Ecuador cut off Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's internet, because that is how you punish petulant teenagers.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Ecuador has cut Julian Assange’s communications with the outside world from its London embassy, where the founder of the whistleblowing WikiLeaks website has been living for nearly six years. 

The Ecuadorian government said in statement that it had acted because Assange had breached “a written commitment made to the government at the end of 2017 not to issue messages that might interfere with other states”. 

It said Assange’s recent behaviour on social media “put at risk the good relations [Ecuador] maintains with the United Kingdom, with the other states of the European Union, and with other nations”.

It has already been reported that being locked away in this embassy was having a "dangerous" impact on Assange's health, losing access to the internet might drive him out of his mind as well.

Gee' maybe then he will be forced to flee the embassy and he can be picked up by Swedish law enforcement for those sexual assault allegations, or by American law enforcement for his part in helping Russia hijack our democracy.

Either way he needs to have his day in court, and quit hiding like a pussy.

Donald Trump's new press secretary deflects question about Russian hacking helping his boss, with question about why Hillary Clinton is not being punished for what she did to influence election.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

Spicer was asked if President-elect Trump accepts the conclusion of seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia was responsible for the hacks that sought to damage Clinton’s bid for the presidency. 

“Why aren’t we talking about the other influences on the election? Why aren’t we talking about Hillary Clinton getting debate questions ahead of time?” Spicer said in response. 

“No one is asking those questions. The fact is that everyone wants to make Donald Trump admit to certain things. When do we talk about the other side, which is what did Hillary Clinton do to influence the election? Is she being punished?”

Damn! That is some crazy ass spin there Sean old man. 

I guess he does not consider losing the election punishment enough. Perhaps he would like to see Hillary whipped in the streets as well?

And by the way since when is being asked questions comparable to a "punishment?"

If Trump thinks like that these next fours years are going to REALLY suck for him.

And let's take a moment to address that bullshit allegation that Hillary received debate questions ahead of time.

The question she may or may not have received (There is no actual proof that she saw it ahead of time.) was NOT before a debate, it was before a town hall. With Bernie Sanders.

And the question she possibly received was about water conditions in Flint, Michigan where the town hall was being held. WHO in the hell would not already be prepared to answer that question?

There is no comparison between that possible infraction by Donna Brazille and the fact that the Russians hacked our election process in order to put a puppet in place for Vladimir Putin.

Not even close.

Donald Trump has stated that he does not intend to go after Hillary Clinton because of her e-mail server, but that does not mean he is done punishing her yet.

Courtesy of the New York Post:  

Foreign governments will be encouraged to investigate the Clinton Foundation’s finances, as many are already turning off money spigots to the scandal-scarred group, The Post has learned. 

A source close to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team told The Post that the new administration plans to pressure the US ambassadors it will name to bring up the foundation with foreign governments — and suggest they probe its ­financial dealings. 

Trump said last week that he would not order an investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server or her role in the foundation. 

But Trump’s statement didn’t preclude the backroom moves to investigate the group. 

“Haiti and Colombia will be key diplomatic posts for this ­because of all the money ­involved,” said the source.

So I guess when Donald Trump said, “I don’t want to hurt them. They’re good people,” that was just one more lie to add to the pile?

I think just like the Benghazi investigation and the e-mail kerfuffle this will turn out to be a great big nothing burger.

But once again it adds stress to the lives of the Clinton family, and very likely endangers the survival of the Clinton Foundation.

Wasn't it Omarosa who said that Trump was keeping a list of his enemies?

Why yes it was.

New study reveals that spanking increases childhood defiance and mental health issues.

Courtesy of Red Orbit: 

If you think that the answer to an unruly child is a good spanking, think again, say researchers from the Universities of Texas and Michigan, who after extensive analysis found that this form of punishment only makes youngsters more likely to be defiant and aggressive. 

Their study, which was published in the April edition of the Journal of Family Psychology, was based on five decades worth of research involving more than 160,000 children. They are calling it the most extensive scientific investigations into the spanking issue, and one of the few to look specifically at spanking rather than grouping it with other forms of physical discipline. 

“Our analysis focuses on what most Americans would recognize as spanking and not on potentially abusive behaviors,” lead author Elizabeth Gershoff, an associate professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas, said in a statement Monday. “We found that spanking was associated with unintended detrimental outcomes and was not associated with more immediate or long-term compliance, which are parents' intended outcomes when they discipline their children.” 

In fact, Gershoff and co-author Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work, found that the more frequently that children are spanked, the higher the risk that those kids will start to defy their parents, become aggressive, experience mental health issues, exhibit anti-social behaviors, and/or develop cognitive difficulties. 

In the mental health field this is really old news, but you would be surprised at the number of people who still feel that all any unruly or disruptive child needs is more discipline. And of course their idea of discipline always involves corporeal punishment.

Let me confess that when I was a young father I did swat my daughter on the butt one or two times at least.

My only excuse is that I was not well educated enough to know the harm I was doing and I now regret every swat I ever administered to my child.

And trust me she remembers every one of them as well, and will bring it up to remind me that I was not always the cool headed professional that people think I am today.

The problem of course is that positive behavior modification techniques are still not widely known, and even when known take time to change disruptive behaviors, while for many parents the spanking creates immediate gratification both by temporarily altering the child's behavior and also feeding into the parent's sense of power and need for control.

However if parents choose the slower path of positive behavior modification they will end up with happier children and ultimately more successful adults.

Colorado Republicans react in horror as fellow lawmaker suggests that woman mutilated in attack was the "curse of God" in response to abortion.

Courtesy of the Denver Post:  

Several leading Colorado Republicans lashed out Thursday against state Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt, saying his "curse of God" comments about an attack on a pregnant woman whose baby was cut from her womb were "disgusting" and "reprehensible." 

The lawmaker, who also is a minister, quoted the Bible in his "Pray In Jesus Name" program Wednesday and tried to link the crime to abortion. 

"This is the curse of God upon America for our sin of not protecting innocent children in the womb and part of that curse for our rebellion against God as a nation is that our pregnant women are ripped open," Klingenschmitt said. 

Among those who denounced the remarks: two fellow El Paso County Republicans, Laura Carno, who in January started a Facebook page called "Conservatives against Gordon Klingenschmitt," and former Rep. Mark Waller, whose used to represent the House district in Colorado Springs now held by Klingenschmitt. 

"It's disgusting. I thought Gordon Klingenschmitt would be our next Todd Akin," Carno said Thursday. "I didn't know he would be our next Westboro Baptist Church. This poor woman gets her baby cut out of her belly and he uses this tragedy to drive traffic to his ministry."

So to be clear this lunatic believes that his God allows vicious attacks on innocent pregnant women as punishment to America for allowing abortions. Oh yeah, let's all drop to our knees and worship THAT guy.

Of course many of you may remember this Klingenshmitt character as the former Navy chaplain who believes that America is being oppressed by demons and that the only healthcare we need is faith in God.

It appears that finally the Colorado Republicans have realized what most of the country realized long ago.

This Klingenschmitt guy is out of his fucking mind!

Lara Logan takes "leave of absence" after flawed 60 Minute Benghazi report.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

The CBS News correspondent Lara Logan and her producer, Max McClellan, made serious errors in an Oct. 27 report on the attack on the American compound in Benghazi, Libya, and will take leaves of absence, the network announced on Tuesday. Four Americans died in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. 

The moves come after weeks of criticism directed at a “60 Minutes” report which was based on an interview with a hired security agent, Dylan Davies, whose comments to CBS News were later discredited. 

CBS did not specify the length of the leave of absence for its two staff members, nor whether they would continue to be paid. In general, television correspondents do not lose salary unless they are suspended. 

Beyond Ms. Logan, who has been a rising star at CBS News, the review could have implications for the leadership of Jeffrey Fager, the chairman of CBS News, who is also the executive producer of “60 Minutes.” Mr. Fager sent an email to the staff on Tuesday, saying: “As executive producer, I am responsible for what gets on the air. I pride myself in catching almost everything, but this deception got through and it shouldn’t have.” 

He added: “We are making adjustments at ’60 Minutes’ to reduce the chances of it happening again.”

I can see the Fox News coverage of this already, "Benghazi claims yet another victim."

Man you would think at this point even the Right Wing would avoid Benghazi at all cost.

You know if they had any journalistic integrity whatsoever.

Which of course they don't.

Family Research Council senior fellow on allowing single people to have sex: “Functioning societies don’t do that, they stop it, they punish it, they corral people, they shame people, they do whatever."

Courtesy of Mediaite:  

While guesting on Washington Watch Monday afternoon, FRC senior fellow Pat Fagan argued that the 1972 Supreme Court court case Eisenstadt v. Baird, which overturned a Massachusetts law banning the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried people, is quite possibly “the single most destructive decision in the history of the Court.” 

Fagan was accompanied by ever-so-thoughtful evangelist and FRC head Tony Perkins. 

In Fagan’s mind, that Court decision effectively told all single people that they have “the right to engage in sexual intercourse.” Never mind the fact that, well, they kind of do have the right — you know, consenting adults and whatnot — because Fagan remembers when society used to have laws forbidding such sin. 

“Society never gave young people that right,” he continued. “Functioning societies don’t do that, they stop it, they punish it, they corral people, they shame people, they do whatever. The institution for the expression of sexuality is marriage and all societies always shepherded young people there, what the Supreme Court said was forget that shepherding, you can’t block that, that’s not to be done.” 

By giving an implicit seal of approval on premarital sex, Fagan said, the Court was “brushing aside millennia, thousands and thousands of years of wisdom, tradition, culture and setting in motion what we have.”

“Functioning societies don’t do that, they stop it, they punish it, they corral people, they shame people, they do whatever." That may be perhaps the most honest description for the function of religion that I have ever read.

By the way, the "thousands and thousands of years" he is referring to, is thousands and thousands of years of the Christian oppression of human sexuality. Not "wisdom." The entire religion is essentially set up to police the sexual conduct of human beings.

Just ask the Hawaiian people, or native Americans. They were people whose sexuality was as open and natural to them as eating or breathing. That is until they were introduced to the idea of shame, and were told that every terrible thing that befell them in life was the direct result of their "sins against God." And those sins were more often than not of a sexual nature.

The idea that the most basic function of humankind, our sexuality, is something that these people feel they have the right to control, is to me repugnant and, dare I say it,  evil.

The thing that Christianity fears the most is sex. Especially the sexuality of females.

Do you think they persecuted women as witches because they thought they were agents of Satan?

Fuck no, they persecuted them because their feared the power of the feminine, and they wanted to crush ANY sexuality not given the stamp of approval by the church. That goes for unmarried sex, gay sex, and, for quite a long time, sex between the races or between Christians and other religious faiths. Regardless of whether they were legally married or not.

Our most primitive religions were based either predominantly on the female deity, or the worship was spread evenly between male and female gods. Simply put, Christianity could not abide that.

Just imagine how different, how much more free, our country could have been without these puritanical sexual standards having been used to oppress us for lo these many years.

Spanking linked to mental illness.

Courtesy of Yahoo:

Researchers examined data from more than 34,000 adults and found that being spanked significantly increased the risk of developing mental health issues as adults. According to their results, corporal punishment is associated with mood disorders, including depression and anxiety, as well as personality disorders and alcohol and drug abuse. They estimate that as much as 7 percent of adult mental illness may be attributable to childhood physical punishment, including slapping, shoving, grabbing, and hitting. The study reports that spanking ups the risk of major depression by 41 percent, alcohol and drug abuse by 59 percent, and mania by 93 percent, among other findings. 

Now before you start becoming worried that you have damaged your children for life, the study does differentiate between the kinds of spanking they are talking about.

"We're not talking about just a tap on the bum," study author Tracie Afifi, PhD, of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, explained in a statement. "We were looking at people who used physical punishment as a regular means to discipline their children." However, the analysis excluded individuals who reported more severe maltreatment such as physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, or exposure to intimate partner violence. 

"It definitely points to the direction that physical punishment should not be used on children of any age," said Afifi. Researchers concluded, "It is important for pediatricians and other healthcare providers who work with children and parents to be aware of the link between physical punishment and mental disorders." 

The physical punishment of children is legal in the United States, although it is banned in at least 24 other countries. It's worth noting that 19 states also allow corporal punishment in schools. Earlier studies have linked spanking toddlers to increased aggression in older children. Spare the rod, spare the child? 

And of course we cannot ignore that many of the families which engage in truly brutal forms of corporal punishment, do so with the blessing of their clergymen, who often quote the Bible to provide support for essentially beating the child into submission.

"Spare the rod, spoil the child," indeed. It should read "spare the rod, improve your parenting skills."

I must admit to that on occasion I myself DID in fact use corporal punishment as a form of discipline. It was quite rare, and it was always nothing more than a pop on the bottom, but my daughter remembers EVERY SINGLE INCIDENT, and will bring it up with very little prompting. And though we are very close, those few incidents remain a painful memory for both of us.

It has also been my job to work with very troubled children, where the use of ANY type of corporal punishment, shaming, or even the loss of certain privileges, were strictly prohibited. In my many years working with children I have learned a number of methods for behavior modification that rely on positive reinforcement and appropriate, non-punitive consequences which really work quite well.

They also require a great deal of patience, and I that is something that ALL of us could use a little more of in our repertoire. However I must say that the end result is well worth the effort.

I would much rather have a happy child that behaves poorly once in a while, than a well behaved child that is suffering from low self esteem and depression.

But hey, that's just me.