Science? Republicans Don't Need No Stinkin' Science!

Every scientific field seems to have a quack or two. They are on the fringe of what has become scientifically Accepted or proven. They have crazy theories which they are desperate to hold on to. They are probably the 6% (yes, 6%) of American scientists who identify as Republicans. The scientists who listen to repeated dismissals of their research and findings have lost all regard for those who lack the moral depth to accept truths when they counter what their constituency and, more importantly, their donors, want to hear.

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The quacks are the doctors our 'representatives' on the right like to find and give an opportunity to offer a different perspective on things. It is as if a person has a title, Americans should just accept that whatever they say is true. They know that by the time it is researched and proven false, the majority of the country will have moved on to paying attention to something else. The GOP faithful will believe it as if God himself came down to proclaim its truth. Again, they have been very well conditioned.

There are two issues that the right are very adamant about reporting false information on. They are, of course, choice and climate change. Because Republicans only objective is to appease their base and their donors, they often rely on information that is blatantly false. Completely false. The kind of false that you literally pay for. The kind of false that you find a scientist, tell him what you need the theory and the outcome to be, and then pay that scientist to give you that answer. This is always most important to their issues of the environment. Several of their biggest donors are from industries that are decimating the environment. But they would really rather we not focus on that. So they just say "nu'huh" and America is supposed to then agree that climate change is a hoax. Senator Inhofe brought a snowball to the Senate floor, after all.

A favorite scientist for the GOP to cite and hear testimony from is Wei-Hock Soon. He is a solar physicist and, per the New York Times, he has been repeatedly discredited for having violated the ethical guidelines of the journals he was publishing to. What types of violations? The kinds where they have to disclose where the funding came from to bankroll their research. It seems he has earned over $1.2 million from the fossil fuel industry and left this out of most of his reports. His reports have literally identified themselves as "deliverables" when submitted to corporations, to include Koch holdings, and Congress. What a glorious country we live in when a person can be completely discredited in his own field and ostracized by his contemporaries, but still manage to make a good living working for the government. I wonder if they would like for me to help them out with anything on Department of Education studies? I did aspire to be a teacher when I was a kid. That should certainly count for something.

In 2012, Representative Todd Akin (R-MO) was being interviewed by a local news station and they asked if he supported abortion rights for victims of rape. What should've been a pretty common, if not nonsensical, answer, ruined his career. Thankfully, he answered, “It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down." This sounds pretty ludicrous, but, like he said, he had heard it from doctors. John C Willke, a General Practitioner and former president of the National Right to Life Movement, said "[Rape] is a traumatic thing - she's, shall we say, she's uptight. She is frightened, tight, and so on. And sperm, if deposited in her vagina, are less likely to be able to fertilize. The tubes are spastic." During Akin's tenure in Congress, he was on the Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Considering his fantastical ideas of how a woman's body works, its probably a good thing he isn't there making decisions on scientific endeavors anymore.

Fortunately, sometimes it is only the representatives who are quacks. Sometimes they invite doctors for testimony who can set them straight. In February of this year, Idaho held a hearing on a bill to stop doctors from using telemedicine, allowing women in rural areas to teleconference with a doctor while sitting with a nurse to explain her situation, from being allowed to prescribe abortion medications. During the hearing, testimony was provided by Dr. Julie Madsen who explained the many attributes of telemedicine and insisted that it is a rather useful resource for many types of procedures where the patient would be far from their doctor. She explained that a patient could swallow a pill and it could have a small camera in it to allow a doctor from thousands of miles away to upload pictures for a colonoscopy. Vito Barbieri, Republican State Representative, then asked Dr. Madsen, “Can this same procedure then be done in a pregnancy? Swallowing a camera and helping the doctor determine what the situation is?” The doctor replied, “It cannot be done in pregnancy, simply because when you swallow a pill it would not end up in the vagina.” Well, thank goodness that's settled. But it should give us pause about which people we are allowing to legislate regarding our health.

As with all opportunities afforded the right in matters of caring for our country or its people, it seems they will continue to only care about protecting those who send them to Washington. The word 'representative' offers a much narrower definition than our forefathers initially intended. As long as we don't ask for something better in our government, we will continue to ask America to be led by those who truly have no interest in her well being or her future.

Dear Police: If You Need to Git 'Er Done, You Need to Go!

Our society seems to be gradually losing its soul. Power seems to hold more value these days than human lives. Over the last couple of years it almost seems that we have come to not only expect that out of control police officers will be sent free, but many people have determined that they should. Society is being conditioned to believe that life is so invaluable as to willingly accept its loss over a loose cigarette or an unpaid child support order. We seem to have a growing number of people who first seek control and then exploit it with an enthusiasm that a reasoned person could never comprehend. It is as if there is a joy or a pride in the excitement of wielding power over another person. I won’t go into the myriad of possible causes because it is too complex for a simple piece, but the representations are all around us.

The video released this weekend shows that we may be making progress considering the events of the last few years where police officers had been either filmed or suspected of having murdered unarmed citizens. Although the video shows us a way-to-eager white neighbor trying to help the police ‘bring order’ to the situation, it also showed that some of the police officers were completely mindful of the fact that the rogue in their midst was taking it too far when he pulled out his gun. Of course, I would have much rather they stopped that officer before a little girl was slammed to the Earth by her hair and abused in a manner that a citizen would certainly find jail time for. But, at least no one got shot, this time. Jesus! That is an absolute tragedy isn’t it? I still find I’m holding my breath when I watch the video for the *nth time and hear her call for her mother and here I suggest that we should commend officers for not allowing this cop to open fire on unarmed kids. Sometimes I really think I need to commit myself when I try to rationalize the base of our society. Honestly.

The day before Easter an unarmed citizen of South Carolina, Walter Scott, was pulled over in a traffic stop and he took off because he had unpaid child support orders. He was filmed being murdered because he ran from a cop with an all too eager attitude to just kill the man, do the paperwork and go home for the evening. Americans were all over social media having an argument about whether or not it was wrong. Really? As a woman who never received child support, I would have loved for someone to have taken the warrants for my back pay seriously. But I wouldn’t expect anyone to die over it. Watching that video I felt the fear of this man running from gunshots. I watched the cop and couldn’t imagine what he could have been thinking, “I don’t want to chase after this man who I pulled over for a simple driving infraction, I’ll just shoot him until he’s dead.” Git ‘Er done, motherfucker.

We saw Eric Garner strangled to death last year and I have not been able to shake that vision. I am haunted by it. Mr. Garner never posed a threat to anyone. He was a single man surrounded by police officers. He begged for them to stop and there was no moment of reflection where the officer realized the man had been subdued and he needed to step away. One of the commonalities between the Walter Scott murder and that of Eric Garner is the fact that after they were both clearly dead, they were put into handcuffs. Was it to make it look like they were alive for anyone who was watching or was it still part of their need to dominate? Who gives a shit? Git ‘Er done, motherfucker.

In Cleveland last year a 12 year old boy, Tamir Rice, was in the park with no one around. The police pulled up and shot him. There was no warning given. This child had not even had an opportunity to register what was going on and they killed him. These police officers get a call about a “young man” in the park with a gun and they drove in with an immediate instinct to shoot him. That is not how they were trained to deal with this situation. There were several steps in the middle that they completely surpassed where they would have determined that #1 he was a child #2 the gun was a toy #3 he was a threat to no one. They decided to forego all of the training they were given and just drove up to murder this child. Git ‘Er done, motherfucker.

Maybe the fact that there were officers at the scene in Texas this weekend who were able to control themselves and (finally) sought to control the one who was taking things way too far is a sign that law enforcement is hearing society’s demand that it be the responsibility of the police officers to treat their citizenry with respect until they are given a reason not to? Maybe this will begin a change where their leaders demand that they offer respect to both the power and the weapons they are given in their job of protecting and serving our communities? These officers have been protecting and serving their own egos. Period.

I’m glad Officer Casebolt quit his job because he should have but the outcome of his ‘investigation’ in a state like Texas will offer us insight to the way things are heading. If there was ever a way to show the exact mentality we are fighting against, we were offered it this weekend.

Git ‘Er done, motherfucker.

Indeed.

Dear Media: I Am Running for President!!

Dear Media:

I have decided to run for President and am inviting you to the kick-off announcement for my campaign. From what I gather in watching all of your coverage, it is a bad idea for a candidate from the left to have amassed any wealth. This is very encouraging for me. Not only am I not well off, but I live in a trailer park. I am hoping to kick my campaign off here this weekend. Although I do not ride a motorcycle like Scott Walker, the guy down the road, we call him Drunk Mike, has a motorcycle. I'll bet he would be glad to ride me through the park with a flag and maybe a bullhorn or something. Would you like to come cover that and ask the Americans who live here what they would like from a leader? Because you all spend so much time finding ways to discount positive economic news that comes out each month, I guess my neighborhood would be a true representation of an American community and its needs would be the perfect projection for your audience.

My neighbors have started a SuperPac to help me get started. They have already raised enough to pay for my internet through the election. I will be running the majority of my campaign online because I don't have a lot of money to pay for travel. You are all welcome to visit me here for interviews, though. Because my time and funds are so limited, however, I would like to get a few tips from you all before you come. I hope you don't mind taking the time to help me understand.

I guess its the campaigning itself that is confusing for me. I am a Democrat and I am a woman. I notice that all of the candidates on the right are men (aside from Fiorina who even you all don't seem to really be taking seriously) and are allowed to pretty much dictate which questions they answer. Will I be afforded that same courtesy? How does it work, exactly? It seems as if I just scowl and refuse to answer or change the subject you will back down. Or do I publicly condemn you for having a conservative bias and shame you into asking me the questions I want to answer? It seems kind of rude, honestly. I would really rather not have to do either. So if you could just stick with questions that are relevant to Americans, I think we would be fine.

Although the questions the candidates on the right seem to favor are those that they can turn into a tirade on Secretary Clinton, I would really rather you just focus on the issues I would like to tackle during my 4 or 8 years leading the country. I hope that you don't spend too much of our time together asking me to trash talk any of the other candidates. I could write you a book. Or a series of books, probably. Okay. I could actually write you a series of tomes, but the point is - if I have less than eighteen months to tell my fellow citizens how I envision our future, I would rather leave my diatribes for 2024.

I sincerely love my country. I guess that I am supposed to start there. From what you have reported to me, I am then supposed to tell America the reasons I love her. I should begin by defining my patriotism. Correct? Well, I do not believe in the idea of American Exceptionalism as those on the right keep defining it. I do hope that we can work toward being exceptional, however, and I have a lot of ideas about how to get us there. Frankly, it is hard to decide how to define my patriotism in a way that your audience will appreciate. It seems that everyone has been conditioned to believe that it is found in things I cannot understand. Please forgive my naivete if I do not come off patriotic. This is all new to me. So, this weekend you all reported that Secretary Clinton was condemned at a Joni Ernst fundraiser for having "Probably never ridden a John Deere," I have! So I am hoping you can report that to Americans for me. But, I am not sure if that experience is relevant as I have never walked to school in a downpour with Wonder Bread bags on my feet. Maybe we could get clarification before you report on that. I wouldn't want a cherished childhood memory of having steered the tractor from my granddady's lap to end up being maligned because my childhood had missed any other important milestones.

I believe that a lot of what Senator Sanders has been saying has been exactly what America needs to hear right now. The word 'socialist' has been bandied about, however, and that has been offered to us as a bad word. I certainly don't want any bad words attributed to me. Can we just stick with something like 'really really worried about taking care of all Americans' or something like that? It sounds a lot better, don't you think?

Of the many issues I am passionate about, the first that I would want to discuss is healthcare. People keep telling us that universal healthcare is a terrible thing. The only terrible things I would like to tell Americans are the horror stories of real people who are suffering because their state has decided to deny people coverage. I want them to know about how 850,000 Floridians have had their medical coverage taken away by their legislatures because they were deemed 'able bodied' even though the only way they can actually be so is by paying $4000/month to cover health costs to enable them to breathe. I am sure that, before Americans go to vote next year, they would want to know the very specific details about their candidates positions on this issue. Wouldn't you think so, as an American?

I am a proud feminist and would want to make women's issues a main focus of my campaign. I am concerned, however, because although I am aware of the rabid opinions those running on the right have espoused about women, I have never heard any in the media report on them. Are those the types of issues the media just doesn't like to cover? Unlike Mike Huckabee, I believe that women are quite capable of multi-tasking, even while on their periods. All of the candidates on the right have said they want to get rid of a woman's right to chose altogether. I would like to really have a discussion about that. Will you be willing to cover it? As yet, I have not heard the media cover any of their extreme ideas about women. It is hard to defend an argument when your audience hasn't even heard it. I hope you will understand this and start reporting on the things they say to their party so the rest of Americans can make an educated choice between my vision and theirs.

Like every other candidate on the left who has ever been interviewed, I believe that we should have laws to restrict gun use by those who have been deemed dangerous. Would you please make a point of specifically telling your audience that I am not interested in getting rid of the Second Amendment? In fact, I would even go a step farther and tell them that if they would stop the discourse about taking away the Constitutional rights of a woman to decide what to do with her own body, I would gladly see to it that they keep their Second Amendment. That seems fair. Then we could knock out two extreme conversations with one sentence and get back to things that the majority of Americans are actually concerned about.

I have been struggling to understand why there is so much coverage on Secretary Clinton in the media and so little on the many candidates on the right? Maybe because there are too many on the right you become overwhelmed and just focus on the left? I hope that my entry to the campaign doesn't create a field so large that it makes you decide to stop covering politics altogether. Information really is supposed to be the service that you give Americans and it would be a shame for you to give up before you even tried.

I lack the grace of President Obama and the experience of Secretary Clinton. I am easily frustrated and get quite defensive when I am dismissed or disrespected. I fear my campaign will end before it has a chance to really begin if you refuse to cover my campaign respectfully. You all are welcome to hours of commentary on what my platform is about. In fact, I would encourage that. Although my life will offer you more than enough truly tabloidesque moments to explore and exploit, I hope that you will keep that to a minimum. I think Americans would like to be able to discern my trustworthiness and intentions with little thought to whether or not I was a jackass as a teenager or took five years to get my two year college degree. My opinions are vastly different from those you have been offering to your audiences so I hope that will be enough to warrant your time and attention.

I'll see you this weekend!

Kiss kiss,

Mean Progressive

Mike Huckabee Still Hates the LGBT Community

So many glorious revelations are being had in American society today that it is almost hard to believe. When I had my daughter 23 years ago I hoped that when she grew up we would have left racism, bigotry and homophobia behind us. We are all still working on them, unfortunately. But we are also seriously working on them. The Black Lives Matter movement is being heard. The feminist movement is losing its stigma. And the LGBT community is finally being embraced for being actual human beings just like the rest of us.

It was telling when Caitlyn Jenner was on the front page of Vanity Fair just how far the LGBT movement had come. Every single (creditworthy) news outlet supported and celebrated her freedom. What was more telling, however, was the fact that the media had also found a nasty piece of video where Mike Huckabee told his congregation (what was that shit, a sermon?) that we are 'under threat' by those who are transgender in society and the media made him accountable for having said it.

Huckabee gets away with a lot that the media refuses to cover. But they nailed him for his nasty remarks and all of the other candidates on the right were similarly held accountable for his hateful rhetoric. Only Lindsey Graham was supportive of Caitlyn's transformation. Huckabee had to backtrack a bit and say that it was last year. Ok Mike. So, what? You have had a revelation in the last year? Its possible. Right? We all evolve.

But not Mike Huckabee. This was on his Facebook page just last night. We all know that the right has determined President Obama is responsible for absolutely everything. When they are on the campaign trail, all GOP candidates find the most creative ways to bring either the President or Secretary Clinton into the discussion. Last night Huckabee, in what seemed like an effort to condemn the Obama Administrations military preparedness for Isis, found a way to slam the LGBT community, too. He sure is creative, huh?

Let us not offer him a chance to slither out of this one. Please pass this on.

Kiss Kiss,

Mean Progressive :)

Black Lives Matter?

I don't know. Do black lives matter? I can't tell. I am sickened by how many people have to defensively scream in reply, "All Lives Matter!" Yeah? Kindly fuck yourself. I know that most of America's citizens say that they want equality. But we are all living in the same country and having the same stories relayed to us. And we are not all the handful of assholes who go around blindly demanding the innocence of the people who kill unarmed black men. But we continue to coexist with them. And we continue to allow them to be outraged when anyone attempts to have a rational discussion about where we are as a country. Yes. In fact, all lives do matter. But until we can all get on the same page about that, it really is important that we all focus a little deeper on the lives we allow our society to dismiss.

It has been six months now since we have been seeing this face in the news. I'm not kidding. When we were offered the picture of Trayvon Martin in the hoodie a few years ago, I could not let him go. And Tamir Rice is so much harder. This little boy was 12 years old. LOOK AT THAT FACE!!!  Neither of these children were doing anything wrong. After Trayvon was murdered and the trash that killed him was let go I honestly thought that my country was having an awakening. There were a  handful of assholes who I gladly put in their place, but for the most part everyone I talked to seemed to be pissed at work. And online. And then time passed. And then countless unarmed black men were being murdered by police officers. And we were offered absolutely bullshit stories that no one would believe. Right? Eric Garner was on video! And the people who were outraged with me about Trayvon just kind of settled into a nice, easy complacency in their world where police officers do no wrong. Being a thoughtful and useful member of society demands that you have a little more analysis than you will find in a lazy right v. wrong / good v. bad / black v. white argument. Sometimes you have to actually let go of whatever comfortable naiveté you have allowed yourself to live with and enter reality. You have to be thoughtful enough to process information with a depth that tells you that some Americans are racists and, statistically some racists are cops and some cops who kill unarmed black men just might be racists. And then you have to be outraged and demand more of your country!

Did everyone watch the same newscasts that I did? Did everyone who, undoubtedly, knew that GoFundMe accounts were created (and funded into the hundreds of thousands) for each of the officers who killed these men also see on the news that the mother of Tamir Rice ended up homeless? Which lives matter? This is your country! This is the country where you demand that all lives matter! Really? Then act like it. Have outrage because a child was murdered and his mother, who undoubtedly fell into an awful depression, then ended up in a homeless shelter! Admit that her child was murdered! Tell yourself and tell your children and tell anyone who disagrees with you that her child was murdered. The moment you allow yourself or anyone else a hint of hesitation here means you are not qualified to judge which lives matter.

You are the problem in America if you have seen that video and, knowing that you are looking at a 12 year old child who is standing there doing nothing, having no time to even register what is going on, is shot and murdered by a police officer who had been released from his former department for his immaturity and over-emotion regarding his desire to shoot his gun, you can find a word that doesn't mean murder. And you are the problem when you have no outrage after having heard the same news story that I did about his sister then being pinned down by the police officer when she went to help her dying brother; the brother that was still not receiving CPR or any kind of aid. And until you admit that this is the most tragic story you can imagine if your eyes are closed and that child is white, you will continue to be the reason my country is such a tragedy. And you will continue to be the reason that black lives, in fact, do not matter.

I have no information to offer anyone here. I have done no research and found no answers. I offer no recipe for anyone on how to make our country better. I am just pissed off and needed to rant tonight. If you made it all the way to the end and were hoping for a revelation, I apologize.