Friday, December 16, 2016

In other news: Water is found to be shockingly wet!

In a report released today the Indianapolis Star and USA Today have found a perponderance of sexual abuse directed mostly towards underaged girls in gymnastics, particularly in those facilities associated with the US Gymnastics Team - you know the one that goes to the Olympics and all the international meets.

Why anyone should be surprised at this in the wake of the similar scandal a few years back surrounding figure skating is beyond me.

Young people putting their all into an effort to be the best, under the control of a barely examined cadre of coaches who have the power to stop those dreams on a whim, working for a standard that is always going to be subjective - oh, and with parents, as often as not, who are more invested in having an Olympian as their daughter or son, than the best interests of that individual.

What could possibly go wrong?

FFS.

I'm glad it's been documented, but anyone who is susprised by this shit in the rape culture we live in is too stupid to be expected to remember to breathe.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Can We Stop Acting Surprised when Our Beloved Leader Stoops to Perfectly Expected Levels of Shittiness?

Look. . .

We all saw the same never-ending campaign.

We all heard the lies, the evasions, the misdirections and the promises.

The election went to the candidate who promised attacks on the First Amendment. To the candidate who promised religious and ethnic tests for refugees, immigrants, and of course, people who have lived here almost their whole lives through no fault of their own.  He made sweeping foreign policy statements without any consideration of the possible effects.  He swindles people with fewer resources to protect themselves in the courts, and regrets that any mere millionaire can play golf just because they've fallen into some money.

He has boasted of being so smart he never needs any education on any topic.  As a former Navy Nuke that's fucking frightening - I'm pretty smart, but I've also had it beaten into my head that there are many, many things that I thought I knew that I didn't, because I'd never been educated in the topic.  He not only never examines his presuppositions or prejudices, but revels in them and thinks that proves his brilliance.

He's courted the Religious Right and by choosing Pence for his VP he's as much as promised that there will be massive, coordinated attacks on gay, transexual, and women's rights.  He's shown he's perfectly willing to gut the US education system in favor of furthering the YEC idiocy.  That he not only refused to consider any evidence for Anthropogenic Climate Change, but is now promising to prevent any Federal Agency from gathering data that might sweep back to support that theory.

He's played the rules for thee but not for me card so many times he's gotten it platinum plated, and shows no sign at all that he believes laws apply to him.  He's chosen a candidate for Attorney General who will cheerfully ignore civil rights for over half the population, and I suspect would be perfectly happy with a means test for civil rights.  "Is your net worth greater than $1 million?  Then you have civil rights.  If not? Go fuck yourself for bothering us Real Americans."  He's endorsed revisionist histories of both the recent and distant past.

He's got a twenty plus year record of admiring and then bloviating to the press how he admires strong-arm tactics, and politicians.  He invited foreign espionage agents to attack his opponent.  He continues to admire a world leader who had gutted his own country's Constitution, and is known to have orchestrated the killing of members of his own country's press.

He continued with the Birther nonsense until 2016, with his baseless "I hear someone tell me there's something fishy with Obama's birth certificate," because he's a flaming goddamned racist asshole.  He's incited violence agaisnt Latinx, blacks, and Muslims.  He's legitimized white-supremacists and the KKK.

He is, in shot a total, and complete shit-hole of a person.

And no one not those of us who hate him, nor those of us who voted for him, have any room to pretend he's been anything but that for his whole time in the public eye.

Stop being surprised when the leopard's spots are still in their accustomed place.

Anyone expressing surprise or shock, now, is a fucking idiot, who obviously needs a reminder to inhale on a regular basis.

Friday, December 9, 2016

Why wait for the new year to be Sauron levels of Evil?

If you're in Ohio, you can get the ball rolling by trying to pass a ban on abortion after six goddamned weeks.

Note that in the state next to Ohio they've already criminalized miscarriage and have jailed women on the presumption of having tried a DIY chemical/medical abortion when they've miscarried.  And the governor of Indiana is going to be our next Vice President.

The ACLU is begging John Kasich to veto this vile Ohio bill, but given that Kasich was the fucktard who decided that stopping STD clinics was a perfectly okay response to the Planned Parenthood hoax, I doubt he's going to listen.

It's beginning already.

Civil liberties.   They were nice when we had them, weren't they?