Women Snark McCain

From Women for John McCain: With John’s record on choice, he’s uniquely qualified to make our most personal, private choices for us as President.

John McCain’s leadership has earned him a 0% rating from NARAL, a 0% rating from Planned Parenthood, and his independent, bipartisan thinking is backed up by his impressive voting record and positions on women’s health and freedom of choice.

• Supports repealing Roe v. Wade. (May 2007)
• Voted YES on barring Health and Human Services funding to medical clinics for low-income women that perform abortions. (Oct 2007)
• Voted YES on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions. (Jul 2006)
• Voted NO on $100M to reduce teen pregnancy by education & contraceptives. (Mar 2005)
• Voted YES on criminal penalty for harming unborn fetus. (Mar 2004)
• Voted YES on banning “dilate and extract” abortions. (Mar 2003)
• Voted YES on maintaining ban on abortions at clinics on military bases. (Jun 2000)
• Voted YES on banning “dilate and extract” abortions. (Oct 1999)
• Rated 0% by National Abortion Rights Action League.
• Rated 0% by Planned Parenthood.
• Despite his extreme voting record, 51 percent of women voters in battleground states have no idea what John McCain’s positions are on women’s reproductive health issues.

Remember, Clinton supporters, let your sour grapes overwhelm you and choose John McCain. It's the last choice you'll ever need to make.

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Sexism, or just typical treatment of a Democratic candidate?

To quote a commenter on another blog who makes a very salient point:

Just because a woman thinks something is sexist doesn't mean it is. Just because a woman is treated unfairly, doesn't mean that unfair treatment is sexist. Hillary Clinton got treated poorly at times in this campaign, just like John Kerry was treated poorly in 2004 or Al Gore in 2000 or Bob Dole in 1996 or George H. W. Bush in 1992.

Hillary Clinton was a 30 points ahead front runner who got beat, and because she refused to drop out, her defeat was stretched out over several months. Anyone in that situation is going to get a lot of crap dumped on them. Did sexism play some role in that crap? Sure. But knee jerk victimization that exaggerates the role sexism played isn't really going to benefit feminists, women or men.

We are running against the media this November. The media is owned by Republicans, and will dump a ton of crap on Obama before it's all said and done just like they dumped a ton of crap on Hillary Now, granted, Hillary also got some crap from Democrats. Given that much of Hillary's support in late primaries was Republicans crossing over and voting for her because "I don't want a nigger running for President" and she pandered to those people shamelessly, she did get dumped on by Democrats too -- but that's what happens when you run as a Republican in a Democratic race, regardless of your sex, just look at how Democrats dump on Joe Lieberman if you don't believe me. Democrats don't dump on Joe Lieberman because of anti-semitism, they dump on him because he sucks up to Republicans.

But anyhow, back to the point: As the front-runner, Hillary got dumped on because the media would have dumped on any Democratic front-runner. Unfortunately she and her supporters didn't handle it in some way that would diffuse all the crap that was being dumped on her, all they did was whine and whine about how it was "sexist", all of which whining made her look weak, which made her look like a victim rather than a winner. That's not helpful in winning elections. But now all that crap is going to be laser-focused on Obama. Whining about it being "racist" is not going to do Obama any good either. All it'll do is make Obama look like a victim, which isn't the Democratic message. Remember, while the content of some of the crap is going to be blatantly racist, that's not why he's going to be getting the crap. He's going to be getting the crap because he is a Democrat running against the candidate preferred by our ruling elite. We better remember that and re-focus on the Democratic message every time the media tries their crap (which for better or for worse is "change" this election), or we can say hello to President McCain and probably the end of the Republic. Who, then, shall be our Julius Caesar? I think I'd prefer to wait for the next generation to find out, rather than find out first-hand in the fallout from electing a President who will continue leading the nation into utter economic disaster...

-- Badtux the Practical Penguin

Obama is the nominee

For those suffering from CDS, deal with it. Game over. Obama passes the threshhold and is the nominee, unless someone knocks him off in the next few months. Reality bites. But reality simply is. It doesn't respond to "what if?" and urgent denials of its nature. Either you accept reality, or be viewed as, well, deranged.

-- Badtux the Reality Penguin

More Clinton Derangement Syndrome

Clinton Campaign says they're not conceding even if tonight's primaries and superdelegate announcements, as expected, put Obama over the number of delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination for President.

The asshat who apparently is running campaign policy for the Clintons is Terry McAuliffe, probably the most incompetent and ineffectual DNC chairman of the past fifty years, the man whose machinations led to the nomination of John Kerry in 2004, probably the weakest Democratic candidate since Michael Dukakis, and the loss of Congress in 2002. This is an example of the kind of people who led to Clinton's loss -- long-time party insiders whose incompetence led to the loss of Democratic majorities in Congress and to 40 years of almost-uninterrupted Republican domination of the Presidency. The Clinton campaign apparently puts loyalty ahead of competence -- hmm, where have I seen that before?

The fact of the matter is that Clinton lost, and every survey and poll says that this is the will of the majority of Democrats -- more Democrats supported Obama than Clinton, regardless of any paranoid delusional silliness from the Clinton campaign about how Obama didn't really win the support of the majority of Democrats. The race was Clinton's to lose -- she was the frontrunner from the time she announced until the day after Super Tuesday -- and she lost it fair and square the old fashioned way, by running a campaign that was strikingly incompetent until these last two months, at which point she started fighting dirty by claiming that John McCain was more qualified than Obama to be President, America wouldn't vote for a black man for President (won her the Republican racist crossover vote in West Virginia and Kentucky, but those people are going to vote for McCain in the fall so that's not exactly a selling point for Clinton), etc. etc. etc. I must say that she is exceedingly good at running a dirty campaign pandering to the worst in everybody, and if she'd run that kind of campaign from day one, the outcome might -- or might not -- have been different. But she didn't.

Yet, just as a delusional John McCain and George W. Bush claim we're "really" winning in Afghanistan and Iraq despite all the years of evidence to the contract, Clinton continues to claim she's "really" winning even though, well, she isn't. And the sufferers of Clinton Derangement Syndrome start saying "well, even John McCain is better than Obama because Obama stole the candidacy." Yeah, he "stole" the candidacy by appealing to more Democrats than Hillary Clinton did , and by opening up a lead over John McCain (and Hillary Clinton) in the polls, a fact which is swaying the superdelegates to ignore Hillary's argument of "America won't vote for a nigger for President". The question is whether the sufferers of Clinton Derangement Syndrome will come to their senses and make sure the disaster that is John McCain is not elected to office, or whether they will elect John McCain. If the latter... well. I guess I need to start liquidating my many many possessions in preparation for the move overseas, because the collapse of the United States during a McCain presidency will not be pleasant.

In short, even though I'm not a big Obama partisan (see my criticism of his health care plan), I will vote for him in the fall. He's not a bad candidate by any means -- he has demonstrated that he is intelligent, cunning, and has an ability to take on the partisan slime machine that will be slung at him in the fall. He's also not an ideal candidate. But he has certainly demonstrated that he is a good candidate, and the perfect is the enemy of the good -- and if we wait for a "perfect" candidate, we'll never have another Democratic president ever. And right now, given the fact that Ghawar is about to stop producing and over 10% of the world's oil production is about to evaporate, another delusional Republican presidency is the last thing this country needs...

-- Badtux the Practical Penguin

The KKKandidate

Hot on the heels of the discovery that the border vigilantes talking about how we need to kill all the Mexicans trying to cross the border happen to associate with neo-Nazis, we now have the KKKandidate. Who says we should vote for her because of her support from, quote, "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans". As vs. those shifty lazy niggers and spics, presumably.

No, not talking about David Duke's wife. Talking about, sadly, Hillary Clinton. Who has, like, just totally jumped the shark.

Hillary, give it up. You've lost whatever dignity you ever had, it's time to go before you become a total joke. Sorry, that's just how it is :-(.

-- Badtux the Appalled Penguin

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day

Ann "The Man" Coulter on Hillary Clinton's candidacy:

(Blill) Clinton's connection to any other presidential candidate spells utter doom. Both his vice president and his wife have been defeated in elections they should have won, but lost because of their unfortunate association with him. The country has spoken. It wants to be rid of the Clintons.

I never thought I'd see the day when I was quoting the Coultergeist on my blog... sigh. What next, getting out the umbrella because of flying cows?

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Clintonistas: As batshit crazy as Obamabots, or worse?

The Barefoot Bum has half his front page filled with screeds about how evil anybody who doesn't agree with him about Teh Patriarchy being the cause of Hillary Clinton's problems is. The Apostate de-blogrolled a progressive blogger for disagreeing with her about how Teh Patriarchy is the cause of Hillary Clinton's problems. I swear, Clintonistas have just friggin' *jumped the shark*, accusing anybody who disagrees with them about their candidate's victim-hood of hating women, wanting to rape women, being mean evil representatives of Teh Patriarchy who want women to be barefoot and pregnant servants, fuck, probably even of washing the whites with the colors when they do the laundry (eek! Improper mixing of the colors!).

Crap, Clintonistas are proving to be even more irritating than Obamabots were. At least the Obamabots whine about things that aren’t particularly damaging to their candidate, like whine that their candidate’s health plan is being misconstrued (sorry, it isn’t — it sucks). All the Clintonistas do nowdays though is whine that their candidate is discriminated against by Teh Patriarchy. And whine. And whine. And whine. And whine. Geezus effin’ kee-rist, people. Maybe that makes you feel like, morally superior, or something, but YOU DON’T WIN ELECTIONS BY PAINTING YOUR CANDIDATE AS A VICTIM. Puh-LEEZE. You don’t elect a victim as President. You help a victim, you give her reassurance, you make sure there’s someone there for her, but for a politician, being a victim is TOXIC, because people want a LEADER, not a VICTIM.

In short, it’s a losing card. If Hillary is painted by her campaign and her supporters as a victim, she isn’t going to get voted for as President. Whining about how she’s a victim of Teh Patriarchy isn’t going to change that. And ostracizing anybody who disagrees with you… that is just shameful. That’s no way to get votes for your preferred candidate. That is something that right-wing bloggers do. But I guess ideologues are ideologues, in the end… whether they be right-wing or left-wing. Sigh.

-- Badtux the Multi-colored Penguin

The victim card

One of the most irritating things about the Hillary Clinton campaign is about how her campaign workers and supporters keep whining that she's being discriminated against because she's a woman. It's just one play after another of the "oh poor me, I'm a victim!" thing. Bad press? It's not because she's a prickly personality who rarely gives reporters the time of day. It's because she's a woman. Out of money? It's not because she shunned the online progressive community in favor of sucking up to big wigs, it's because she has no Y chromosome. Etc. etc. etc. Nevermind that women have been elected governor of major red states like Arizona, Texas, and Louisiana as well as a number of blue states, while the number of blacks elected governor in *any* state can be counted on one hand. Women are discriminated against when running for office and if you don't support her it's because you hate women, that's her message, over and over again.

The playing of the victim card was silly the first time, but played over and over again it's just plain old. It might work if she were running against a white male. But she's not. She's running against a black man (and spare me the bit about how he's half-white, as far as white America is concerned, he's black). As in, can't plan a trip of 500 miles without adding a couple of hours because he knows he'll get stopped at least twice for Driving While Black. As in, a quarter of his fellow black male high school classmates are in jail or on probation. As in, more college-age black men in jail than in college. As in, white women cross the street when they see him coming. Now, when you can show me middle-aged white women being pulled over for Driving While Female, 25% of white females in jail or on probation, white females vastly under-represented in colleges, and people crossing the street when they see white females coming, maybe then Hilary could use the victim card. But using it when she's running against a black male? WTF? Is she really that insensitive regarding the state of race relations in this country today?!

BTW, you'll note that Obama *never* plays the victim card. Ever. When things go down hard on him, he *never* says "you're just biased against me because I'm black." He addresses whatever point is in question, e.g. the Wright question, and moves on. Much preferable to all that whining coming out of the Hillary camp...

-- Badtux the Whine Penguin

Obama is destroying chances for universal healthcare

Please read this very important article by economist Paul Krugman. He reiterates what I've repeatedly said -- unless a) everybody is covered, and b) everybody pays, you simply do not have universal health care. And Obama's plan only covers half of those who are currently uninsured, at the same cost as Hillary's plan. Without the universal mandate that everybody pays for health care costs, that's the best you can do -- and that's not just Krugman saying so. That's every reputable (yes, reputable) economist who has actually worked the numbers.

In other words, as Krugman states:

You see, the Obama campaign has demonized the idea of mandates — most recently in a scare-tactics mailer sent to voters that bears a striking resemblance to the “Harry and Louise” ads run by the insurance lobby in 1993, ads that helped undermine our last chance at getting universal health care.

If Mr. Obama gets to the White House and tries to achieve universal coverage, he’ll find that it can’t be done without mandates — but if he tries to institute mandates, the enemies of reform will use his own words against him.

If you combine the economic analysis with these political realities, here’s what I think it says: If Mrs. Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, there is some chance — nobody knows how big — that we’ll get universal health care in the next administration. If Mr. Obama gets the nomination, it just won’t happen.

I am sure I will now get an infestation of Obamabots telling me that Krugman is wrong because, well, because their Beatific Leader tells them that Krugman is wrong (sigh, what's the difference between an Obamabot and a Bushbot? The color of the skin of the person they worship, basically -- neither appears amenable to reason nor facts) via dishonest flyers to supporters. But facts are facts. Wishful thinking is not a plan, and lofty rhetoric doesn't provide health care for people. While Clinton's plan is not the plan I would devise (as Krugman explains, a universal single-payer system is the most cost-effective system), it still does cover everybody. That, unfortunately, is not the case with Obama's plan.

-- Badtux the Health Care Penguin

The difference between Hillary and Obama supporters

The Blogtopus has the scoop: People who will allow irrational hatred guide their actions should look in the mirror when they're trying to figure out what's wrong with this country... regardless of who they support.

-- Badtux the Mirror-lovin' Penguin

The penguin's pick for President

Sadly, with Edwards falling by the wayside, there is really only one choice left. The Republicans are all batshit crazy, with John McCain wanting to bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Eyyyye-raaaaan, Multiple Choice Mitt going around with that robo-candidate gleam in his eyes as if he's trying to count how much money he could loot from the treasury if he gets in (or how much fudge he could pack), and the rest... fugheddabout it. On the Democratic side, you got the dude who makes good speech but whose health plan does not cover all Americans, and the gal whose health plan covers all Americans but only at the expense of giving pork to every special interest business group under the sun.

So I'm going with the only remaining candidate offering a universal health plan. Because that's important to me -- I ain't gettin' younger, and pretty soon it will be pretty much impossible for me to buy health insurance on the open market. So, with reluctance and more than a bit of sadness, I hereby endorse Hillary Clinton for President of the United States. For what that's worth. About three herring's worth, I calculate.

-- Badtux the Health Care Penguin

RomneyHillaryCare vs. Medicare For All: A comparison

(Note: Bumped to top of blog for the rest of this month).

	RomneyHillaryCare	Medicare For All
Enrollment method	Requires individuals to purchase health insurance either from current insurance programs or from a new government-run insurance program	Automatic -- all individuals residing in America are automatically covered by Medicare For All.
Method of Funding	Billing of individuals by insurance companies, combined the existing Medicaid tax for subsidizing lower-income insurance purchasers	Already-existing Medicare payroll deduction, increased to cover full cost of program and with employer matching of the employee portion, combined with a deduction from Social Security recipients' Social Security checks
Enforcement costs	Requires significant enforcement costs, up to and including imprisonment, in order to obtain compliance with the mandatory insurance purchase requirement. Enforcement is against 120,000,000 households, rather than 10,000,000 businesses.	No additional enforcement costs -- current already-existing Medicare tax enforcement against the 10,000,000 businesses in America suffices, which is much less expensive than enforcing a new mandate against 120,000,000 individual households.
Additional government bureaucracies created	5 - a new government-provided health plan distinct from Medicare with its own bureaucracies for enrollments, billing, and payments, a new government bureaucracy to handle computing and distributing health insurance subsidies to lower-income Americans, and a new enforcement bureaucracy to enforce the purchase of insurance	-2 - eliminates current Medicare enrollment and billing bureaucracies (everybody is automatically enrolled thus no need for a new enrollment bureaucracy, and the funding method eliminates the need to bill anybody unlike Medicare which is required to bill people who are receiving Medicare but not Social Security because they're still working)
Savings in insurance marketing costs	Increases marketing costs, since now marketing must be directed at 120,000,000 households rather than 10,000,000 businesses	100 percent savings. No marketing costs -- everybody is automatically enrolled
Savings in billing costs	Increases billing costs, since now 120,000,000 individuals must be billed rather than 10,000,000 businesses.	Over 100% savings -- total cost of plan piggy-backs on already-existing Medicare payroll tax already taken out of your paycheck and eliminates the current Medicare billing bureaucracy (for working Medicare recipients not yet receiving Social Security)
Savings in insurance claims processing costs	slight increase, due to new government bureaucracy	Drastic decrease -- dealing with only one program (Medicare For All) rather than with thousands of plans provided by hundreds of insurance companies will result in at least 15% average reduction in costs for the typical physician practice, and probably more.
Savings to businesses	100 percent -- now individuals, not businesses, pay for health insurance.	Increases costs for businesses that currently do not provide health insurance because the amount taken out of paycheck as Medicare tax is matched by the employer in the same way as the current Social Security tax. Decreases by at least 50% costs for employers who currently provide health insurance.
Savings in individual insurance premiums	Most people will see higher premiums than under their old employer-provided plans, due to higher billing and marketing costs. Inability to enforce the insurance mandate means little savings due to no longer having to bear cost of care for uninsured.	Dependent on income, if you count the Medicare payroll tax as a premium. Lower income people will see a drastic savings, upper income people will see a drastic increase, most will pay less than today because total cost of the program is less.
Coverage for pre-existing conditions	Mandated	Everybody in America is automatically covered
Percentage of individuals uninsured	Roughly 10%, consisting of people who do not file income tax statements (and thus are not tracked by RomneyHillaryCare), are here illegally and thus do not qualify for subsidies for low-income households, or simply cannot afford health insurance even with the subsidies provided under RomneyHillaryCare for low-income households.	None -- everybody in America will be automatically covered, regardless of income status or immigration status.
Overall savings	Increases overall costs of health care in America, due to the cost of the additional federal bureaucracies and cost of billing and enforcement	Decreases overall costs of health care in America by at least 25% due to elimination of all billing, marketing, and sales costs and drastic reduction of claims processing costs due to economies of scale.
Consumer choice of physician	Limited As is currently the case, you will be required to "choose" a physician who is part of your particular PPO or HMO.	Drastically improved. With Medicare for All, you can go to any physician, anywhere, and receive care.
Consumer choice of health care coverage	Moderate increase in consumer choice. Right now you are limited to what your employer provides. You will be able to choose any plan you can afford under RomneyHillaryCare.	Moderate increase in consumer choice. While everybody's base level of health care coverage will be the same, you can choose to purchase MediGap insurance from private providers at extra cost to provide additional coverages beyond those provided by Medicare under Medicare For All.
Ability of states to create their own health plans different and distinct from the national plan	Eliminated.	Eliminated

Hillary Clinton is a scheming bitch

And I have absolutely no problem with that.

I'd rather have a scheming bitch as President than a naive boy scout or an inexperienced orator who thus far is all fluff and no substance, or god forbid any of the Republican assholes. Actually, I'd like to see Bill Richardson, the most experienced guy in the race on either side, as president. But it ain't happenin'. He doesn't have the money to put together a credible organization and as a balding fat guy he's not telegenic enough for the Shallow Hals and Shallow Harriets out there.

Yeah, I know all the negatives about Hillary, like her lame-ass health care plan, her pandering to the Israel lobby, etc. But put Hillary up against, say, Julie Annie, and she'd rip his guts out. She's a scheming bitch. And that's just what's needed right now to feed some Republicans their entrails. She's slick, she can raise a ton of money, she has the best advisors money can buy, she campaigns like an animal and any attempt to swift boat her would get belly laughs from an American public that already knows who Hillary is and who aren't going to get distracted by any nonsense that the right wing comes up with (what, they're gonna say she assassinated Abraham Lincoln next? Nobody listens to that crap anymore). Sadly, we already know Edwards rolls over like a puppy when some Republican front group barks at him, and Obama is in the same position as Kerry was in 2004 -- a position where he's still ripe to get defined by the Republican media in some way. The Republican media can't do anything to Hillary. They've already tried it all, and it didn't work. So, in celebration of my new first lady, here's the song I'm going to use to commemorate my new first choice for Democratic nominee:

Yeah!

-- Badtux the Bitchy Penguin

Afternoon health care snark

If the solution to the problem of Americans lacking health insurance is a new law requiring them to purchase health insurance (a.k.a. RomneyHillaryCare), then it is clear that there is an equally viable solution to homelessness also. Just pass a law requiring the homeless to rent apartments. Voila, no more homeless!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

A concise summary of RomneyCare/HillaryCare

RomneyHillaryCare is a giveaway to the insurance industry (which doesn't want to insure sick people, just healthy people) and big business (which wants to be out of the health care industry). It takes the costs of healthcare and passing them directly to the person who decides if they should have the operation to extend their own lives or standard of living or not. Everybody under Rillary care will be forced to buy into plans with huge deductibles. At that point it will all be out of pocket for them and they'll be forced to stop buying healthcare.

As demand is chopped down (at the same rate that Americans are falling over due to lack of healthcare), we'll move down the supply curve until the remaining population is able to afford staying alive. In short, RilaryCare is a mechanism for weeding out the sick people in the economy and planting them under the ground so that insurance companies can make money off the remaining healthy people.

Ration life, it's precious. Remember, the right to life ends with birth!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

PS -- the same person wrote Hillary2Care as wrote Romneycare (implemented in Massachusetts under Governor Mitt Romney's administration), and the two plans are virtually identical. Which makes Mitt Romney's criticism of Hillary's plan *especially* hilarious. This is on par with Gay Old Pervert Republican politicians making speeches about the "evil Gay lifestyle" bwahahahahah!

Hillarycare = Insurance Industry subsidy?

Hillary Clinton released her so-called "universal health insurance" plan Monday. I have downloaded it and am reading it. News reports suggest that it is another attempt to enrich the wealthy health insurance companies who have contributed millions of dollars to her and her husbands' campaigns by forcing people at gunpoint to send money to health insurance companies (individuals will be mandated to purchase health insurance coverage, regardless of whether they can afford to do so or not). I personally believe that creating a huge government bureaucracy to enforce such a mandate is the wrong way of going about things, and that government should not be in the business of forcing people to buy a product that they either don't want or can't afford. As for the comparison to automobile insurance, we all know how well government mandates have worked there. (Sarcasm intended -- in my state, 1 out of every 3 drivers is driving illegally without insurance and auto insurance is *much* cheaper than health insurance).

As for the question of what to do with all those unemployed insurance company claims processors and such if we really did get Medicare For All, I have a modest suggestion. Farmers in the American Southwest claim that they need Mexican immigrants because they cannot get Americans to work in the fields. Why don't we round up all these unemployed insurance company case workers, payroll employees, receivables accountants, etc., and put them to work picking spinach in Salinas? We get two benefits in one -- lower health care costs, and a solution to the problem of tightened border enforcement causing a shortage of farm workers!

More when I finish reading the plan...

-- Badtux the Health Penguin

Why martial law could happen in America

Do you really believe that cops with no hesitancy about Tasering college kids for asking a question, studying in a library, skateboarding, or just because they ask for it would have any problems using so-called "non-lethal devices" (that have killed over 400 people over the past five years) or worse to enforce a martial law declaration?

C'mon. Let's get real here. Cops believe that civilians are The Enemy. Cops have their own culture, which overlaps with civilian culture only at the edges. Cops have their own values, which are not civilian values. Any cop who has any objection to enforcing ridiculous, unconstitutional laws has been forced out of the profession by the War on Drugs, which violates the Constitution in oh so many ways by outlawing consensual commerce between adults, seizing property without compensation or any meaningful due process, removing voting rights in violation of the 14th Amendment, and so forth. If a cop's chain of command told him to enforce a dusk to dawn curfew in order to prevent rioting over a Presidential decree that elections were cancelled and Congress dismissed due to "terrorist threats", he would do it -- period. Using all force allowed by departmental policies. If a cop's chain of command ordered him to arrest Duncan Black of Atrios fame as a member of a "terror cell" and escort him to a USAF cargo jet for processing to Guantanamo Bay, he would do so, without a thought, or if he did have a thought, said thought would be "I'll just do my job, and if he's innocent the courts will free him." If a cop was ordered to arrest a sitting judge (who had the timerity to rule that arresting Duncan Black was illegal) and escort him to that jet it'd be the same response.

The basic problem is that we have allowed our government to get away from us, through apathy, ignorance, and fear. No government survives without the willing aquiescence of the majority of the people. We have allowed our fear to allow ambitious politicians into stampeding us into giving them more and more power, of which the police are the enforcers of that power. The disconnect between the police and the citizenry they are supposed to serve is not because police are inherently evil, it is because we have allowed our government to become disconnected from the citizenry and the police are, in the end, government employees who similarly have become disconnected. The case of health care is a good example. The majority of Americans want universal health care. They don't want patchwork systems of competing HMO's and PPO's and payment approvals and so forth, they want to be able to go into any doctor's office, anywhere, when they get sick, and get taken care of. Yet the plan of the next President of the United States, Hillary Clinton, is to force people at gunpoint to subsidize the private insurance industry by requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance.

As long as the majority of Americans continue to be more interested in the latest episode of their favorite "reality TV" show than in who rules them, we run the risk of martial law and permanent loss of our freedoms, and our police forces and military, despite all the propaganda about how they "protect our freedoms", would happily cooperate in enforcing martial law. Unfortunately, I know of no way to make apathetic, ignorant, fearful people less apathetic, ignorant, or fearful. Other than shock treatment like what happened in the 1929-1932 time frame, which ended Republican rule of America for a generation. Are we there yet? I suspect that in the next few years, we'll find out.

-- Badtux the Ramblin' Penguin

Gay Agenda sighting!

Yes, that mighty supervillain The Gay Agenda, with his Gay Ray Gun of Gayness that he is going to use to shoot all our masculine boys and feminine girls and turn them into girly-men and manly girls, has been sighted AGAIN by those brave patriots of the Christian News Service, who, braving the risks of carpal tunnel syndrome or being affected by stray Gay Rays shot from the Gay Agenda's Gay Ray Gun, bravely read an AP news article about a speech at a gay rights convention! And now we find out that The Gay Agenda has a boss: Hillary Rodham Clinton, who, these brave patriots tell us, is running as the first gay President (gasp!). Well, I guess since her husband ran for office as the first black President there is a precedent... still, who would have thunk it that The Gay Agenda had a female boss? This penguin is aghast, aghast I say! Oh Gay Agenda, how could you have let us manly men err penguins down like that?!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin