Dear Media: You've Failed Us. Again.

I was pissed at myself for writing a piece about the awful clerk in Kentucky who has determined she is above the law and will deny marriage licenses to gay couples in her county. Her only objective is to get attention. I don't want to give her any. But I am so tickled by the outcome in court today that I just had to take a moment to celebrate. I just won't give her name. We all have seen it. There are two other county clerks in Kentucky who have jumped on her childish bandwagon. I won't list their names, either. Assholes.

Let us just reflect on this handsome Kentucky couple who tried, four times now, to get a marriage license in Rowan county and were denied each time by the county clerk. David Ermold and David Moore have been in a loving relationship for 17 years now and since June have finally been able to legally get married. Today the woman who determined it was her job to keep them from their rights was sentenced to jail until she decided that she would do her job.

The blasphemous woman in Kentucky went to court today for the third time. I will be honest. I am ashamed to admit that I had fears about this court hearing because it was in Kentucky and thought that maybe the judge would be partial to her case in some way. It was clear that this judge was having absolutely none of it. He decided not to give her a fine because he knew the same garbage who unite to create GoFundMe accounts for cops who kill unarmed black men would rally and do the same for her, therefore she would not really be penalized if she were fined and others took care of it. The judge found her in contempt of court and sentenced her to jail! On her way out of the court, handcuffed, her last words were, "Thank you, Judge." But. Of. Course. She clearly has received the martyrdom she was seeking.

Judge David L. Bunning, who was a GW Bush appointee said that he, too, is against same-sex marriage, but in sentencing her he implied that if he had given her an inch it would set a dangerous precedent. That was one of my biggest concerns. If they create a statute and it goes up the line we will have to deal with this in many counties.

The crazies on the right don't need to actually understand the Constitution (or the Bible, apparently) to vehemently demand what they believe their rights are when it comes to condemning the rest of us to live by their standards of hate and discrimination. No matter what happened to her today all of the RWNJs out there were going to unite and support her. So we will be dealing with her trending hashtag on Twitter. We will be receiving bullshit in our Facebook feed from family members defining their plight as persecuted Christians whose Constitutional rights are being denied. It doesn't matter that we have more than two Amendments. It doesn't matter that one of those other Amendments they have never bothered to know anything about (while demanding their mission is to support the Constitution) states none of your Constitutional rights can be used to deny another citizen of theirs. The complete text of the 9th Amendment offers it clearly:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

It doesn't matter to them that the 14th Amendment literally states she has to do her goddamned job (at all levels, not just federal or state). Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

It really is hard to grasp that these people will now raise a fuss and demand attention. Because they are the loudest they create controversy. Because controversy sells ad space the media will be all over it. And because the media lack integrity and conscience we will not be offered the important information I listed above. We will only hear crazy people spewing their bullshit and their even crazier candidates (Huckabee, Cruz, Jindal) come out of nowhere with new interpretations of the Constitution which are completely irrelevant and untrue and no one in the media will counter any of what they say. The media will offer us news bites and offer no relevant reflection because they don't have time to discuss it. There is a lot going on today, after all. Something or another happened in 'Deflategate.' Its irrelevance to me on a station who tells me it is "The Place for Politics" can't even be defined. But it got a lot more air time than the important ruling in Kentucky today. They spent over a full hour this afternoon on nothing but Donald Trump who made a pinkie promise (or something just as legally binding) to not betray the Regressive Party. They are also offering supposition about Secretary Clinton's emails and a former staffer pleading the 5th. No one knows why, of course, but that stops none of them from spending at least 10 minutes every hour with commentary from 'experts' about what might be the reason. Honestly!?

There is a lot of ridiculous dialogue popping up around what ways the county clerks who don't want to be bothered to do the job they are being paid to do and ignoring duties they swore an oath to undertake can be accommodated. It is beyond my comprehension why anyone would spend a moment of their time on a serious attempt to come up with a way to accommodate that? My answer is simple: Force them to quit. Do not offer them their pensions. Give them jail time and a fine. They swore to do that job and then determined they had a right to ignore that oath. THAT is the precedent we need to set in America. A sincere reminder needs to be sent to all of her citizens that just because a politician who happens to be considered radical (the very nicest adjective I could come up with) determines that the Constitution happens to mean something completely different than any rational lawyer or historian would explain, doesn't make it so. For Christ's sake ... He actually wants the Constitution to be rewritten to mirror the Bible.

As with people being massacred in their church or movie theater and with unarmed black men and women being repeatedly victimized by those who are meant to be protecting them, the media will find the most generic aspects of the story to repeat for a couple minutes every hour and never dig into the actual heart of the story. They will, again, fail to offer reflection on causation of society's ails. They will, again, fail to ask Americans to consider the truths behind the story and its victims.

Can the media please do an in-depth look at what we are actually dealing with and why these newly persecuted 'Christian's' are behaving like heathens? I think if the majority of Americans really understood, we could all work together to shut this down. I honestly believe that if the national media offered its audience an intelligent and introspective look at the movement and what it is saying while countering it with what the Constitution and the courts have demanded, they could really begin a healthy dialogue. If that conversation were concluded by asking every rational adult what would happen to them if they had a national public temper tantrum because they refused to do their job, it could be a pretty quickly settled discussion. But the media cannot be bothered to do something like that. Apparently the issue of an appointed government employee using their authority to deny people their legal rights isn't controversial enough.

The saddest part? I bet I know another cable 'news' outlet who did nothing but talk about it today. And that message and its rhetoric will have been well disseminated to their audience. Brilliant. And so it goes...

Are Temper Tantrums A Good Campaign Strategy?

Not gonna lie ... I cannot think of a single physical torture anyone could lay on me that would make me vote for a Republican. However, just watching from the outside, I feel confident that I would not vote for a Democrat or Independent who behaved the way those on the right have behaved this week. What must those in the center be thinking? Honestly!

This was the headline on Mike Huckabee's blog today where he railed over SCOTUS' decision on marriage equality. So, ummm... if you were, say, President, and you decided to resist and reject the judiciary, wouldn't that make you a tyrant? Moron.

He said the court was out of control yesterday, too. When they upheld the Affordable Care Act (say those three words in your head - wonder why they needed to give it another name?) he just wanted to lose his mind. This Christian will not abide living in a country where everyone has access to affordable healthcare. God. Dammit!




Ted Cruz had a fit yesterday, too. He, along with the rest of the GOP hopefuls, cannot interpret what the court ruling said. They all believe that they are going to be able to get rid of Obamacare. Never mind what they said in the ruling. No. Really. You have to have something to rail about, right?

Teddy hasn't commented yet on today's ruling. But last week he did tell a congregation, oops sorry, I mean conference attendees, "I would encourage everyone here to be lifting up in prayer the court that they not engage in an act of lawless judicial activism." So I assume he will be upset. Dick.

Bobby Jindals reply to Obamacare being upheld is almost comical. Its comical in the way that I like to laugh at people who are really assholes and say nonsense, not like a funny joke or anything. He was really pissed off because the Supreme Court didn't take away healthcare from millions of people based on semantics. Jindal demanded that the Supreme Court does not have the final say in the land . because ... yeah.

Of course, Mister Christian was all aflutter over SCOTUS' support of marriage equality today. It is curious. Im not kidding. I cannot have a rational discussion with someone and come out of it understanding how in the FUCK your religious liberties are diminished by another persons happiness.

I don't want to bark too loudly. Maybe they don't realize what they sound like to rational people. I just hope enough of them are paying attention. Good Gravy!

America the BEAUTIFUL

There is nothing special here. I want to just save this for myself in the future. This was the best week to be a Liberal in a very long time. Monday the Republican governor of Alabama took down the Confederate flags on the statehouse. By himself. He didn't wait for the legislature to allow him to do it. He just did it. It was instigated by an awful event and the tragedy will be with us forever. I hope more progress continues to come from their loss to honor them.

Yesterday Obamacare was upheld by SCOTUS. The Republicans in Congress have little else to signify their time in DC other than trying to take down Obamacare (because why would anyone think it was acceptable to give affordable healthcare for all?) and having hearings on Benghazi. The way that the findings were written made it almost impossible for anyone to try to take it down again. Now people will have to just work toward making it the best resource for all Americans.

And then today .... I swear when Audrey was a baby I envisioned the country having marriage equality by the time she grew up and entered the world, but I thought there were too many backward people in the world. IT PASSED. In the Supreme Court!!! And even though the GOP likes to turn every single thing into a states rights issue so they can influence their own courts and define their own little fucked up world, the court made this for the whole country. SO SUCK IT!!! And all of my brothers and sisters in the country can marry who they love and my world became more beautiful today.

My favorite headline today? Slate:

Hey! Here's a map of where gay marriage is legal in America!