An advertisement in India that I think a few American men could stand to read through as well.

You know my mom made just about every mistake in the book, but she drilled into my head repeatedly that I needed to respect women and treat them as equals, and it was perhaps the advice she ever gave me.

I think there are many men, some sitting in Washington right now, who would have benefited from having a mother like mine.

It should come as no suprise that the 'facts" presented by pro-gun advocate, Gayle Trotter, in her testimony before the Senate do not hold up to scrutiny.

Courtesy of Salon:

Gayle Trotter, a senior fellow at the conservative Independent Women’s Forum, made an appearance on Wednesday to pink up the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence. 

“Guns make women safer,” she testified. “Using a firearm with a magazine holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition, a woman would have a fighting chance even against multiple attackers.” 

But Trotter is wrong about women and guns, dangerously so. Far from making women safer, the presence of firearms in situations of domestic violence (which occur far more frequently than any other crime in the United States, Trotter’s “stranger danger” scenarios be damned) dramatically increases the likelihood a woman will be killed by her abuser. As Amanda Marcotte reported for Slate, the Violence Policy Center conducted research to quantify this point and found that 83 women were killed by an intimate partner for every woman who used a gun in self-defense. 

Trotter added that, “Scary-looking” guns give women “more courage” when “fighting hardened violent criminals.” Here is something else that “scary-looking” guns do to women: Coerce, threaten and intimidate them into remaining in abusive, often deadly, relationships. 

According to a recent study on firearms and intimate partner violence, “Even when guns are not fired at women directly, they are often used as a tool of intimidation to facilitate other types of physical and psychological violence,” with many women reporting that their abusers would “clean” their guns during arguments.

Yeah my BS detector was going insane as I watched this woman's testimony.

You know your Uncle Gryphen used to be self defense instructor back in the day, and this issue of guns came up more than a few times.

So let me tell all of you what I told my classes back then. 

If you want an effective form of home defense, get a dog. It does not even have to be a big dog, just one that will bark it's ass off at the sound of somebody breaking in.

Most burglars obviously don't want to get caught, and the barking of a dog is going to alert the people in the home to wake up and be aware of what is happening. And to call the cops. And, as far as they know, grab a gun.

You don't necessarily have to own a gun to make somebody afraid of getting shot, or even perhaps of having their ball sack ripped off by an angry, defensive animal.

I am an advocate of alarm systems as well. I have one myself.

Really the idea is to prevent a burglary, or home invasion, in the first place. Make it seem challenging, and not worth the effort, and most likely it will never happen.

But I will tell you what WILL attract a burglar. One of those big glass display cases filled with guns, that's what! Having that on display does NOT deter a burglar, that is catnip to a burglar:

Firearms are a favorite target of most burglars. They can be sold on the illegal market or used to commit other crimes. Most people do not properly secure their firearms. 

Unsecured fired arms are a burglars dream. Residents place them in closets, drawers or under beds. The seasoned burglar has seen all this before. They know where the uninformed will hide firearms. 

When the NRA talks about criminals having guns, this is what they are talking about. 

The bad guy does not have to sweat a background check. All he has to do is let the gun enthusiast go through all the paperwork, and then break in and steal the very weapons that he bought to "feel safe."

Happens every day.

You know Fido may not have an extended clip or hollow tip bullets, but he will also never be picked up and used to injure his owner. I'm just saying.

Those who are expecting Sarah Palin to make a political comeback, don't know Sarah Palin.

Lately there has been an unending stream of people trying to make sense of what happened to Sarah Palin's rising star that forced it to plummet to the ground so dramatically.

Some of the theories are that she was destroyed by a liberal propaganda machine that feared her. Yeah, okay keep telling yourself that.

Others think that she simply chose bad advisers who led her astray, or that she could have been great if she had simply hunkered down and studied, or believe that she got distracted by the chance at easy money, and went the reality show/book selling route instead of following her true destiny that they are convinced was to be the 2012 Republican candidate for President.

No seriously!

Often many of these are Right Wingers who I simply dismiss out of hand, because....you know...dipshits.

But there are a few that you would think might know better that are STILL convinced that Palin really had a shot.  These are mostly people whose first impression of Snowdrift Snooki was on the convention floor of the RNC in September of 2008.

But here's the thing. For those of us who already knew Sarah Palin, had already seen Sarah Palin, and were used to Sarah Palin, we had NO fucking idea who that lady at the RNC even was! But whoever she was, it was NOT Sarah Palin!

And that was the thing. She was playing the part of Sarah Palin as imagined by the John McCain presidential campaign. You can read about that process plain as day in the book Game Change (Or see it in the wonderful HBO movie of the same name.),

The problem of course is that when the campaign could not strictly control how Palin was perceived, as in those Katie Couric interviews, THAT was when people started to see the Sarah Palin that was much more recognizable to Alaskans (Why do you think we tried so hard to educate you people? We knew what was coming.)

To Alaskans it was almost a foregone conclusion that she couldn't keep up that act for long. We were just concerned that she could keep it up long enough to fool the American people into letting her and John McCain into the White House. (I don't think I ever understood just how low functioning many of the American people really were until Sarah Palin burst onto the scene. These people were literally taken in by a short skirt and a wink. THAT should frighten all of us!)

For the purpose of illustration let me use one of my favorite reporters, Chris Cillizza, who I have a great deal of respect for, but who totally makes my point in his Washington Post article from a few days ago.

After much effusive praise and excuse making, this is how he wrapped up the article:

The Palin story is, in the end, one of tremendous talent misused. Like any number of playground greats who never make the NBA or, when they do, wind up disappointing, Palin had as much natural ability as anyone this side of Barack Obama or John Edwards, but was unable to translate that talent into results once the bright lights came on. That she never made good on her remarkable natural talents is a sign of how the political process can chew up and spit out those who aren’t ready for it.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! Sarah Palin's natural talent was to bullshit people into thinking that she was something that she was not. To play the con woman in a sting designed to take you for everything you've got. To, like a common street walker, charm you out of your pants, and then run off with your wallet while you were peeing in the bathroom.

She was NEVER going to give you what she promised, she was just going to dance on that pole until you had run out of money before picking up her political g-string and moving onto the next mark.

Which, if these idiots were paying attention, is exactly what she did.

Now in Chris's case he actually seems to be one of the few who was seduced by Palin's "charms" even before she mounted that stage in Minnesota.

Here is an interview he did with her in February of 2008. (BEFORE, by the way, she decided to fake her pregnancy.)


As you can see even then, Palin was talking around in circles, and bullshitting her way through interviews, but you can also see how easily Cillizza is sucked in, to the point of actually helping her with the answers and making sure that the questions were dumbed down enough not to embarrass her.

The one thing I will give her credit for is that at least during THIS interview Palin made no bones about wanting to be John McCain's VP choice. Which as we know from our friend Bill Fulton she was convinced she had in the bag only a month later.

So to sum up, will Palin make some sort of political comeback? No!

Could she have been a real political player if she had just made a few different choices ? Not ultimately, no!

Does this mean we have seen the last of Sarah Palin? Sadly probably not.

Will the press jump up like hype active pekinese if she does something in a few months to get their attention?  Of course they will.

However for all intents and purposes Sarah Palin is no longer any threat except to the pocketbooks of the most ignorant paint chip eaters on the planet. And hey, SOMEBODY has to take advantage of them now don't they?

P.S. For those who were paying close attention, you might have noticed that the iconic facial expression above is obviously from this interview. I always wondered what made her make that face.

Churches threaten to pull funding if Boy Scouts of America drop anti-gay policies.

Courtesy of Salon:  

The Boy Scouts of America announced earlier this week that they are considering an end to their decades-long ban on gay members, leaving it to regional and local councils to dictate membership guidelines on sexuality. 

The news was met with cheers from scouts across the country who have been banned from the organization after coming out, but many conservative and religious leaders are angry about what they see as the organization abandoning its long-standing commitment to biblical principles. 

“If that is what the leadership is doing, then I think it will be a sad day in the life of the Boy Scouts of America,” Fred Luter, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, told the Baptist Press. “This is a tradition that so many of us across the country grew up in. We were in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts in elementary school, and this organization has always stood for biblical principles — all the things that grounded our lives as a young kid growing up. To now see this organization that I thought stood on biblical principles about to give in to the politically correct thing is very disappointing.” 

About 70 percent of all Boy Scout troops are sponsored by faith-based organizations, with the Southern Baptists, Catholic Church, Lutheran Church, United Methodist Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints representing the most troops, according to Fox News. 

And many are suggesting they will break financial and membership ties with the organization if the policy goes through. 

“Churches of all faiths and denominations, including Southern Baptist churches, will be forced to reevaluate whether they can, in good conscience, continue to host Scout troops given that the Scouts appear poised to turn their backs on this clear biblical and moral issue,” Roger Oldham, spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, said. 

Kay Godfrey, a spokesman for Boy Scouts in the Great Salt Lake Council, told NPR: “We’ve had 100 years of a very conservative approach to scouting. A major shift along these lines could change the face of scouting, but we’ll have to just wait and see.”

Is anybody else simply sick and tired of watching Christian organizations attempting to stop progress in this country, time and time again? Because I certainly am!

You are free to believe whatever you want, that is your right, but forcing your religious views onto organizations, at the detriment of young children, just seems completely indefensible to me.

And these people need to face the facts. Progress IS coming.

And no amount of threats, or coercion, or shaming is going to keep it from coming. It never has, and it never will.

Lawrence O'Donnell confronts that crazy pro-gun lady from the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings.

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While I certainly understand Lawrence O'Donnell's frustration with this lunatic I kind of wish he had come off as more calm while interrogating her, as this will simply be spun as another liberal attack on a strong conservative woman by the Right Wing radio folks and Fox News.

As for Ms. Trotter apparently her adamant support of a woman's right to be safe in their homes seems to ONLY extend to their right to possess dangerous weaponry.

This courtesy of TPM:

Gayle Trotter, the conservative activist who became the breakout star of Wednesday’s gun violence hearing in the Senate with her adamant cry that women need assault rifles to defend themselves, wrote last year that she opposed the Violence Against Women Act. 

The reason, she said at the time, was the law would create the prospect of “false accusers” stealing taxpayer money by using shelters and legal aid. 

“VAWA now touches hot button immigration issues, which have the potential to encourage immigration fraud, false allegations of abuse, and denial of a rebuttal by the accused spouse, whether male or female,” she wrote.

So to Lawrence's question about whether she was an "independent woman" or a "Right Wing Republican" I think we have our answer.

While it is perfectly reasonable to allow young women, with small children in their homes, access to military style assault weapons for the purpose of self defense,  it is UNREASONABLE to support legislation designed to protect them from that very same assault in cases where they did not have the opportunity to blow their attacker away? So much for consistency.

By the way, for those kind of freaked out about that whole "home invasion" thing, perhaps visiting this website will provide a little reality check for you.

At the end of the day this is how I see it.  The pro-gun rights, anti-assault gun ban people, can HAVE Gayle Trotter and Wayne LaPierre make up statistics and lie to the American people all they want in order to minimize the facts about gun violence in this country. Because on OUR side we have the unstoppable Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly.

And I have to tell you, I like our odds.

Just a brief peek inside the minds of the Sarah Palin supporters. Subject: Death Panels.

Courtesy of The Incidental Economist:  

In this month’s Medical Care there’s a great study by Brendan Nyhan and colleagues: 

Context: Misperceptions are a major problem in debates about health care reform and other controversial health issues.

Methods: We conducted an experiment to determine if more aggressive media fact-checking could correct the false belief that the Affordable Care Act would create “death panels.” Participants from an opt-in Internet panel were randomly assigned to either a control group in which they read an article on Sarah Palin’s claims about “death panels” or an intervention group in which the article also contained corrective information refuting Palin. 

Findings: The correction reduced belief in death panels and strong opposition to the reform bill among those who view Palin unfavorably and those who view her favorably but have low political knowledge. However, it backfired among politically knowledgeable Palin supporters, who were more likely to believe in death panels and to strongly oppose reform if they received the correction. 

Conclusions: These results underscore the difficulty of reducing misperceptions about health care reform among individuals with the motivation and sophistication to reject corrective information.

So in other words those Palin supporters who were paying attention to politics, most likely through the filter of Fox News, were FAR more likely to reject the corrected information about death panels, and suspect that the information was liberally biased, than the people who did not care for Sarah Palin or who did not pay much attention to politics or Fox News.

To put it plainly, if Sarah Palin says it, MUST be true! If one of those atheist scientist guys, or liberal democrats, say it, totally obvious attempt to attack her family and take away our freedoms!!

I think that is a pretty accurate description of the kind of die hard Palin supporter that continues to look for the day when the Grizzled Mama rises from the ashes like a frostbitten phoenix and suddenly becomes relevant in American politics again, or...dare they hope...runs for office.

Pathetic.

Here is the note, handwritten by Gabby Giffords speech therapist, that she read from yesterday in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

You can see how carefully the sentences were structured of words that she could say clearly, while also being printed and spaced so that he damaged eyesight could read what was written.

And she did an AMAZING job.

If you did not get to see the video yesterday, or would like to see it again, you can click here for a second chance.

A little beauty provided by our friend Dennis Zaki.

Dennis has been working with a seafood company out in Dutch Harbor and during his down time took some simply amazing photographs which he suggested all of you might like to see.

Wait until you see these!

Scenic Alaska

Processing crab

Dutch Harbor, Alaska

The harbor in Dutch Harbor

Smile!

Emperor Goose

fishing boat

Bringing in the catch

Dennis said these guys were EVERYWHERE!

 See? Alaska is not just about crazy Right Wing politicians and teabaggers.

President Obama's ratings hit 3 year high, while Fox News hits 12 year low. Think there's any connection?

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

 Fully 60 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of Obama in the new poll, up slightly from October but a clear shift in opinion from an election year in which his ratings hovered in the mid-to-low 50s. And by 39 percent to 26 percent, the president now has more “strongly” positive ratings than strongly negative reviews, breaking a two-year stretch in which intense opposition was on par with (or higher than) intense support.

Two groups that voted against Obama in November are also beginning to tilt in his direction. Independents see him favorably by a 60-to-36 percent margin, compared with a 51-45 split a year ago. And 51 percent of those ages 65 and older now see Obama favorably, up 11 points from January 2012. Independent voters backed Mitt Romney over Obama by six points in November, and seniors favored Romney by 12 points, according to the national exit poll. 

Partisans’ opinions have changed the least over time. Fully 80 percent of Republicans have an unfavorable view of Obama, similar to 78 percent last January. Even more Democrats, 92 percent, say the opposite, with favorable ratings ticking up five points from last year.

 I gotta say that I am VERY tickled to see that even the conservatives have warmed to the President slightly.  Considering the constant barrage of propaganda directed at them by Fox News that is not insignificant.

But speaking of Fox News let's see how they have fared recently.

The January numbers just came out, and this is how HuffPo is reporting the take away:  

Fox News had its worst prime time ratings in the coveted 25-54 demographic since August 2001, and its lowest total day ratings since June 2008. To a seasoned watcher of cable news ratings, there were other surprises. Rachel Maddow, for instance, came in 10th, beating "Studio B" and the 11 p.m. repeat of "The O'Reilly Factor." In January 2012, she came in 14th. It may not seem like much, but the top of the cable news field has been extremely stable -- and if Maddow were to continue creeping up the list, it would mean a real sea change. Overall, MSNBC -- perhaps powered by liberal euphoria over President Barack Obama's inauguration -- was the only cable news channel to grow its ratings from 2012.

So President Obama is more popular than ever, Fox News is losing viewers at a precipitous rate, and MSNBC viewership is on the rise.

God it's good to be a liberal in America right now!.

Female gun advocate claims that the AR-15 is the weapon of choice for women protecting their babies. I don't think WTF? even covers this.

Photo courtesy of wtfeck pictires

You know I listened to much of the testimony today during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on gun violence, and there were some VERY good points made. I especially enjoyed hearing from Gabby Gifford's husband Mark Kelly and James Johnson, chief of Baltimore County (Md.) Police Department. Both gave compelling argument for more gun control.

Of course there was also testimony from a those on the other side, and while some of it seemed relatively reasonable, there were a few, like Wayne LaPierre who sounded deeply disturbed. (And THAT includes some of the Senators in attendance as well. I'm looking at you Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz.)

However nobody, and I mean NOBODY could hold a candle to the insanity that issued forth from a woman named Gayle Trotter, who apparently is a senior fellow from the conservative Independent Women’s Forum. The things she said were....the point she was trying to make was...Oh hell you're going to have to listen for yourself.

Did you hear those giggles from the audience during her testimony? That is how people usually respond when confronted by this level of lunacy.

For those having trouble with the video, here is a portion taken from the transcript:

Ms. Trotter, your testimony discussed the need for women to be able to use firearms to defend themselves and their families. The law currently permits the lawful possession of semi-automatic rifles such as AR-15s. Can you tell us why you believe a semi-automatic rifle such as AR-15 has value as a weapon of self-defense? And does banning weapons -- banning guns which feature designed to improve accuracy disproportionately burden women? 

TROTTER: I believe it does. Young women are speaking out as to why AR-15 weapons are their weapon of choice. The guns are accurate. They have good handling. They’re light. They’re easy for women to hold. And most importantly, their appearance. An assault weapon in the hands of a young woman defending her babies in her home becomes a defense weapon. And the peace of mind that a woman has as she’s facing three, four, five violent attackers, intruders in her home with her children screaming in the background -- the peace of mind that she has knowing that she has a scary-looking gun gives her more courage when she’s fighting hardened violent criminals. 

And if we ban these types of assault weapons, you are putting women at a great disadvantage, more so than men, because they do not have the same type of physical strength and opportunity to defend themselves in a hand-to-hand struggle. And they’re -- they’re not criminals. They’re moms. They’re young women. And they’re not used to violent confrontations. 

So, I absolutely urge -- I -- I speak on behalf of millions of American women across the country who urge you to defend our Second Amendment right to choose to defend yourself.

Ms. Trotter claims to speak on behalf of "MILLIONS of American women," but  I call bullshit on that.  She is the fringiest of the fringe, as indicated by the fact that she also writes for the Right Wing rag the Daily Caller.

I am left to wonder what kind of a neighborhood this batshit crazy individual lives in where there is a legitimate fear that "three, four or five violent attackers" might invade your home? Becasue I am going to make damn sure I don't buy a house on THAT street!

I also cannot imagine how anybody on the gun rights side of this debate thought that her testimony was going to help them in any way, but I do have to say that listening to that kind of insanity, certainly going to help OUR side of the debate.

Whoa Nelly! I don't think there is any reason for a more probing psychiatric examination. Based on that testimony alone, I can say unequivocally that THAT woman should NEVER have access to a weapon, of ANY kind.

(H/T to Raw Story)

Gabby Giffords gives powerful testimony in front of Senate Judiciary Comittee on gun violence.

Perhaps the most powerful single spokesperson for gun control legislation in this country, and hands down one of the most courageous people on the planet.

I actually choked up a little while watching her struggle to get her words out.

You'll notice that NOBODY dared to heckle Gabby as she was speaking.

Gomer Pyle gets gay married. Well Golly!

Courtesy of ABC:  

The actor best known for playing the TV character Gomer Pyle in the 1960s has married his male partner of 38 years. 

Hawaii News Now reports Jim Nabors and his partner, Stan Cadwallader, traveled from their Honolulu home to Seattle to be married Jan. 15. 

Gay marriage became legal in Washington state last month. 

The 82-year-old Nabors says you've got to solidify something when you've been together as long as they have. 

The couple met in 1975 when Cadwallader was a Honolulu firefighter. Cadwallader is 64. 

Nabors says he's been open about his homosexuality to co-workers and friends but never acknowledged it to the media before.

82,  This man had to wait until he was 82 years old before feeling that the world was accepting enough for him to marry the person that he has loved for 37 years. That is just fucking sad on so many levels.

And do you know what?

I bet if Mayberry U.S. had been a real place that they would have gladly accepted their one time mechanic's sexuality and welcomed he and his partner with open arms. No he would not have had to hide who he was to Sheriff Taylor and the gang.

I have to say that almost every day I am reminded of how amazing the times we live in are today, and feel a real sense of sorrow for those who are trying so hard to fight the progress that this country is making.

P.S. By the way Jim Nabors was a liberal even back in the days of Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C as evidence by this clip of the show from the 1970's.

Man with concealed carry permit attempts to put gun in man's mouth during argument.

Courtesy of  Kitsap Sun:

Bremerton police responded to a call about an incident involving a gun at about 1:15 a.m. Sunday at the business. With help from witnesses, an officer found the suspect, who had fled. 

The suspect, Kainen S. Mattison, 26, of Seabeck, told the officer that he had tossed a gun in a nearby backyard and that he had a concealed carry permit. Officers found the gun, a .40-caliber Ruger, with a full magazine and a round in the chamber. 

A witness told police an argument over “nonsense” started between Mattison and another man. The bartender told everyone to leave, because it was near closing time, and the argument continued outside. 

The victim said Mattison continued to yell at him outside, then pressed a gun against the victim’s face three times, holding the gun to the victim’s head for at least 30 seconds each time and trying to stick it in the victim’s mouth. 

Police confirmed Mattison had a concealed carry permit, though he wasn’t carrying it with him. An officer issued a request that the permit be revoked. 

Mattison was arrested and charged with first-degree assault. Bond was set Monday at $15,000. 

You know the argument used by the those in favor of lax gun control laws is that responsible gun owners, i.e. those that could pass a background check, are not the ones that resort to gun violence, only criminals do that.

Really? This incident took place in Washington, where the guidelines strictly state that a person applying for a concealed carry permit must pass a background check, be 21 years of age, and have NO criminal history.

Clearly this gentleman easily passed that background check and was issued his permit which allowed him to walk around the city with a loaded weapon on his person, including when he was in bar drinking alcoholic beverages.

It only takes a second for somebody to use poor judgement and make mistake.  And a mistake made unarmed is almost always less life altering than a mistake made with a gun within easy reach.

But you know what, at least in THIS incident nobody died. A young man in Duluth was not quite so lucky:  

The 22-year-old Duluth man shot by a Lilburn resident Saturday night after he accidentally pulled in the wrong driveway was struck just as he was driving off the 69-year-old retiree’s property, according to the incident report released Tuesday. 

Officers said they arrived to find Rodrigo Diaz, 22, slumped over the steering wheel of his red Mitsubishi, parked at the end of Phillip Sailors’ driveway, heading east. Blood covered his face and, the report states, his breathing was labored. 

Sailors’ lawyer said the retiree, home with his wife at the time, acted in self-defense. 

“He is very distraught over the loss of life from the defense of his home,” attorney Michael Puglise said Monday. “This incident happened late in the evening hours when he was home with his wife and he assumed it was a home invasion and he maintains his innocence.” 

The 22 year old victim never even got out of his car, but the homeowner was so worried that he might be under attack that he took his gun and shot at the car, EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BACKING AWAY!

Once again without the gun, two lives would not have been altered forever.

"But it's my constitutional right to have a gun."

Yes, but the question is, should it be?

Picture of the day.

Nothing to see here, just a few superheroes washing windows...outside of a children's hospital in Pittsburgh.

I can only imagine what the children's faces must have looked like.

Sheer joy.

Father of victim in Sandy Hook shooting heckled by 2nd Amendment advocates. Update!

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Courtesy of MSNBC:

“He was my son, he was my buddy, he was my best friend,” testified Neil Heslin, whose six-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting in December before a Connecticut gun violence prevention hearing Tuesday. “And I never thought I’d be speaking like this and asking for changes on my son’s behalf. He’s my only son, he’s my only family.” 

As Heslin asked legislators to tighten restrictions, gun rights activist interrupted his testimony, yelling “our rights will not be infringed!” and “Second Amendment!” Local news sources reported that there were nearly a dozen hecklers, who were quickly silenced. 

Heslin’s son, Jesse Lewis, died after trying to flee the gunman with other students.

I quite literally have no words.

Update: For those who are confused by the NRA dipshit in the comments section claiming that the audience was only responding to Mr. Heslin's question, I refer you to Mr. Lawrence O'Donnell's response to that same bullshit excuse.

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President Obama lays out his immigration policy and gives a speech for the ages.

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Damn this man is holding nothing back these days! That was a great speech that I am pretty sure just made a number of immigrants life long Democrats.

Here is perhaps my favorite part:  

When we talk about that in the abstract, it is easy sometimes for the discussion to take on a feeling of us versus them. And when that happens, a lot of folks forget that most of us used to be them. 

We forget that. 

And it’s really important for us to remember history. Unless you’re one of the first Americans, a Native American, you came from some place else, somebody brought you. 

You know, Ken Salazar (ph) he’s—he’s of Mexican-American descent, but he points out that his family’s been living where he lives for 400 years, so he didn’t—he didn’t immigrate anywhere. 

The Irish who left behind a land of famine; the Germans who fled persecution; the Scandinavians who arrived eager to pioneer out west; the Polish, the Russians, the Italians, the Chinese, the Japanese, the West Indians—the huddled masses who came through Ellis Island on one coast and Angel Island on the other. 

All those folks before they were us, they were them. And when each new wave of immigrants arrived, they faced resistance from those who were already here. They faced hardship. They faced racism. They faced ridicule. But over time, they went about their daily lives. They earned a living as they raised a family, as they built a community, as their kids went to school here. 

They did their part to build the nation. They were the Einsteins and the Carnegies, but they were also the millions of women and men whose names history may not remember, but whose actions helped make us who we are, who built this country hand by hand, brick by brick. 

They all came here knowing that what makes somebody an American is not just blood or birth, but allegiance to our founding principles and the faith in the idea that anyone from anywhere can write the next great chapter of our story, and that’s still true today.

I thought that was exactly the right way to talk about this and the attitude that will hopefully finally see something  progress on this issue.

Apparently the Republican counter plan hinges on first securing the border, which of course we all know is a ridiculous concept that will NEVER be achieved to the GOP's satisfaction. And the reason for that stance is because the Republicans also realize that the faster immigrants are added as US citizens, the faster the Democrat's ranks swell with new voters.

And THAT is not something they are any hurry to help implement.

(P.S. You can read the entire transcript of this speech here.)

Hillary Clinton supporters launch SuperPAC in anticipation of her run for President in 2016.

Courtesy of The Hill:

A group of Hillary Clinton supporters is launching a campaign to draft her to run for president — the first major push from an outside group for her to run. 

The group, “Ready for Hillary,” filed as a super-PAC with the Federal Election Commission late last week and plans to roll out a website in the coming weeks. 

It has already been active online, with nearly 50,000 Twitter followers and almost 30,000 people following the group on Facebook. 

The effort is being spearheaded by Allida Black and Judy Beck, two longtime Clinton supporters who were on Clinton’s Virginia Women’s Steering Committee in 2008 and helped her raise more than $100,000. 

And so it begins.

By the way there was another item the other day that did not get much coverage but which seems to indicate that the President has already decided who he wants to succeed him.

This from Business Week:  

Last week campaign disclosure reports revealed that Hillary Clinton had finally retired the debt from her 2008 presidential campaign—with a little help from the guy who beat her, Barack Obama. Clinton’s debt once totaled more than $20 million, although it had dwindled to about $250,000 by last year. That’s when a team of top Obama donors decided to surprise Clinton, and thank her for her loyal service, by raising enough money to pay off her bills. As secretary of state, she was forbidden from political fundraising. 

According to a person involved in the effort who did not want to be named talking about internal fundraising strategy, the effort was launched last April by Steve Spinner, a California finance chairman for the Obama campaign; Jane Stetson, the former Democratic National Committee finance chairwoman; and Henry Munoz, the incoming DNC finance chairman. The challenge was tougher than it may appear, since it required a particular kind of donor. In order not to run afoul of campaign finance laws, the Obama team had to find people who had not already given Clinton the 2008 maximum primary donation of $2,300 or maxed out their total federal candidate donations during the 2012 cycle ($46,200). And of course, those people also had to be warmly disposed toward Clinton and still have plenty of free cash on hand.

This along with that unprecedented interview on Monday does not lave much doubt, at least in my opinion, that Hillary's 2016 campaign and the support of President Obama is essentially  one of the worst kept secrets in Washington.

I know a lot of people, including a lot of you, are not happy with the idea of having another dynasty in the White House, and are equally concerned that Hillary is the candidate that the Republicans had been preparing to fight in 2008, so they have an arsenal already at hand.

But to that I would say that if we are going to have a dynasty in the White House I would MUCH prefer to have another Clinton in there than to have Jeb Bush suddenly jump in front of the line. And don't think for an instant that he is not considering it. He most definitely is.

As for the idea that the Republicans are ready for Hillary, I challenge that as well.

The Republicans thought they were ready for the 2008 Hillary Clinton, NOT the 2016 Hillary Clinton.

Right now Hillary enjoys an approval rating of 69% while back in 2008 she was weighed down with poll numbers in the low 40's.

Since that time she has demonstrated the kind of professionalism, integrity, and hard work that has gained her fans on both sides of the aisle not to mention a large number in the middle.

Democrats NEVER get to hold onto the White House more than two terms anymore. Republicans do it all the time, but Democrats have not done so since Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman. That is just under sixty years ago!

As we all know President Obama is a chess player extraordinaire, so the probability that he is putting his pieces in place to hang onto the White House past 2016 is a no-brainer.

Everybody LOVES Joe Biden. I love Joe Biden. But Joe Biden is often almost a parody of Joe Biden sometimes, and in an election he will really just be another white guy running for the office who will elicit good support but not incredible support.

Right now there are millions of women who have ALREADY decided to vote for Hillary, even before she declares her intentions. By the time the actual primaries start Hillary will be so far ahead of the field of potential candidates that I doubt that very many of them will even bother show up. Which by the way includes Joe Biden in my opinion.

If you think about it there really IS no other candidate who has Hillary's credibility.

Experience in working with the Senate and Congress? Check!

Experience working with foreign dignitaries overseas? Duh!

Understanding of how to pay down the deficit and repair the economy? We do remember who her husband is right?

Ability to stand up to the Republicans? Do I need to play those Benghazi hearing tapes again?

Let's face it Hillary Clinton has it all, and her age will certainly NOT be a deterrent going forward.

If President Obama is serious about wanting the Democrats to hang onto the White House, and there can be no doubt that he is, and wants the next President to support and expand upon his polices, then there really is no better choice than Hillary Clinton.

I'm just saying.

Lawrence O'Donnell takes a much deserved victory lap at the news that Fox News has kicked Sarah Palin to the curb. After all Lawrence was NEVER fooled by Sarah Palin. Never!

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Courtesy of the Last Word:

In Monday’s Rewrite segment, O’Donnell gave one giant I-told-you-so to pundits and media organizations who took the former Alaska governor seriously as a contender to run against President Obama in the 2012 race. 

“New York Times reporters were not the only ones fooled by Sarah Palin pretending to think about running for president,” said O’Donnell. He also name-checked Dick Morris, Karl Rove, Rudy Giuliani and Game Change author Mark Halperin. 


O’Donnell played a clip reel of the many times he predicted that her flirtations with the Oval Office were a complete “joke,” and reminded viewers of “the world in which the political media hung on every Sarah Palin tweet” and “every ridiculous Facebook post.” 

“It seems now like a far off world, the world in which the political media took Sarah Palin seriously. And now she has lost even the slightest connection to political relevance since FOX News last week unceremoniously dumped her from their paid players list,” said O’Donnell. 

Wow! Lawrence is having almost TOO much fun.

But you can't blame him. He was many time just about the ONLY pundit on any network to call bullshit on Palin's phony political prick teasing about possibly running for President.

God I love the smell of vindication ins the morning. don't you?

Finally some good news for the Boy Scouts of America.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

The Boy Scouts of America, one of the nation’s largest private youth organizations, is actively considering an end to its decades-long policy of banning gay scouts or scout leaders, according to scouting officials and outsiders familiar with internal discussions. 

If adopted by the organization’s board of directors, it would represent a profound change on an issue that has been highly controversial -- one that even went to the US Supreme Court. The new policy, now under discussion, would eliminate the ban from the national organization’s rules, leaving local sponsoring organizations free to decide for themselves whether to admit gay scouts. 

“The chartered organizations that oversee and deliver scouting would accept membership and select leaders consistent with their organization’s mission, principles or religious beliefs,” according to Deron Smith, a spokesman for the Boy Scouts’ national organization. 

Individual sponsors and parents “would be able to choose a local unit which best meets the needs of their families,” Smith said. 

The discussion of a potential change in policy is nearing its final stages, according to outside scouting supporters. If approved, the change could be announced as early as next week, after the BSA's national board holds a regularly scheduled meeting.

Well this is excellent news, though I think it would be much better if the BSA were to adopt a non-discrimination policy nationally.

However considering that I just reported yesterday about a Maryland troop having to remove a statement favoring diversity from their website, this quick turnaround is rather startling, and hopefully indicative of more positive changes to come.

You know there really ARE some admirable things about the Boy Scouts, such as teaching self reliance, getting kids out into nature, and teaching them problem solving skills that really can come in quite handy.

I would like to see them return to their roots and be an organization that took pride in helping young boys become men, rather than one that teaches discrimination or attempts to indoctrinate them into religious cults. Perhaps that day is coming soon.

Apparently Hillary wasn't the ONLY one suffering from a brain clot.

If you remember Joe Scarborough said yesterday that many republicans had convinced themselves that the Benghazi incident would be the downfall of both President Obama AND derail Hilary's chances of running for President in 2016.

Certainly worked out well for them don't you think?

Episcopalian priest leaves church to be ordained a Roman Catholic, giving up sex with his wife in the bargain, because you know "teh gays."

Courtesy of The New York Daily News:

John Cornelius will be ordained a Roman Catholic priest this weekend — and with the blessing of his wife they're giving up their sex life. 

Cornelius, a father of three, will become the first married Roman Catholic priest in New York — and Sharyl, his wife of 33-years, has agreed to the whole celibacy thing. 

“We have decided to do that voluntarily,” Cornelius told WGRZ-TV. “I have always had friends that are Roman Catholic priests and I appreciate what they've given up to serve God and the priesthood.” 

Cornelius, 64, is a former Episcopalian priest who converted three years ago to Catholicism. He said his old church had gotten too liberal for him. 

“There was the ordination of the homosexual priest in New England,” he said. “Then it came time for women's ordination. ... It may have been okay for other people, but it was just too much for me. 

“I needed someplace where there was order,” he added. 

Okay not to be shallow, but looking at the two of them in the picture at the top, do we really believe that either the wife or the husband are going to be missing the sex? Somehow I think that celibacy has been a part of their marriage for quite some time, being ordained a Catholic priest just makes it official.

And they say that gay rights will not have any effect on heterosexual marriage. Really ? Look what it did to this "happy" couple!

Though to be fair it seems that the ordination of the gay priest just about pushed him over the edge, but it was the ordination of those sinful women as priests that proved too much for Father Misogyny here.

H/T to Joe My God.

With the career corpse still steaming in the snow bank, many journalists are gleefully rushing to get their Sarah Palin obituaries published before the crime scene is washed clean.

Simply because, after weeks of denying that John McCain was that stupid, I was first shocked to learn that Sarah Palin HAD been chosen as the 2008 running mate while watching Morning Joe. I feel I must include his analysis of her time on Fox News here.

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Okay so not that you have watched it let me say that I disagree with muhc of what Scarborough ad others on the show said.

I DO agree that Roger Ailes is the de facto leader of the Republican party, however I disagree that Sarah Palin EVER had any real opportunity to be anything more than a conservative side show freak.

She is incapable of doing anything more than playing the spokes model for the party. Asking her to weigh in on policy decisions or current affairs is like asking your parrot to look up the definition of a word for you.

Having said that I do agree with this statement from Mika:

“Are you saying that pushing her out of the spotlight is part of making ‘the stupid party’ less stupid?”

Yes I think it is part of the cosmetic approach to "fixing" the Republican party, however I also know that it will NOT fundamentally change anything and that they will continue to promote the kinds of policies that the American people have spoken out against in the last election.


While Joe, and his panel, made some very good points, they also left some meat on the bone that I think deserves to be ripped away.

Fortunately there are other journalists out there with incisors at the ready.

Such as Mediaite's Tommy Christopher, whose headline reads "Cautionary Fail: People Didn’t Kill Sarah Palin’s Career, Guns Did. And had this to say about what happened to her after her tone deaf response to the Arizona shootings:  

Palin’s orbit was forced into decay by that self-inflicted wound. She remained about as popular with the people who already liked her, but after that video address, Palin’s unfavorable ratings shot over fifty percent, and stayed there. Republicans like Newt Gingrich heaped on the criticism, and even Dick Morris acknowledged Palin had made a mistake. It was the first sign of vulnerability in an indestructible media brand. By the time Palin announced she would not run for president, Republican voters had already decided they didn’t want her to.

The Daily Banter is even less forgiving in their assessment:

Leave it to Fox News, the network that cranked the amp on John McCain’s once-naïve ingenue to 11 and made her a political force well beyond the pounding she and McCain took in 2008, to be the one to drop the hammer on her career once and for all. It’s practically Shakespearean that the network that was responsible in so many ways for making Palin is now responsible for breaking her. A couple of days ago, Fox News announced that it wasn’t renewing Palin’s contract as a regular contributor, essentially cratering a deal that had kept Palin rolling in money and at least a minor amount of relevance within the conservative movement and which provided her with her own TV studio in her Alaska home. The reason for Fox’s decision is obvious and can’t be questioned by anyone with a brain and a lick of business sense: Palin’s star has fallen. Even before Roger Ailes made the decision to — in parlance I’m sure Palin herself will understand and would normally relish — take Sarah Palin out into the woods with a rifle and put her down, he knew she had become much more trouble to his network than she was worth. He’d called her “stupid” and had dismissed her dabbling with a run for the presidency in 2012 as a waste of time and was looking for an excuse to drop her; her steady decline as a celebrity, despite her best efforts, ultimately gave Ailes all the reason he needed to kiss her goodbye once and for all. Ailes once said that he hired Palin because she was “hot and got ratings”; these days, she isn’t and doesn’t.

The folks at Smart Politics detail exactly how little bang Roger Ailes received for each buck he paid to Sarah Palin:  

Palin appeared on the network in studio, by satellite, by telephone, or in a pre-taped interview an average of once every 7.2 days during this three-year period, with the vast majority of those coming on two particular programs. 

Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren both interviewed Palin 55 times, combining for nearly three-quarters of her appearances on the network over the last 36 months. (Note: the latter total includes interviews by Griff Jenkins and guest host Martha McCallum on Van Susteren's On the Record program). 

Though the number of appearances were equal, Palin spent a bit more time in the 9 pm EST slot, delivering 72,986 words on Hannity compared to 67,987 words while on On The Record with Van Susteren. 

Overall, 74.4 percent of the words Palin delivered during her political analysis occurred on these two programs. 

Palin generally avoided the more hard-edged interviewers on the network with less than 20 appearances before Chris Wallace on FOX News Sunday (13,970 words) and Bill O'Reilly's O'Reilly Factor (10,169) combined. 

Palin also logged in another 5,768 words during the network's various election, primary, or caucus night coverage - usually interviewed by Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly. 

She spoke 18,341 words on other FOX programs, such as The Five, Beck, and Your Money with Neil Cavuto. 

Overall, with reported payments of $3 million across her three-year tenure at FOX, that means Palin was paid an average of $15.85 for the 189,221 words of analysis she provided the network.

What the folks at Smart Politics are apparently too polite to point out is that much of what spilled from Sarah Palin's maw was either nonsensical word salad, angry diatribes against Obama and the media, or blatant attempts to tease her supporters about a possible presidential run and therefore direct more money into SarahPAC. In other words the words themselves were often not worth the spit that spewed out along with them.

Sure she garnered attention and sold advertising at first, but the problem with phony side show attractions is that upon closer inspection the audience realizes that the bearded lady's whiskers are glued on, the strong man is lifting Styrofoam dumbbells, and the miracle pregnancy is nothing more than a square pillow shoved under a pair of stretch pants.

Still waiting for the audience to completely recognize that last one.

However as damning as these articles are, it falls to the people who supported Palin themselves to drive the final stake through the creature's still beating heart.

The SarahPAC numbers came out just a little while ago and they indicate that during this quarter they only garnered donations of $20,790.00 dollars, with expenditures of $67,807.71, which means they are spending more on "postage" and wig care than they are scamming from the sad lonely remnants of her now disappointed supporters. The PAC still has 1.2 million on hand, but with the money gravy train grinding to a stop, and Palin spending more than she brings in, how long can it be before she is offering to vomit forth word salad on a street corner for bus fare?

President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's interview on 60 Minutes from last night.

Part One

Part Two

I will resist any urge to tell you what I think this is all about, and instead simply provide this platform for all of you to discuss YOUR impressions.

However as you discuss I WILL offer a somewhat interesting image from our friends over at Politicususa:

 

Take it for what it's worth.

After winning an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her performance in "Game Change" now Jullianne Moore can also add a SAG award to her collection.

Courtesy of the Examiner:

Actress Julianne Moore has won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries for her role in "Game Change" on Jan. 27 at the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles, Calif. The Screen Actors Guild Awards are presented by SAG-AFTRA and honor the best performances in film and television. Tonight’s show broadcast around the world from the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium. 

This is the first Screen Actors Guild Award win and tenth nomination for Julianne Moore. The actress has also won a Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy for her performance in "Game Change." 

Wow Moore was up against some pretty impressive actresses in competition for this award including Nicole Kidman, Alfre Woodard, Sigourney Weaver, Charlotte Rampling. None of these can be considered lightweights, yet after ten nomination it was this performance that inspired her fellow actors to give it Julianne Moore.

So much for the oft repeated claim that this move was a bunch of lies, and that it was ill received by audiences or critics. Sounds like it, and Moore's performance. more than impressed just about everybody.

You know I wonder I there is a place that sells insurance policies on Wasilla refrigerators?

P.S. You can see the video of Julianne Moore accepting this award by clicking here.

President Obama is done pussyfooting around!

The other day the President conducted an interview with The New Republic,

During the interview one of the journalists, Franklin Foer, asked the President this question:

When you talk about Washington, oftentimes you use it as a way to describe this type of dysfunction. But it's a very broad brush. It can seem as if you're apportioning blame not just to one party, but to both parties—

In the past President Obama has erred on the side of fairness and said that both sides need to come to the table with workable proposals, roll up their sleeves, and blah blah blah, we all need to work together for the American people. However THIS time it was clear that for his second term the President is NOT going to provide cover for the obstructionist policies of the Republican party.

Well, no, let me be clear. There's not a—there's no equivalence there. In fact, that's one of the biggest problems we've got in how folks report about Washington right now, because I think journalists rightly value the appearance of impartiality and objectivity. And so the default position for reporting is to say, "A plague on both their houses." On almost every issue, it's, "Well, Democrats and Republicans can't agree"—as opposed to looking at why is it that they can't agree. Who exactly is preventing us from agreeing? 

And I want to be very clear here that Democrats, we've got a lot of warts, and some of the bad habits here in Washington when it comes to lobbyists and money and access really goes to the political system generally. It's not unique to one party. But when it comes to certain positions on issues, when it comes to trying to do what's best for the country, when it comes to really trying to make decisions based on fact as opposed to ideology, when it comes to being willing to compromise, the Democrats, not just here in this White House, but I would say in Congress also, have shown themselves consistently to be willing to do tough things even when it's not convenient, because it's the right thing to do. And we haven't seen that same kind of attitude on the other side. 

Until Republicans feel that there's a real price to pay for them just saying no and being obstructionist, you'll probably see at least a number of them arguing that we should keep on doing it. It worked for them in the 2010 election cycle, and I think there are those who believe that it can work again. I disagree with them, and I think the cost to the country has been enormous. 

But if you look at the most recent fiscal deal, I presented to Speaker Boehner a package that would have called for $1.2 trillion in new revenue—less than I actually think we need, but in the spirit of compromise—and over nine hundred billion dollars in spending cuts, some of which are very difficult. And yet, I'm confident we could have gotten Democratic votes for that package, despite the fact that we were going after some Democratic sacred cows. And had we gotten that done, it would have been good for the economy, and I think it would have changed the political environment in this town. 

Democrats, as painful as it was, as much as we got attacked by some of our core constituencies, were willing to step up because it was the right thing to do. And the other side could not do that.

Oooooh, yeah! Now THAT my friends is how a President who has just received over 55% of the vote calls out the opposition party for sabotaging progress.

No more Mr. Nice Guy, the President is here to kick ass and take names.

God I am loving this second term so far!

P.S. There is more in the article about Obama's plans concerning gun control, and a few other things,  so I encourage you to read it all.

Maryland Boy Scout troop forced to take statement in support of gay members off of their website or suffer the indignity of being kicked out.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

The Boy Scouts council in charge of overseeing scout programs in the Washington, DC-area is threatening to kick out a Maryland troop for posting a statement on its website declaring it won't discriminate against gay scouts. The troop has to decide by tomorrow whether to remove the statement. 

In September, the families of Pack 442, which is based in Cloverly, Maryland (a small town less than 20 miles from the nation's capital), anonymously voted and overwhelmingly approved to adopt a non-discrimination statement. According to Theresa Phillips, committee chair of Pack 442, the pack wanted Boy Scouts of America to know "we will not stand for the discrimination of homosexual minors or adults whatsoever." Here's the sentence causing the controversy:

Not long after the statement was posted, the National Capital Area Council (NCAC), one of the bigger local councils of the Boy Scouts of America, asked the pack to strike it from the website. "At first they [said] they would "allow" us to leave it up based on our right to freedom of speech. Now they are doing a 180 and basically asking us to either conform to BSA's discriminatory policy or get out," says Phillips. 

Les Baron, CEO and Scout Executive of NCAC, confirms to Mother Jones that if the pack doesn't erase the declaration, "they will not be recognized as an organization, although that's our last resort." That means that the troop will lose access to member insurance, rank badges, and scout camps. The only problem with the statement, Baron acknowledges, is the reference to sexual orientation. "That's a message that's against our policy, and we don't want it continue to be out in our community," Baron says.

Apparently sometime after his post went up on Friday, pack 442 did indeed comply with the demand by the  National Capital Area Council and took the statement off their website.

Which I guess means that the scouts in Pack 442 are now free to get their merit badges in homophobia, intolerance, and gay bashing, when all they really wanted to do was to embody the Boy Scout Law which, for those that don't know, is to be Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.

You know interestingly enough NONE of those sound anti gay to me.

Of course those were written BEFORE the Mormon Church got their hands on the youth group:

Mormonism has morphed the Boy Scouts into a religious organization in which they use to indoctrinate the young men into a lifetime of church membership. Awards and rewards are based on Mormon Priesthood rules and regulations. More emphasis is placed on indoctrination and obedience to the Mormon Gospel.

 And here you thought Boy Scouts just helped little old ladies across the street and camped in the woods.

Firearms industry pours millions into campaign marketing guns to children.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

Threatened by long-term declining participation in shooting sports, the firearms industry has poured millions of dollars into a broad campaign to ensure its future by getting guns into the hands of more, and younger, children. 

The industry’s strategies include giving firearms, ammunition and cash to youth groups; weakening state restrictions on hunting by young children; marketing an affordable military-style rifle for “junior shooters” and sponsoring semiautomatic-handgun competitions for youths; and developing a target-shooting video game that promotes brand-name weapons, with links to the Web sites of their makers. 

The pages of Junior Shooters, an industry-supported magazine that seeks to get children involved in the recreational use of firearms, once featured a smiling 15-year-old girl clutching a semiautomatic rifle. At the end of an accompanying article that extolled target shooting with a Bushmaster AR-15 — an advertisement elsewhere in the magazine directed readers to a coupon for buying one — the author encouraged youngsters to share the article with a parent. 

“Who knows?” it said. “Maybe you’ll find a Bushmaster AR-15 under your tree some frosty Christmas morning!” 

The industry’s youth-marketing effort is backed by extensive social research and is carried out by an array of nonprofit groups financed by the gun industry, an examination by The New York Times found. The campaign picked up steam about five years ago with the completion of a major study that urged a stronger emphasis on the “recruitment and retention” of new hunters and target shooters. 

The overall objective was summed up in another study, commissioned last year by the shooting sports industry, that suggested encouraging children experienced in firearms to recruit other young people. The report, which focused on children ages 8 to 17, said these “peer ambassadors” should help introduce wary youngsters to guns slowly, perhaps through paintball, archery or some other less intimidating activity.

"Who knows, maybe you'll find a Bushmaster AR-15 under your tree some frosty Christmas morning?"

You know those new gun control regulations simply CANNOT come fast enough!

But beyond that there has to be a very aggressive campaign to educate the American people about the dangers of these weapons in the hands of young children. Or, in my opinion, the hands of pretty much anybody not in law enforcement or overseas exchanging fire with the enemy.

Remember they are already using video games to market their weapons to our youth so we definitely have our work cut out for us.

Catholic Bishop, and anti-gay activist, claims that priest who was found handcuffed and with a ball gag in his mouth was just relieving stress. Oh, THAT'S what they call it!

Father Tom Donovan

Courtesy of Wisconsin gazette:

In early January, Father Tom Donovan dialed 911 and described himself as being stuck in a potential medical emergency. Police respondents found him wearing a bondage-style mouth gag and handcuffs. 

Despite the implications of being discovered in such a situation, however, Paprocki, who is fighting marriage equality efforts underway in his state, said Donovan merely practiced self-bondage to relieve stress. According to Paprocki, the situation underscores the hardships of clerical life. 

“The unfortunate result of such patterns of life – in no way limited to the experience of Catholic priests – is that persons often find themselves seeking patterns of ‘self-medication’ to soothe emotional turmoil,” Paprocki wrote. “Alcoholism, the use of illicit drugs, compulsive gambling, sexual acting out and the use of pornography are some of the more common manifestations, none of which were present in this situation. Instead, according to the clinical therapist, Father Donovan is suffering from a psychological condition that manifests itself in self-bondage as a response to stress. The clinical therapist also confirms that the strict absence of illicit sexual behaviors, relationships, and patterns reveal that this self-bondage is to be understood as non-sexual in nature.” 

Donovan is currently on a leave of absence from his stressful job.

Well I think this explanation seems perfectly reasonable. I mean who DOESN'T go home alone, strap on some bondage gear, shove in a ball gag, and put on a pair of comfy handcuffs, after a stressful day at the office?

People can be so judgmental!

I do have one question however.

Where were the keys to the handcuffs?

I mean I am no expert, but I do believe that most handcuffs come with two sets of keys. So where were the keys to these?

In fact you know they make toy handcuffs for kids which have a safety latch on them in case some child gets stuck and loses the key. Why not simply use one of those? Same effect without the risk?

I mean I 'm just saying that this way it almost seems. if somebody were suspicious I mean, that perhaps there was another party involved who might possibly have left with the keys which forced the priest to make that truly embarrassing phone call. 

My favorite part of this story is how they try super hard to make sure that people don't think it is about anything sexual. This from the police statement:

Father Donovan appears to have been completely forthright with me in his account of this event, which is consistent with the public record. In the face of the embarrassment of these revelations, the subsequent attention of the press, and the widespread distribution of misinformation found on the Internet and elsewhere, he asks for the basic respect of accurate reporting of the event, the correction of untrue defamatory information arising from unsubstantiated rumors and claims, and the privacy now to heal from the trauma of this event and the original stress that precipitated it. 

Although the psychological explanation of non-sexual self-bondage provides some context to what occurred, yet the details of this incident are understandably disturbing. 

Yeah okay.  Though, and I hate to be nit picky, doesn't ANY form of bondage have a sexual connotation to it? I mean isn't the point to be aroused, or stimulated, by the idea of being restrained? 

I'm just saying.

But hey what a man of the cloth does when he is off the clock is no business of mine, so long as it does not involve any under age children that is.