Not One, Not Two, But Three Pro-Bigotry Bills in Oklahoma

Members of the Republican Party seem hellbent on ensure their party’s continued practical irrelevance. With the Supreme Court poised to make a ruling on whether or not same-sex marriages are constitutional the Republican Party has been throwing the mother of all hissy fits. In Oklahoma one senator has introduced not one, not two, but three pieces of legislation to discriminate against homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgender individuals. The first bill is your typical prohibition against same-sex marriage bill:

House Bill 1599 is being called the “Preservation and Sovereignty of Marriage Act.” It says taxpayer dollars or governmental salaries cannot be used for “the licensing or support of same-sex marriage.”

I love the title because it shows Sally Kern, the wretch that introduced these bills, has no idea what the word sovereign means. Sovereign means supreme authority or ultimate power. To say marriage is sovereign is to say it has ultimate power in regards to unions. If marriage was sovereign then the state couldn’t have any say in the matter of unions. The second bill would ensure parents could continue to subject their kids to “pray away the gay camps”:

House Bill 1598 “Freedom to Obtain Conversion Therapy Act” says parents would be allowed to seek counseling and therapy to help change a child’s sexual orientation, without interference from the state.

Setting aside the fact that so-called conversion therapy has been proven to not work we also have the issue that this bill would further erode minor’s already non-existent agency. As I discussed previously minors have no agency and are therefore almost entirely at the whim of their parents. This leads to major problems when the parents don’t have the well-being of the child in mind. Because of how laws in this country works the only real option for a minor to resist bad parenting is to beg the state to intervene. If this bill passed into law then even that option would be stripped from them. The final bill would allows businesses to discriminate against homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgender individuals:

The other, House Bill 1597, would allow any business in Oklahoma to refuse service to any gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person or group.

Voluntary association states that everybody is free to associate or not associate with whoever they want for whatever reason. This bill wouldn’t allow that though because under it homosexual, bisexual, and transgender business owners would not be free to discriminate against bigoted assholes. If one group of individuals can refuse service then other groups must be free to refuse that group service as well. Any bill that only grants special privileges to one group establishes more hierarchy and the last thing we need in this forsaken country is more hierarchy.

It’s fascinating to see the Republican Party continue to hold its position on social issues. As their generation dies out and later generations become the majority social conservatism will become even more poisonous to the Republicans.

Hillary Clinton is Getting Ready for Her Republican Party Presidential Nomination

I’ve been saying that Hillary Clinton is the ideal Republican candidate. And I’m not alone. Democrats still love Hillary Clinton as well so I believe she may be the first candidate to receive both the Republican and Democratic presidential nominations.

And she’s not planning to coast buy on her war mongering credentials along. Hillary has been brushing up on her skills at impersonating every Republican’s favorite foreign prime minister, Vladimir Putin:

If 2016 doesn’t work out for Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state could find a new line of work on the theatrical stage.

During an event in Canada this afternoon, Clinton broke out into an impromptu impersonation of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

While trying to explain the difference between how the United States elects politicians and how other countries do (wink, wink – Russia), Clinton put on a Russian accent and performed a mock conversation she imagines Putin had with himself when deciding he wanted to be president.

Santorum, Romney, and Bush might as well stay home this election season. They don’t have a chance.

Louisiana Continues to Ban Oral Sex; Necrophilia A-OK

There are a lot of ancient laws relating to how people conduct themselves in their own bedroom. Many of those laws are still on the books and I like to think that is because politicians simply haven’t gotten around to removing them. But Louisiana has shown us that isn’t the case. Their politicians debated their state’s sex laws and came to a strange conclusion:

The Louisiana House of Representatives voted this week to uphold an anti-sodomy law that bans oral sex in the state.

A measure to remove the ban failed by a wide margin Tuesday, in a vote of 27-67.

Meanwhile, according to The Blot, necrophilia or sex with a dead person is technically legal in the state of Louisiana.

So oral sex is illegal but necrophilia is totally cool*. OK, technically the law is unenforceable. The Supreme Court ruled laws prohibiting sodomy unconstitutional in 2003. But Louisiana’s politicians must be hoping a day will come when that ruling is reversed (because any arbitrary Supreme Court ruling can be reverse by a later arbitrary Supreme Court ruling) because there is no other reason to leave the laws on the books. This also shows that these laws having simply been forgotten. They’re still remembered, debated, and supported by many.

*Yeah, it’s a pun. Deal with it.

Y’all Need More Jesus

One of the things I love to watch is a politician’s transition from whatever they were when elected to a party zealot when they get aspirations of becoming president. Governor Bobby Jindal has been, as far as I know, liked by many self proclaimed liberty advocates. For Louisiana is seems to be not as much of a dick as the state’s other politicians but that’s not a high bar to jump over. But now he seems to want a chance at the presidency. In order to do that as a member of the Republican Party you need to provide that you’re a religious zealot, which Mr. Jindal has demonstrated a willingness to be:

But as his presidential aspirations grow, so is his desire to mix religion and politics. Speaking to a group of Christian and Jewish leaders in Iowa, Jindal averred:

“The reality is I’m here today because I genuinely, sincerely, passionately believe that America’s in desperate need of a spiritual revival,” Jindal, who is weighing a presidential bid, said during a 37-minute-long speech followed by a 20-minute question-and-answer session.

“I love to quote Winston Churchill. … ‘You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they’ve exhausted every alternative,’ ” Jindal said.

“That’s where we are as a country,” he continued. “We have tried everything and now it is time to turn back to God.”

As you can guess I don’t give two shits about this man. He’s a politicians, which makes him scum in my book. The reason I’m bringing this up is to discuss one of the Republican Party’s biggest shortcomings, it’s religious zealotry. You would think a party that claims to love Jesus so much would be something other than a social group for bigots, tyrants, and blood thirsty war mongers. After all, Jesus hung out with a motley crew, never involved himself with politics, and preached about loving thy neighbor and such.

Instead of focusing on the actions of the man they claim to worship they focus on very strange parts of the Bible that, when interpreted liberally, say that all of the gays need to pray away their sexual orientation, imaginary lines determine who is great and who sucks, and people with a skin tone darker than luminescent need to be bombed. More importantly these things that the Republican Party focuses on are the very things that prevent it from gaining political power for more than a few short bursts of time.

Wouldn’t you think that a political party that wants to stay relevant would try changing what hasn’t been working? I would think that. But Republicans don’t think that, which is why they’re the laughing stock of politics. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good that they haven’t been able to grab more power otherwise there probably wouldn’t be a Middle East left. But I find it amusing that one of the two political parties in this country manages to stay a big political party while also being so incredibly incompetent.

Welcome Back CISPA

While some politicians are exploiting the shooting in Paris to justify the National Security Agency’s (NSA) illegal actions others are exploiting the Sony hack to build on the already sizable police state. Remember the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA)? It’s back:

A senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee on Friday will reintroduce a controversial bill that would help the public and private sectors share information about cybersecurity threats.

“The reason I’m putting bill in now is I want to keep the momentum going on what’s happening out there in the world,” Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), told The Hill in an interview, referring to the recent Sony hack, which the FBI blamed on North Korea.

The question is not whether or not the bill can be passed; It’s when will a tragedy scary enough make the people beg Congress to pass it. What the politicians aren’t saying is that CISPA wouldn’t have prevented the Sony hack. First of all Sony is a Japanese company. Second of all words on a piece of paper don’t stop malicious people form being malicious. But none of that matters when the goal isn’t to stop crime but to increase control over the populace.

The NSA is Probably Celebrating the Shooting in Paris

Most of the world mourned the deaths of those shot in Paris. But some have been celebrating those deaths. Neocons have been enjoying their raging anti-Muslim erections and the National Security Agency (NSA) has probably been celebrating because the scrutiny of their illegal surveillance program is being silenced:

The push to reform the National Security Agency isn’t getting any easier.

After a reform bill was narrowly blocked on the Senate floor late last year, civil libertarians hoped that an upcoming deadline to reauthorize some of the spy agency’s controversial powers would give them another opportunity to force changes.

But the attacks in Paris last week, where gunmen killed 12 at a satirical newspaper and 4 at a kosher market, is making that job harder, and strengthening the resolve of the NSA’s backers.

“I hope the effect of that is that people realize … the pendulum has swung way too far after [leaker Edward Snowden],” Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told reporters on Thursday.

“Hopefully people realize that the NSA plays a very, very important role in keeping Americans safe, and my guess there will be less of a desire to hamstring them unnecessarily,” he added.

You almost have to admire these NSA apologists. Even though the current surveillance apparatus failed to detect the Paris shooters’ plans beforehand its apologists are claiming it’s necessary to thwart the next one. And people are going to lap up this bullshit because they trust people in authority.

There should be a new rule in politics. If an agency’s illegal actions failed to stop a tragedy then nobody should be able to use that tragedy to justify the agency’s illegal actions. But then there wouldn’t be any justification for the state and I would be enjoying a world where a handful of people aren’t dictating what the rest of us can and cannot do.

Minnesota Law Makers Making Big, Empty Promises

I actively avoid following politics these days. There’s just no point. Everything politicians say is vapid and empty. Nothing they do changes anything in any meaningful way. But sometimes they do something that amuses me a bit and the Minnesota laws makers have done exactly that. They’re hinting at doing all the business of their two year terms in one year:

Minnesota lawmakers may consider completing the entire 2015-16 Legislative session this year alone, opting to stay home next year as renovation is expected to shut down much of the Capitol.

So far, the idea has simply been floated among House and Senate leadership, Senate Minority Leader David Hann, R-Eden Prairie said Tuesday, shortly after the House and Senate opened the session.

Hann said it was routine for the Legislature to meet only once every two years before the 1970s, when lawmakers alternated between a short session during bonding years, and long sessions during budget years.

I fully support this. In fact they should take every year after 2016 off as well. Hell, I’d even be willing to pay them to not show up. It’s a win-win for Minnesota since the only thing law makers do when they’re at the marble building in St. Paul is cause damage.

Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste

Sony, in what I predict to be a brilliant marketing move, has cancelled what was certainly going to be a shitty movie. This has gotten the expected, and likely desired, result of unleashing a great deal of impotent Internet rage. Not one to let a crisis go to waste the politicians in Washington DC are swooping in like vultures. First United States officials claimed that the hack was almost certainly performed by North Korea. Now senators are using that claim to justify the necessity of a “cyber security” (a meaningless term) bill:

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) also said that the choice set a “troubling precedent” in cyberwarfare. “The administration’s failure to deter our adversaries has emboldened, and will continue to embolden, those seeking to harm the United States through cyberspace,” he said in a statement. He reiterated promises to focus on the issue if elected chair of the Armed Services Committee, including plans to create a subcommittee for cybersecurity issues. “Congress as a whole must also address these issues and finally pass long-overdue comprehensive cybersecurity legislation,” he said. McCain has been pushing cybersecurity bills for years, including the Secure IT Act, a competitor to the controversial CISPA bill.

In a statement on Tuesday, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), a major proponent of cybersecurity and author of multiple bills, said that “this is only the latest example of the need for serious legislation to improve the sharing of information between the private sector and the government to help companies strengthen cybersecurity. We must pass an information sharing bill as quickly as possible next year.”

There are three points I would like to bring up.

First, there is no evidence that North Korea was involved in the Sony hack. All we have are statements made by United States officials. Remember that United States officials also told us that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Second, the reason people like McCain and Feinstein want to pass a “cyber security” bill is because it would further enable private corporations, the same private corporations that currently possess a great deal of your personal information, to share data with the federal government without facing the possibility of legal liability. What members of Congress are referring to as “cyber security” bills are more accurately called surveillance bills.

Third, legislation won’t improve computer security. No matter how many “cyber security” bills are passed the fact of the matter is that bills are merely words on pieces of paper and words on pieces of paper have no ability to effect the world by themselves. What you need are experts in computer security doing their job and that is done by enticing them with rewards (often referred to as paying them) for utilizing their skills. Legislation doesn’t do that, markets do. The only thing legislation does is state who the state will send armed thugs after if their desires are not properly met.

Al Fraken Suddenly Cares About Privacy

When the government is caught spying on people it’s quick to justify its actions as being necessary for national security. But when private companies, at least ones not tied to the state’s own surveillance apparatus, spy on people the state claims it’s a tragedy. I’m not a fan of spying regardless of who’s doing it but I also can’t stand hypocrisy. Al Franken, one of Minnesota’s two psychotic senators, has a bug up his ass over Uber. I can only imagine that the company hasn’t been willing to become a full member of the state’s surveillance apparatus because Franken has been coming down on it hard:

For the last month the senator has pressed the company to be more transparent and accountable in how it handles the data associated with its burgeoning number of passengers around the world.

“My biggest concern is that they seem to have no policy,” said Franken, who chairs a subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law. “They have all this very sensitive data and they seem to have absolutely no real privacy policy.”

This is rich coming from a man who defended the National Security Agency’s (NSA) widespread surveillance of Americans. If anybody has been collecting very sensitive data without any privacy police it’s the NSA. And while I don’t trust Uber with the data it collects I at least know it’s not collecting things like my phones calls, e-mails, and other communications. Perhaps Franken should first invest time in writing up a privacy police for the NSA and then deal with the smaller fish like Uber. At least then he wouldn’t sounds like such a hypocrite.

My Definition of Journalist

Politicians are again throwing hissy fits because they have so far been unsuccessful at definition what a journalist is. The definition of a journalist is a big deal for the freedom of speech because if the politicians are able to define journalist narrow enough they can squash all sort of the legal protections. This time around, just like all of the time prior, the politicians are trying to justify their attempts at stripping people of the coveted journalist title through fear:

Freedom of the press is essential. Freedom of the press is important to me. Freedom of the press is not going anywhere in Alabama.

With the national explosion of partisan political blogs and shady, fly-by-night websites offering purposely skewed and inaccurate interpretations of hard news events, I recently asked the Secretary of the Senate to put together a definition of what qualifies as a legitimate journalist.

My concern focused on the confusion that could result if a number of partisan bloggers requested official credentials to cover legislative happenings from the press rooms located in the rear of each chamber at the State House.

If they don’t define what a journalist is then anybody could potentially go into marble building in which our overlords dictate degrees and report on what’s going on. The need to squash such a possibility is obvious.

As I enjoy being helpful I have decided to put forth a definition of journalist that I believe will work for everybody. So here it is, a journalist is anybody or anything (because someday artificial intelligences may do journalism) that reports on events. Simple enough?

I’m sure my definition isn’t what the politicians are looking for as their interest is restricting who can cover their actions by ensuring reporters are sympathetic to the state. But journalism is only effective if the reporters are cynical assholes who are willing to dig deep to find dirt. In other words to be a good journalist you have to be a bastard:

jounralism

And that’s exactly what the politicians are trying to censor.