WAIT! YA CAN'T SEND 'EM BACK YET!!!!

Bush: Massive Deportation Not Realistic

Associated Press

IRVINE, Calif. - President Bush, rebutting lawmakers advocating a law-and-order approach to immigration, said Monday that those who are calling for massive deportation of the estimated 11 million foreigners living illegally in the United States are not being realistic. "Massive deportation of the people here is not going to work," Bush said as a Congress divided over immigration returned from a two-week recess. "It's just not going to work."

How'ma gonna ever get all that brush cleared off my ranch in time for the Annual Cinco de Mayo Fried Mexican and Gays-on-a-Cob celebration without all my little ayMEEgoes?!?!?!

CAN I BORROW YOUR PENCIL, FAGGOT?

You know, I never really thought I'd appreciate living in California, but today, at least, I do -- but just barely.

By a very slim and hotly contested 2-1 vote, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that students may not wear t-shirts that read: "Be Ashamed, Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned'' on the front and "Homosexuality Is Shameful'' on the back.

"Public school students who may be injured by verbal assaults on the basis of a core identifying characteristic such as race, religion, or sexual orientation have a right to be free from such attacks while on school campuses. As Tinker clearly states, students have the right to 'be secure and to be let alone,' '' Reinhardt said.

Let me just say, thank freaking God for that!!!

This is not a free speech issue, folks. And yes, this is very timely considering the growing campaign across this country's schools, both public and private, to annul (did you get that? actually ANNUL!!!!) policies protecting gays and lesbians from harassment.

Okay, so let's make this very clear for you obviously very slow learners. Under the constitution, you have the right to be an asshole. You have the right to express your opinion in whatever way you see fit SO LONG AS IT DOES NOT THEN IMPINGE ON MY RIGHTS. The moment you begin to traipse upon my personal liberties, you can no longer claim 1st amendment protection. Get it?

This is my dance space. That is your dance space. Even Patrick Swayze grasped the concept.

The scary part is that with the very limited holding to instances of "derogatory and injurious remarks directed at students' minority status such as race, religion and sexual orientation," t-shirts reading "Dwarfs Go Home" or "WOMEN ARE JUST INCUBATORS" or "Get your wheelchairs out of my parking space" are just bound to start popping up all over the place.

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATES

Man, these people just have no sense of decency!

The much maligned Reverend Fred (the fag hater) Phelps and his progeny are at it again, only this time they're targeting the grieving families of dead soldiers instead of just accosting the families of dead gay loved ones (you may recall Phelps et. al protesting outside Matthew Shepherd's funeral in 1998 and essentially telling his already devastated family that he was in hell where he belonged).

But now that there are dead soldiers involved, Congress is finally getting their panties in a wad -- obviously more important than the hundreds of gay funerals at which the Phelpses have been picketing for the last 8 freaking years!

And what's even worse is that the ACLU might have to actually take up their cause if the legislation being passed by some states to ban graveside protests treads too closely on the first amendment right to free speech. Boy, you know they're drawing straws over there as to who's gonna have to make that call! I mean, the guy's a dick, yes, but he has every right to be a dick. Period. As Shakes so eloquently put it, "impropriety is a paltry excuse for limiting free speech."

But apparently this dimwit actually believes (ala Pat Robertson) that all the catastrophic events plaguing our country today (Katrina, the war, the mining deaths) are all part of God's wrath towards a country that tolerates homosexuality.

"God is punishing this nation with a grievous, smiting blow, killing our children, sending them home dead, to help you connect the dots," said Shirley Roper-Phelps, the spokeswoman for the group and one of Mr. Phelps's daughters.

And I'm sitting here thinking no, no way, that's not a 9-year old boy holding up a sign on the front page of the New York Times that says the victims of AIDS and the Iraqi war deserved to die. Deserved to die? It can't be. Who would do such a moronic, irresponsible, petty, destructive thing? And where the fuck is DHS when you need them?

The man compares himself to Noah, for crissakes!

An award winning ex-civil rights attorney (if you can believe that), he was disbarred (for fabricating witness testimony) in 1979 and has since made it his personal mission to rid the world of everything gay.

And here's the cherry on the cake... 11 of his 13 spawn are also attorneys and now do the church's bidding in court. Great. Just great. Talk about the Devil's Advocate.

Lest we end this morbid tale on this pathetic note, here's a trumped protest by some surprising activists. It's a long one, but the ending is well worth it.

THE PULPIT PHARMACY (or the Unconscionable Conscience Clauses)

Alright, people, this is verging on lunacy. Or communism. Or something.

If you haven't heard yet, there are a number of just brilliant socially irresponsible morons who claim to be pharmacists refusing to dole out contraceptives or morning-after pills to clients based on their own moral (not ethical, mind you) beliefs, and some companies (boycott Albertsons AND Safeway!) have actually agreed to cave into their employees' "rights of conscience" and not penalize or force them to simply do their job -- which is to read and fill prescriptions accurately and without any drug interactions (hopefully). Period. That's it.

Naturally, this ridiculous behavior prompted a whole slew of what-ifs, as in what if a doctor refused to perform life-saving measures because he was morally opposed to a patient's lifestyle, job, race, gender, creed, etc? Or what if pharmacists decide not to fill prescriptions for AIDS patients? Or what if a Christian cop or a firefighter refuses to rescue an aetheist or Buddhist or Muslim or Jew?

And, of course, you say, oh, it would NEVER come to that. That's just insanity!

Well, folks, welcome to the asylum...

A WORKER'S PERSPECTIVE
Now, the Ridiculous Right are refusing to fill prescriptions for VITAMINS and ANTIBIOTICS if they just so happened to be prescribed by a company who just so happens to support the opposing side to any one of their 15 katrillion preposterous over-the-top arguments.

And yes, of course employers are expected to reasonably accommodate employees' religious beliefs, but dispensing drugs is a "bona fide occupational qualification". If you can't perform an essential part of your job, get the fuck out and go ask Pat Robertson for a job!!

A BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE
Jesus H. Christ! If this sort of hyper-judgmental God-complex behavior isn't sacriligous, blasphemous, breaking at least a couple of commandments, and the model anti-Samaritan display (i.e., the Samaritan administered first-aid and rescued a Jewish man with whom his beliefs were in moral conflict!!!), then I just don't know what's left.

But I've no doubt we'll soon find out because if these self-proclaimed "Christians" would go back and actually re-read their precious bible without their hetero-aryan-GOP-colored glasses, they would soon realize that Sodom was really destroyed because its inhabitants were inhospitable, greedy, selfish, insolent, and disrespectful to God and man. The Sodomites were destroyed because of their arrogance, you fools! You should be careful what you wish for.

HOMOS vs. BEANERS???

Really stirring debate this morning over who's bandwagon to jump on first -- Gays vs. Undocumented Workers started by Jasmyne at the Advocate.Her take, essentially is this:

Debate around America’s illegal immigration problem has reached an all-time high. With several versions of various bills being debated in Washington and hundreds of staged protests around the country both supporting and against extending citizenship and other rights to millions of illegal immigrants, America has forgotten that there are legal, taxpaying, and voting citizens in America who don’t yet have all of their rights.

It’s a slap in the face to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people to take up the debate on whether to give people who are in this country illegally additional rights when we haven’t even given the people who are here legally all of their rights.

Which is absolutely true, but Pam at HouseBlend, counters with this:

It is not a slap in the face to recognize that this country hasn't dealt with these workers, who toil at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, picking the fruits and vegetables we eat, mowing lawns, cleaning homes, building houses -- doing work that no citizen can do (note I didn't say willing to do), because employers cannot exploit U.S. citizens as they do undocumented workers. The underground economy pulls wages down for all workers in this sphere, and that's the way these employers -- and the government -- like it.

Also a very valid point.

Jasmyne continues to argue that:

While I agree that immigration reform is an important issue—and perhaps it could become the next leading civil rights movement—we haven’t even finished with our current civil rights movement.

But what's to say any particular civil rights movement has to CONCLUDE before another begins? What gives one marginalized group higher priority than any other? That's like saying the black civil rights movement should have waited until the women's civil rights movement was complete (which is still an ongoing struggle). We'd never get anywhere if we all had to take a number.

When the time is right, a movement swells. Catch the wave and ride it in. Equal rights are equal rights. We should all be in this fight together, not against one another. Imagine the numbers we could produce, the real change we might affect, if we ALL (so-called 2nd class citizens) jumped on one another's bandwagon when our time came to rise and protest. If we ALL stood side by side for each other's equal rights, recognizing that the rights being denied to others are no different and no less important than the rights being denied to ourselves. And understanding that winning civil rights for one is ALWAYS a step towards winning civil rights for all.

We just can't allow ourselves to suffer from the "me first" attitude that Jasmyne touts. It defeats the purpose of an equal rights struggle. It empowers the right-wingers to take advantage of what they pereceive to be rifts in our united front. And it's the primary reason we're still, in 2006, fighting for our basic civil rights -- because we just can't seem to stick together long enough to outlast the frustration.

Pam finally quotes an open letter to the Advocate posted on Queer Law Watch, which states in part:

We are painfully aware that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities still lack many basic protections under the law in this country, including the right to care for and support all of our families, in the various ways in which we construct family and kinship. Nevertheless, supporting immigrant rights, while we continue to work for LGBT liberation, does nothing to hurt our cause. In fact, we believe the opposite to be true, and want to work towards building powerful coalitions between immigrant and LGBT movements to work together for social justice.

...we call on immigrant movements and (non-immigrant) black organizations to work together for real racial and economic justice in this country. Together these movements can work to end the exploitation and targeting of both communities, and to ensure that black folks and immigrants do not end up having to choose between competing for low-paying jobs, or being targeted for detainment or imprisonment.

And I absolutely agree.

I truly hope that Jasmyne realizes how unproductive, and worse, even destructive her article is. Promoting divisive thinking is a tool of the Right. Inciting internal conflict is a useless and obstructive position that will serve little purpose save for fueling the conservative fire and making more difficult an already appalling plight from which we ALL ultimately seek real and true emancipation.

PROOF POSITIVE - HE'S AN IDIOT!

Following is just a BRIEF list of shrubisms from ONE Q&A at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. (Man, he had to know he was way out of his league there.)

• ..."many problems come to the Oval Office. And you don't know what those problems are going to be, which then argues for having smart people around. That's why you ought to serve in government if you're not going to be the president. You have a chance to influence policy by giving good recommendations to the president." [so sayeth the puppet]
  
• "This is what delegation -- I don't mean to be dodging the question, although it's kind of convenient in this case, but -- I really will. I'm going to call the secretary and say you've brought up a very valid question, and what are we doing about it? That's how I work." [fyi, georgie - delegating should not equal ignorance]
  
• "...the protests really don't bother me. I hope that's not viewed as cavalier, but it's just the way I feel." [No, no, cavalier would mean that you actually knew what the protests were about and then chose to disregard them -- a level of knowledge and awareness that might be just a tad out of reach for you, Junior.]
  
• "It's -- a while ago at a press conference I remember uttering, you know, one wonderful piece of wisdom. It was like a dog chasing his tail. It actually didn't fly that good. But nevertheless, my point -- but, thank you." [WHAT?!?#!?@?]
  
• "There's also an ongoing investigation that's a serious investigation. " [Oh, okay, well if it's a serious investigation...]
• On declassifying government documents: "I wanted to see -- people to see what some of those statements were based on, so I wanted to see -- I wanted people to see the truth." [Uh-huh. No Freudian slips there.]
• On the U.S. policy on prostitution: "I will be glad to call Condi and talk to her about her policy." [Nice to know the right hand doesn't have a fucking clue what the other right hand is doing.]
• "I was reading the other day..." [Sorry, that was enough for me.]
• "We should not be -- we should insist that governments fight corruption. Seems like to me is the rational thing to do, with taxpayers' money." [Agggghhhhh!!! Seriously?? Pot, meet kettle.]
• 39 = the number of times Dubya said "you know..." in responding to only 12 questions.
  

I'm so embarrassed to be an American.

Click here to read the full disgusting display of idiocy.

YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF

Click Here to Hear Harry Taylor Bash Bush To His Face

And let me just say...BRAVO!

Unfortunately, Mr. Taylor hasn't been seen or heard from since his "speech" and, mysteriously, none of his family and friends are available for comment.

WE'VE GOT FOSSILS. WE WIN!

According to comedian Lewis Black, regarding the battle between evolutionary science and "intelligent design": "We've got fossils. We win."

Scientist's find a fish fossil that they're calling the missing link!

Evolution exists. Yup. It does.

So there.

Hat tip Radical Russ

DUKE RAPE SCANDAL

I am so completely appalled with the way this case is being handled. I can't believe it's taking so long to put these assholes away.

As of this morning, still no criminal charges have been filed against the overprivileged, chauvinistic, racist predators!!! NOT A ONE!!!

But the neighbors, the community, the students have really come through for these women. It's been a powerful thing to watch unfold. They've come out for candlelight vigils, on websites, on school bulletin boards, in the local papers, on TV. The outpouring of support has been really admirable, and says a lot about a town that has never really fully welcomed the uppity silver-spooned institution into their primarily blue-color way of life.

RELATIVE RESPONSIBILITY
But what does it say about this beacon of higher learning and their venerable atheletic community that no one appears to be at all surprised with the turn of events. In fact, no one at all seems to be questioning a single aspect of the victims' stories. Everyone, it seems, backs the women 100%. And well they should...

But here's the problem there. If it's such a given that this sort of thing happened, could happen, might happen, has maybe even happened before, then how did it come to this and why didn't anyone intervene before two innocent women were shredded to pieces?

And furthermore, aren't those who were aware of the risks, of the behavior, of the problems, aren't they just as responsible for turning a blind eye to a situation that could only inevitably erupt into this exact kind of mess?

I mean, if you own a pit bull and you know it has a propensity for violence and then it injures a child on the street, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS ACTIONS.

DEFENDING DUKE
The response by the Duke powers that be, however, has been less than commendable. They're obviously only trying to save their own ass, keep their image from being too tarnished. They've practically said as much, for crissakes!!

"Universities show their mettle by the way they respond to difficult circumstances, not by their absolute ability to prevent such circumstances from ever happening," Duke President Richard Brodhead said. "I hope -- and you have it from me that I'll do my best -- that this university will continue to respond to this situation in a way that will bring us credit." (The News & Observer, April 2, 2006)

And what's more...more than 10 days after the victims' reported the incident, the only tangible consequences the rapists have had imposed on them is that their lacrosse games were all canceled for the season, pending the results of the investigation, of course.

Aw, poor babies. Fucking despicable!!

Follow the scandal at Justice 4 Two Sisters.