election. This from the same man that won the narrowest reelection bid in history four years later and called it a “mandate,” remember. So yeah ELECTIONS. What a radical idea. Count ALL the votes to decide who wins. How un-American.

for the purpose of remaking it and eliminating all of the institutions and traditions that made us great

You mean like the separation of church and state and/or an impartial judiciary? Because it certainly seemed to me that REPUBLICANS were trying to “take over the government of this country via elections (albeit rigged) for the purpose of remaking eliminating” THOSE particular institutions which, absolutely, “made us great.” And you’re right: That IS evil.

But, no. Of course he’s not talking about THAT. He talking about President Obama. They guy who won that whole, pesky, election thingy by the widest margin in two decades. (52.9% of the vote! To put that in perspective, Reagan got only 50.7% against Carter in 1980!) Apparently ACORN was able to fraudulently register 7.6 Million new voters. (The widest of victory since Ronald Reagen in 1984, BTW!)

Of course, this kind of high-minded sounding, but heavy handed in actuality, brand of hyperbole is par for the course with all of these guys, but Limbaugh was the first to make it into an art form, and he remains the very best at it. Say you opponent is "destroying institutions that make us great" is an effort to make him look baaaad. Because he knows that none of the mindless sheep lapping up this verbal incontinence will ever ask WHICH “institutions and traditions” are being destroyed, or for any actual evidence of these things even being destroyed, or for evidence that the institution he's referring to (should he name them) were ever part of making us great in the first place. Theirs is not the place to question the great gasbag.

I supposed the 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th amendments to the constitution were not among those institutions. Nor the FIRST, at least in any principled way. (Again, remember: He's not talking about Bush now!)

Now for years he's railed against the science that demonstrates how mankind's behavior contributes to Global Warming and Climate Change. Of course, he'd rather give a platform to the industry schills who peddle junk science trying to deny this, using the same tactics, heck the very same language that they did a generation ago for the tobacco industry, long after it was PROVEN that cigarette smoking causes cancer. In his melodramatic rants against "big government" anything that might lead to increased regulations must be WRONG. (You know... FACTS and all not withstanding.) And WHY does he not want 'big government'? Some high-minded libertarian principles? Nah. I wish it were that noble, misguided as it would still be. No. It's really very simple. BIG CORPORATIONS like Republicans, because they're the party that will let BIG CORPORATIONS do whatever they want. (Screw over their workforce, screw over their customers, pollute the environment, sell dangerous products, give people cancer, steal their retirements savings, swindle them out of house and home, deny them health care... YOU NAME IT, THEY DONE IT!) Well... since no rational person, aside for the top 1% of the country that rake in some obscene amount of the wealth by exploiting this system, would ever vote for the modern Republicans (industry whores,) these top 1%'ers knew the needed an every-man to sell their bullshit for them and generate the necessary votes. And they were willing to pay dearly for it. Enter Mister Limbaugh.

For anyone who doubts the extent of the duplicity of this sagging pair of man-boobs (or the extent to which he is factually challenged, for those who don't ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity) and think I'm exaggerating when I say that he'd still be denying even the reality (let alone the cause) of climate change the day the clouds finally burst into flame, I offer the following, all form the past two weeks:

We are not having food poisoning in this country; it's not happening. These are bunch of busybody people that will not mind their own business, they want to make their business yours, and they are -- these are the kind of people that just irritate the hell out of me.

Riiiiight. We don't need all that big government keeping the food supply safe! You know... never mind the 200,000 people a year that actually get sick, the 900 that are hospitalized and the 14 that die every year in this country, on average, from food-bourne illness according to the CDC. I mean, who trusts all that liberal DATA from those bog government agencies anyway? You see, in Rush's warped mind, if the regulations were relaxed the companies would have more money left over to keep our food safe with! See how that works?

Now, I'm going to go back a few months for this next one:

There really isn't a crisis in health care in this country. The crisis in health care that -- if you wanna say, that does exist -- is the fear that a major illness or catastrophe could wipe you out, which isn't gonna change. In fact, the odds of you being wiped out by a catastrophe or accident once the government gets started running this stuff is greater than if the private sector -- but day-to-day, there's no health care crisis in this country. You can get it.

Again, the 45,000 people who die every year from preventable illness due to lack of access to health care might disagree with you. Well... their next of kin will anyway. (Dick.) That's up from just 18,000 only a few years ago, so it's mounting. That's out of 40,000,000 uninsured and otherwise uncovered of course, and in addition to the 65,000 that don't DIE, but instead go bankrupt from their medical bills. Oh yeah... 75% of whom HAD this great "private sector" health care that this corporate street walker is harping on about. But hey: He's paid millions of dollars a year to spread this coprophage, so I have to admit: He's not lying. From HIS point of view, everything's fine. (Cocksucker.)

"You'll be healthier [if you don't listen to the government...] I'm not seeing these mass deaths from the swine flu. ... All I see is a bunch of typical government panic and hype."

Only 982 deaths so far, so not too bad. Of course there been over 55,000 confirmed cases so far, resulting in 7,600 hospitalizations. But don't worry: There's plenty of health insurance to go around, so whatever you do, DON'T get vaccinated. (You know... because the government says you should.) Personally, I think you'll be healthier if you don't listen to Rush Limbaugh.

And now you got Kathleen Sebelius saying you must take the pig flu vaccine. You must take it. Screw you, Ms. Sebelius! I am not going to take it, precisely because you're now telling me I must. It's not your role, it's not your responsibility, and you do not have that power. I don't want to take your vaccine.

I'm not sure how he concludes that it's not the role of the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make recommendations about vaccinations, but you know what? I'm glad he's not getting vaccinated. I hope every one of the men and women who listen to this assbag also forego vaccination. And I hope that a good number of them DIE, and the ones that remain learn their lesson and stop listening to these no-talent ass clowns.

Between their public health policies and their foreign polices I can't believe there's anyone left in this apparently daft country who hasn't concluded that these assholes are going to get us all killed... JUST TO MAKE A BUCK!

Now THAT'S what I call evil!

My Position on Abortion

OK, First things last... What's with all the Right-Wing advertising on this site?! First I had to look at Ann Coulter's ugly mug, now it's Campus Reform and their "End Left Wing Bias in the Classroom!" (Yeah, I mean GOD FORBID we do any THINKING about things like FACTS in the CLASSROOM! If that happens, 98% of the Republican voter base might come their senses and stopping voting that way! The horror!) Anyway, I couldn't care less, actually. Let 'em advertise here. It just means that THEY are paying ME to make fun of THEM. Kinda cool how that works, huh? LOL. So please feel free to visit any of my numerous right-wing sponsors. Make sure to tell 'em "Niceguy Eddie" sent you! LOL. HAHAHA!


OK... ABORTION.


Up front, let me say that this is nothing more than a statement of my position. There's no arguments here, no attempt to convince anyone, and no logical philosophical proofs - like what I had in the ESCR thread. This is just my OPINION. Yes, it happens to be what I think is he most reasonable position; the "way [to borrow a phrase from Rush Limbaugh] things ought to be," if you will. And, JUST LIKE Rush in, "The Way Things Ought to Be," I'm not going to make much of an effort to explain WHY they "ought to be" that way. I'm just going to put it out there, and then hear y'all have to say.


One thing I'd like to clear up first... PRO-LIFE vs. PRO-CHOICE. This is, as every liberal already knows, a completely bullshit way to define one's position. I've never met ANYONE who I could reasonably describe as ANTI-LIFE or PRO-DEATH or even PRO-ABORTION. This isn't a moral debate - everyone I've ever met concedes the point that it's immoral; that's it's arguably the worst possible choice. The debate is not about it's morality, but rather about how to define it's LEGALITY. IOW: Does I feel the need to take away SOMEONE ELSE'S right to make a choice, just because I FEEL a certain way about it? Is it any of my business? No, not at all. (Not that that ever stopped social conservatives from sticking their nose into other people's business!) So there's really only ONE WAY to define the camps: PRO-CHOICE and ANTI-CHOICE. "Pro-life" is a bullshit label and the fact that it has caught on is yet one more piece of evidence against the existence of the "liberal media." (If you want more, you can read THIS, or just check out MMFA.) And, as anyone who has read my Doctrine of Choice post (or know about my 5th principle,) should be able to infer: While I strongly believe that abortion is, in fact, immoral, I am PRO-CHOICE.


Here's how I would set it up. (And yes, I realize that there are both conservatives and liberals who will disagree with a lot of this. That's fine.)


1) Partial-Birth Abortion is banned. Period. If one of you is an MD and can give me a clear example of when this would be NECESSARY to save a mother's life - that's NECESSARY now, not PREFERABLE - then I'll reconsider. What's more, I would ban all third trimester abortions anyway or, if you prefer, since trimesters are kind of arbitrary, all abortions after the earliest point of viability unless the mother's LIFE (that's LIFE, not HEALTH) is in danger, and this threat to her life cannot be averted via a Cesarean Section delivery. (And don't bring up the ectopic pregnancy example here, because if you let one of those go to this far, the mother will already be dead! Those have to be dealt with RIGHT AWAY! So they don't apply at this point!)


2) In the Second Trimester, (or from the beginning of it until the point of viability if you want to go that way, I'm flexible there) abortion will be permitted if there is a threat to the HEALTH of the mother. We can quibble about how broad or narrow to make this, of course, but the guiding principle in the second trimester is that there must be a diagnosable, documented threat to the mother's HEALTH. And if this were made into law, I would have those specific conditions listed out. The debate can then shift to what belongs on the list and what doesn't. Obviously anything that can KILL YOU goes on it, but things like depression, for example, which are more sympathetic than fatal, or like high-blood pressure, which is usually addressed with bed-rest can be debated. (And I know how lousy bed-rest is - my wife dealt with it for about the last five months or so. It sucks. In and of itself though, it is not a justification for abortion, IMHO. Not unless it can't be controlled that way.)


3) In the first trimester, there will be no restrictions placed on abortion at all. Abortion by choice, therefore, MUST be a decision that is made NOW. It's a tough decision, I realize, but the clock ticks very fast, and if you're considering an abortion, it's time to get your shit together and make a choice. The area gets grey VERY FAST, and no one can look at a 10-week ultra sound and tell me that's not a BABY:


So I'd let you have the choice, but you don't have all the time in the world to make it. Just a few weeks really, since most people are already several weeks along by the time they find out. What's more: No exceptions for rape or incest are needed, since these can be dealt with in the first trimester, without need for such justifications.

Just as an aside: Why do we say, "rape or incest" anyway? If the "incest" was not consensual, isn't just a more specific form of rape? If it was consensual, then why would a "pro-lifer" allow an exception for it? Is an embryo OK to destroy provided that it's conception was sufficiently icky? And, if one wants to be truly principled about this, why should any pro-life position allow for these exceptions? If you believe that an embryo is a child, and abortion murder, then tell me: What did the child do to deserve to be killed? This is why I'm basically pro-choice. Because there is no principled, logically consistent pro-life position that any moderate person can stomach, or that voters (outside of South Dakota) would approve of. "Rape or Incest" exception are a pro-lifers cop-out to appeal to moderate people. But make no mistake: These are PRO-CHOICE exceptions. So, as I said before, it's not about PROTECTING LIFE, it's about LIMITING CHOICE. So "Pro-Life" is, again, a bullshit label. "Anti-Choice" is the only moniker we should use.

Acorn Nuttiness...

"I ain't afraid of Acorn... I've got squirrels!"

~Niceguy Eddie

And, OK... not the most original post title, I'll admit it.

Ever since then Senator Obama won the nomination, we've been hearing a lot about ACORN. And, for the most part, what we've heard is nonsense from the Right trying to convince us that Acorn is a dangerous, subversive, criminal, fraudulent, traitorous, communist/socialist/fascist/etc... organization who's primary goal is to destroy America.

So... What's the deal?

OK. First off, it is important to understand that the Right has hated Acorn for YEARS. Why? Well, among other ways that they try to help the poor (and the Right HATES it when people help the poor) they REGISTER them to VOTE. And the Right, HATES is when poor people vote. That's about it. It's a ridiculous accusation, though rather fitting with all the conservative "up-is-downism" that we've seen recently, to say that they even have an Anti-Republican agenda, let alone an anti-American one! Registering people to vote - PERIOD - should ALWAYS be considered a good thing. That they happen to focus on registering the urban poor... well they might vote overwhelmingly Democratic, but does that make Acorn anti-republican? More likely it makes the Republicans Anti-City, Anti-Poor and Anti-Minority (after all, poor whites tend to vote Republican, though I'll never understand why.) (OK I know why, but the reasons are STUPID, and I'll probably explain why in my next post - so stay tuned, you're gonna LOVE it!)

So, basically... few things will get you to the top of the Republican's shit-list faster than HELPING POOR PEOPLE.

The next question: If they hate them so much (and if they were such a threat to God, America and Apple Pie) why I have I never heard of them before now?

It's related to the fact that you never heard the words "community organizer" on TV before. And thus there was no rational way to tie the organization to a candidate, even by the conservative's lax standards of rationality. But then Senator Obama made much about the fact the he once worked as a COMMUNITY ORGANIZER! Ah! So now, we have a connection! (Becuase that's sort of what they do!) And all we have to do is CONNECT THE TWO, and we can get the benefit of smearing Senator Obama, when we smear Acorn! Kill two birds with one stone!

So from then on you heard how Obama and Acorn were like Bacon and Eggs. They probably spent more hours on television driving this message home than Obama ever spent working for Acorn. But whatever, the two must be linked! (Or else.... this won't work! So LINK THEM!)

Now that they're LINKED, it's time to smear! What to use, what to use, what to use... I KNOW! VOTER FRAUD! We'll accuse them of trying to steal the election! Just like those damned liberals have been accusing US of doing for the past eight years! (I mean... putting aside that, you know... we actually DID and all!) So they did some digging and found that, OMG!, there were some irregularities amongst the tens of thousands of registrations they submitted! NOW WE GOT 'EM!

Well... not quite. In the minds of the brainless zombies who have no reason to vote republican but do anyway, and the rich folks who pretty much don't care about the truth if the lie will help them get a tax break, perhaps... But back in th ereal world, "voter fraud" requires... oh, um... what's the word I'm looking for... um... oh, yeah:

VOTES!

Now, was it ever demonstrated that so much as a single fraudulent vote was cast in this last election as the result of an irregular registration by Acorn? No. It hasn't. In fact ACTUAL voter fraud in this country is extremely rare. If you took every proven fraudulent vote ever cast in the history of presidential elections in this country and gave them all to McCain in the state tat he lost by the narrowest margin, it would not be nearly enough to flip even that one state. (And let's not forget: He lost by about 10 states!)

What some Acorn employees WERE accused of was the crime of Voter REGISTRATION Fraud. The thing is... real crimes should have a victim. Did this one? YES. Who was the victim? ACORN ITSELF! Don't believe me? Don't buy that? Consider this scenario:

Let's say the "New Life Baptist Church" has raised some money and wants to have a voter registration drive. They know their community leans heavily Republican and each Registration means a likely vote. And since they support the Republican agenda, they want to create as many votes as they can. So they get all the necessities lined up: They recruit people to go door, they ordered all the forms, they put the word out... Time and money are spent. They even paid the volunteers $100 each for their work if they turned in, say, at least 100 registrations. The thing is.... they've got this... one guy. He's kind of lazy, and a bit of a drunk. He turns his 100 forms in, and takes his $100 (and probably goes to buy booze.) But when the Church reviews the forms, they find that almost all of them are bogus: I.P.Freely, Coca Roach, G.I.Lovemoney, etc... Now, the law requires them to turn in ALL forms (that foiled their plan to just throw away all of the ones registered as 'Democrat') but being good citizens they put this one guy's forms aside and notified the registration board that they were suspect.

At this point, I think it's clear that the town drunk has basically stolen from the church, right? He took his hundy, and at the end of the day, not a single vote will be generated. So the church's money was wasted, and their candidate harmed - or at least... he'll come up 100 votes shorter than he would have if their money was spent on someone who actually did their job! Now... is anyone reading this and thinking that the CHURCH is the bad guy here? No?

Well...

Switch "New Life Baptist Church" with "Acorn" and switch "Republican" and "Democrat" around and you'll have the EXACT thing that happened to Acorn. And YES, it was in fact ACORN that alerted the authorities to the bogus forms in the first place - even a recent FOX piece admits this. (Thought they do so in the very last paragraph, almost as an afterthought. I mean, why let the facts get in the way of good right-wing propaganda, right?)

Fast forward to this past week. Video's coming out about Acorn employees helping pimps and hookers get homes! OMG! I'm not going to let THIS PASS, am I?

Well, I got this real moron thing I do, it's called thinking? So let's think for a moment.

Again, what crime was committed, exactly? Someone was going to help a Pimp get a house. Wow. That's it? So if I want to sell my house, and the higehst offer was from a pimp, I can't take it? Don't pimps and hookers need housing too? OK, obviously I'm joking a but here, but seriously: we're talking about four or five (and I don't care if it's FIFTY, and I'll get to why in a sec) employees who helped these clowns (BTW, paid Right-Wing undercover sting operatives, mind you) with some paperwork, even though they said they were a Pimp and a Hooker. (I guess it's not much of a stretch for a couple of conservatives to pose as Pimps and Whores!) It looks bad, sure, and makes good play on Fox. But there's really no substance here.

Do the acton of these individuals mean that ACORN is a CRIMINAL organization? WTF? Hell NO! These people were FIRED. FIRED because the organization DOES NOT WANT their employees helping pimps and hookers! DUH! If they came out and defended them? FINE, I'd be right with you saying, "WTF?" But those people are GONE. Out on there asses. And the one girl who, after saying on taped that she murder her husband (and no, she didn't!) said, "[She] was just playing along, because [she] knew these two bozo's were bogus?" Well, if that's true, she should consider suing from wrongful termination. She probably won't win, but either way, if anything Acorn overreacted. Otherwise they did what ANY organization would do if a few of it's employees were accessories to crimes. THEY. FIRED. THEM.

Now, what these two clowns with their dad's video camera did was NOT journalism, any more than it was law enforcement, or time-travel for that matter. If they had wanted to practice journalism, this kind of investigation may have taken a year or more. They would have had to go to nearly ALL of the Acorn offices. They would have had to divulge how many places turned them away. They would have to have interviews with Acorn officials, show them the tapes, get an official explanation... They would have had to gather WAAAY more evidence to show that this was a sytsemic problem, something that Acorn was doing as a matter of policy, and not just the incompetence of four or five (or fifty) employees. That kind of investigation takes detetive work, and research, and hours and hours of interviews, and finally some solid write-up presenting ALL the evidence. These idiots just don't have the chops for it. They're ameteurs, and they should have been laughed of the set for such shoddy work. But hey, this was Fox, who never lets a proper investigation get in the way of good right-wing propaganda.

Now, ACORN has over 1200 offices, and THOUSANDS of employees and volunteers. So the actions of four or five, or even FIFTY, at different offices does not mean that we simply disband the whole organization. At least... If you're a conservative, you REALLY don't what to start applying that logic with any consistency. (But then when have conservatives ever had consistent logic?)

Why not? Well... THIS, for a start.

Give it a GOOD, LONG READ. It'll take some time, it's quite a list.

I guess if you've got an organization with so many swindlers, thieves, criminals, and deviants in it, it's just got. to. go. Right? Hey, I'm all for it, just say the word. I've got no use for any of these scumbags anyway.

And my favorite part? Just to answer the inevitable question from some con who doesn't bother reading down very far for himself...

Why not a list of Democrat Offenders?

(from the site:)

I promise, if you’re a Republican, you don’t want a list of Democratic Offenders. Without it you are able to protest a valid point. I agree, without a comparable list, there’s no comprehensive way to judge. I prefer the list to speak for itself. These are prominent Republicans. I did not make a list of every republican criminal. These are the leaders of the Republican party.

During my research the Justice Department provided a great resource for all federal offenders and I could easily observe that prominent Republicans produce 3 to 5 times more federal indictments than Dems. It may be higher. But that’s not the embarrassing part for conservatives. So far, I have only found a few prominent democrats that are pedophiles. It’s a huge discrepancy. If I had enough time to research specific clergymen and examine their political affiliations, the numbers of republican pedophiles would skyrocket. If you haven’t looked into clergy and sexual abuse, do a few dozen google searches and take the time to open your eyes to the problem. It’s not just the Catholic church.

Even a short poll of prominent sexual deviants shows a strikingly large number of Republicans of all religious denomination breaking the law. If you doubt me, please, by all means, do the research yourself. It’s not difficult. I did all of my work with Google and caffeine.

So conservatives, look... it's very simple. Two principles really, that I think you'll find helpful in your day to day lives...

1) Treat others the way that you wish to be treated, or treat yourself. If you don't think that the Church did anything wrong in the above scenario, stop saying that Acorn did.

2) If you live in a glass house, don't throw stones. (Or walk around naked.) Bottom live? You're like people living in thatched huts, made out of shit, complaining about a few cookie-crumbs on the kitchen counter in the modest suburban home of a few Democratic supporters.

Oh yeah... and one more thing:

About the sadly bi-partisan vote last week to cut of all of Acorns funding and federal projects? Every democrat who voted for that was a traitorous, cowardly, unprincipled COWARD. They were every bit the SCUMBAGS that every Republican was who voted for it. Only thing is, I expected better of the Democrats.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have though...

The problem of this country can be summed up in eleven words:

The Republicans have no brains
and
the Democrats have no balls.

Friday Fun: What he's up against!

I've heard of a tea-cup poodle. What's this, a tea-bag chihuahua?

I believe this was made by a conservative, but I find it hilarious, because it's a near perfect metaphor for what President Obama is up against these days. Not all dogs are conservative, but all conservatives are THIS DOG!

(Also, yes, I realize it's a min-pin, but tea-bag chihuahua just sounds funnier!)

Glenn Beck's newfound principles on racism

"This president I think has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, with a deep seated hatred for white people, or the white culture..."

~Glenn Beck, 7/28/2009 on Fox & Friends

"I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist."

~Glenn Beck, 7/28/2009, later that episode

"When somebody cries fire, why do they cry fire? Because it's dangerous. Kind of like racism. It's dangerous, okay?"

~Glenn Beck, 9/16/2009, on the Glenn Beck Program

"If we really felt racism, which I do, if we really felt racism was bad and harmful, we would ask more questions about it when we heard those cries. And we decide which was the truth and then we do something about that truth."

~Glenn Beck, 9/16/2009, later on that same program

OK. We all know two things here...

1) That Glenn Beck's absolutely batshit insane.

2) That conservatives are not known for their tolerance of cognitive dissonance

So... Knowing that he's already teetering on the brink, how can Mister Beck possibly hold both of the above thoughts in his head at the same time?

How does one man reasonably accuse the President of the United States of racism...

...And then turn around and declare that "false accusations" of "racism" are "dangerous"?

Well...

I see three possible reasons...

1) In the mind of the Right Wingers, you can pretty much say anything you want about liberals or Democrats. And if you do so on a Right Wing show, you pretty much know that NO ONE will ever ask you to back it up. But the "false accusation" was made against Joe "You Lie!" Wilson (R), so... well... you just KNOW that's gotta be false!

2) Since making the statement, he's had a crisis of conscience and decided that you can't just throw the term "racist" around willy-nilly. It's a serious accusation and requires some serious evidence to not be considered slander. And... It's just a coincidence that the first beneficiary of these new-found principles just happens to be a Republican who, both loudly and baselessly, accused the [Racist] President of lying, right in the middle of his televised address to a special joint session of congress.

Yeah, I supposed that's possible...

Or (3) JUST MAYBE these new "principles" have more to do with the SIXTY-TWO advertisers who have decided that they no longer want to have their customers paying this clown's salary, and have pulled their support of Glenn's program, costing the Fox News Channel as much as $1,060,000 at the peak of the boycott, and it's really more about self-preservation rather than any idealistic principle.

Just sayin'.

Some of the more sticky questions about my health care plan...

Ok. Many of you probably think that MediaMatters is nothing but a bunch of pinko, commie, liberal, lefties. Well, they are a lot of them over there, and I fit right in with 'em! But they also have more than a couple regular posters who lean sharply conservative. I've locked horns with many of them over the past couple years, and some of them have posed some very reasonable questions that deserve answers.

So here goes.

Why should abortion be covered? You say you don't cover other voluntary procedures, why cover abortion? Isn't abortion a 'voluntary procedure'?

First off, let me say that if you feel abortion is IMMORAL, I'm with you! The thing is... so are most liberals and pro-lifers! MORALITY isn't the really key issue here, it's LEGALITY. And the difference between a liberal (like me) and a pro-lifer is that while I BELIEVE (meaning, IN MY OPINION) that abortion is immoral, I DO NOT feel the need to infect my opinion onto anyone else. If you don't like abortions? DON'T HAVE ONE. No one will ever force you to and whatever anyone else does is none of your business to tell them one way or the other.

Second... There is more to excluding voluntary procedures than just the fact that they're voluntary. It's also because they're EXPENSIVE and there's no reason anyone else should have pay for them! The alternative to having a boob-job is NOT having one: Which costs nothing. The alternative to abortion is BIRTH, which always costs MORE. I'm not begrudging those who wish to have children (another voluntary decision, mind you!) BIRTH will always be fully covered, but if a person wants to ASK LESS of the system by terminating the pregnancy early, as long as the procedure remains legal there is no rational reason not to do this! (Fair enough: If you managed to OUTLAW it, it won't be covered. Of course, in theory, it won't be PERFORMED either, so the question of coverage is moot either way.

Which brings me to the next part of the question:

What if I don't want to subsidize someone else getting one?

This is just stupid for many reasons. First of all, if you currently buy private insurance, chances are you're already doing this. You are not paying for anything other than YOUR COVERAGE and YOUR FAMILY'S. So mind your own business and stop worrying about the choices other people make with theirs! And again, we can't have individuals deciding what they do and don't want to cover for themselves, or you lose all the benefits of risk pooling - which is how our CURRENT SYSTEM works! I'm sure 90% of AIDS patients didn't think they'd ever get AIDS, and thus may have been tempted to exclude AIDS coverage if they could save a few bucks a months. And while SOME may have changed their behaviors, most would still eventually get the disease. (And where would THAT leave them now?)You can't have people estimating their own chances of getting something. That's what insurance companies are for and they have thousands of experts crunching reams of data all day long to figure it out. So let THEM figure that out. Just take you gold-star, universal coverage and stop whining about it!

This same line of reasoning, BTW, applies to pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth-control pills (for example) for religious reasons. This is BULLSHIT. Anyone pharmacist who refuse to fill a doctors prescription for moral reason should lose their license and business. PERIOD. Why, you ask? What about respecting people's beliefs, you ask? Again, BULLSHIT. If you're Catholic (for example) and you believe the use of birth control is a sin, then YOU can't use, and YOU can't be partners with someone else who does! The Catholic Church's prohibition of contraception DOES NOT (and by the First Ammendment to the Constitution, CAN NOT) APPLY to non-Catholics, and isn't observed by 99% of practicing Catholics anyway! A pharmacist refusing to let SOMEONE ELSE use contraception is nothing more than him or her forcing their religious beliefs onto another person. Someone else's sin is not theirs and don't give me any hogwash about enabling it, either. What's next? Holding gun manufacturer's responsible for every murder that's committed? Not THIS liberal!

Why do we even need this? What wrong with the FREE MARKET setting the price? Wont this lead to RATIONING?

First things last. The 'free market' IS a system of rationing. That what market forces DO. They give resources to those willing (and able) to pay the marker price for a given good or service. Those that aren't willing (or able) to pay DON'T GET the good or service. And the volume available (supply) is only a function of the market price. It is not a function of actual need - the opposite in fact, the more something is needed, the HIGHER the price. In this way the free market serves to ration EVERYTHING.

And that is EXACTLY why it's a lousy way to manage HEALTH CARE: Because the demand curve for health care is essentially flat. Here's what that means in English: Let's say a bag of Doritos cost $100. What would happen? First of all, a WHOLE LOT of people would start making Doritos! But who would pay that much when POTATO CHIPS still cost $1? You see? There a diminished demand for certain goods at higher prices because I have COMPETING CHOICES. And thus the price is kept low, to compete with those alternatives. If I can't afford a Mercedes, I can buy a Chevy. If I can't afford a house, I can rent an apartment. If I can't afford fillet, I can buy chuck.

But if I can't afford chemo... (and I'll give you a clue: nobody can)... then I DIE.

Now, death may be the low-cost alternative to most health care procedures, but it's not one I'm ever likely to choose, is it? It's basically not an acceptable alternative for anyone. So HOW MUCH will your triple-bypass cost? Well... How much do you have?! Since I know that you won't go without, and I know that there's no competing alternatives, there's nothing to reign in my cost. 'Give me all you got and more!' is therefore the only answer one can expect from a free market. (Thankfully, most hospitals are non-profits entities!)

AND not only is the demand curve FLAT, but the SUPPLY curve is unique as well. You see, the supply of oil, potato chips, cars or beef can fluctuate. If demand for something goes UP, we can usually just make more. But the number of DOCTORS we have at any time doesn't really go up with demand, because doctors come from MEDICAL SCHOOLS and med schools take only a very small percentage of applicants. And medical fellowhips (needed for specialties) only take a small percentage of applicants from that pool! And they're not about to lower their standards just because doctors salaries have gone up and more people want to be doctors. So we can't really allow the supply to fluctuate like a regular commodity does, because it takes to long to increase the supply!

What about the unemployed? Or illegals aliens? Why should I pay for them?

First off, you already are. The unemployed already get coverage: Medicaid. And you already pay for that. You still will, but in a less dysfunctional system. You also already subsidize the UNINSURED (which includes illegal aliens) in exactly the way I've already described. SO get over it. Better they get GOOD TREATMENT that costs everyone LESS than get lousy treatment that costs everyone more.

And we REALLY don't want hospitals to put off treatment until they verify legal status, do we? Imagine you've had a stroke or heart attack. Every second counts. Do you really want there to be ANY possibility that your treatment is delayed? That could be fatal! So, just as they are now, hospitals will treat their patients according to medical need, NO QUESTIONS ASKED. They don't have to worry: THEY'LL GET PAID. And is there really any benefit to saying, "Sorry, that guy was an illegal, so we won't pay you for treating him?" NO! Now we're right back to the hospitals baking in unreimbursed expenses, just as they do now, and WE END UP PAYING ANYWAY!!! So get over it. There's no way to avoid it without screwing everything up with red tape and you won't save a single penny anyway!

JUST TAKE YOUR UNIVERSAL COVERAGE AND STOP WHINING!!!

BTW, this is one of my pet peeves with conservatives on a lot of things... They're always more concerned about making sure that the WRONG PEOPLE (whoever they are) don't benefit, than they are are making sure that the RIGHT PEOPLE (whoever they are) don't get hurt. In this case, they'd create a whole system of gov't bureaucracy that will end up killing someone who was entitled to care just to stop someone who isn't from receiving it. Not only is this a senseless trade off, going against the very conservative Principal of limited gov't and making the conservative's fear of a gov't bureaucrat getting between you and your health care a reality, but WHAT IS SO WRONG with saving a life?! Why should the HOSPITAL get punished, by not being paid for services rendered (and costs incurred,) just because they saved the wrong person's life. That's just... psychotic. So get over your xenophobia, conservatives. And besides, there's no reason that the Mexicans would flood over our borders just to get free health care... THEY ALREADY GET PUBLIC HEALTH IN MEXICO!

SO let me knwo if you have any other questions. I'll do my best to satisfy you. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this from many different angles, and I'm confident it's the best way to go. So I'll take all comers!

Now let me have it!
LOL