The 21st century reincarnation of “Make Love, Not War” has arrived.
When ’60s protesters were opposing the Vietnam War, they emblazoned the demand for sexual freedom over violence on buttons they wore on their chests. Come next fall, students at the University of Texas Austin will protest concealed handguns on campus by strapping “gigantic swinging dildos” to their backpacks.
“The State of Texas has decided that it is not at all obnoxious to allow deadly concealed weapons in classrooms, however it DOES have strict rules about free sexual expression, to protect your innocence,” reads the Facebook event created by music student Jessica Jin.
Trump making Republicans nervous now summer is over
Summer is over. And Donald Trump is — still — at the top of the 2016 Republican primary field.
That makes lots and lots of Republicans with an eye on winning the White House in 2016 (or even 2020) very, very nervous. That unease — and its origins — are explained brilliantly in this paragraph, taken from a broader piece entitled “The GOP is Killing Itself,” by former Bush administration official Pete Wehner:
The message being sent to voters is this: The Republican Party is led by people who are profoundly uncomfortable with the changing (and inevitable) demographic nature of our nation. The GOP is longing to return to the past and is fearful of the future. It is a party that is characterized by resentments and grievances, by distress and dismay, by the belief that America is irredeemably corrupt and past the point of no return. “The American dream is dead,” in the emphatic words of Mr. Trump.
Fairfax tickets cars while they wait for inspection: shooting fish in a barrel
Fairfax County tickets cars while they wait for inspection for not having an inspection. This habit is pretty much like shooting fish in a barrel.
According to the Washington Post (Tom Jackman):
Bruce Redwine had seen enough. After years of watching a Fairfax County parking enforcement officer slap tickets on his customers’ cars for expired tags or inspection stickers, usually as the cars were awaiting state inspection or repair at his Chantilly shop, he snatched the latest ticket out of Officer Jacquelyn D. Hogue’s hand and added some profane commentary on top.
Hogue responded by having Redwine arrested for felony assault on a police officer, though she is not a police officer. And when the case first went to court, a Fairfax judge sentenced Redwine to four days in jail.
Redwine appealed, got a jury trial last month and was acquitted within minutes. But the bitterness he feels at having to spend thousands of dollars in legal fees, plus being booked, fingerprinted and photographed at the county jail, with no prior record, is shared by numerous fellow auto repair operators at the Mariah Business Center on Sullyfield Circle off Route 28.
They don’t understand why Fairfax police have zealously sought to enforce laws on expired tags or inspections, mainly on drivers who are making the effort to get their cars into compliance, while on private property. Hogue’s appearance in the industrial park often set off a scramble to hide customers’ cars inside the shops, the shop owners said.
“They’re harassing the small businesses trying to make it in this tough economy,” said Ray Barrera of A&H Equipment Repair. He estimated that his customers’ vehicles had been hit with $60,000 worth of fines and fees over the past six years.
The offending officer is parking enforcement Officer Jacqueline Hogue who we might note is not a LEO, she is parking enforcement. Some folks might call her a meter maid. Others might call her even worse.
Paddling groups: Let’s Screw up Yellowstone and Grand Teton NP
A House panel’s green light Thursday to lift longstanding restrictions on kayaks, rafts and other “hand-propelled” watercraft on rivers and streams in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks has opened a new front in the battle between environmentalists and tourists.
Legislation pushed by Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R), Wyoming’s lone House member, passed the Natural Resources Committee on a party-line vote and now heads to the House floor.
The bill requires the National Park Service to study a combined 6,500 miles of waterways in the parks to assess the impact on fish and wildlife of expanding paddling there. But with no study, park visitors could travel down 450 miles of rivers and streams thanks to a last-minute amendment that passed the committee.
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No get out of jail free for sex on the beach
It’s been dubbed the “sex-on-the-beach” trial.
A Florida jury on Monday convicted Jose Caballero, 40, and Elissa Alvarez, 20, on charges that they had sex on Bradenton Beach in broad daylight. They face up to 15 years behind bars and will have to register as sex offenders.
Each of them faced two charges of lewd and lascivious behavior, carrying a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, the Bradenton Herald reported.
Defense attorney Ronald Kurpiers told the newspaper that Caballero and Alvarez were “devastated” by the jury’s decision.
Prosecutors — including the elected 12th Circuit State Attorney Ed Brodsky — sought a conviction in the high-profile trial to make it clear that such behavior is not acceptable on the community’s public beaches.
“We’re dealing with basically tourists, that came from Brandon and Riverview and West Virginia, and they’re here on the beaches of Manatee County, our public beaches,” Assistant State Attorney Anthony Dafonseca said, according to the Herald. “So you want to make sure that this isn’t something that just goes by the wayside. And that it is well known to the community, what will be tolerated and what won’t be.”
Oh dear God! Talk about overkill. How about a stiff fine and some community service and that’s it? Don’t we have enough people in prison already? Now, I am not supporting their actions at all. Their behavior was inappropriate at best, and illegal at worst. However, we don’t send people to prison for having sex, as consenting adults. That is just as childish as having sex on the beach in broad daylight.
This time it’s in Arizona….
And yet another shooting.
Washingtonpost.com:
One person has been killed and three others wounded in a fight that escalated into a shooting near a Greek-life dorm at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Ariz.
The suspected gunman, 18-year-old freshman Steven Jones. is in custody, NAU Police Chief Greg Fowler said. The injured survivors — identified by the school as Nicholas Prato, Kyle Zientek and Nicholas Piring — are being treated at Flagstaff Medical Center.
Freshman Colin Brough was killed in the shooting, the school said.
According to Fowler, the police chief, “two separate student groups got into a confrontation” shortly after 1 a.m. Friday. “The confrontation turned physical,” Fowler said, and Jones “produced a handgun and shot four other students.”
The sound heard around the Hill: “I am not the one”?
Are the congressional Republicans imploding? What’s going on? Have the hardliners killed the GOP?
Something needs to give. Do what I call “normal Republicans” even have a chance? The GOP leadership appears to be in chaos.
This year is definitely bizarre world in terms of politics. Trump and Carson still have the lead. They are absolutely not leaders, in my book.
What will happen tomorrow? I will sort of miss Rep. McCarthy. There was something endearing about him.
Quote of the day: Anthony Weiner said “These guys are the straws that are stirring the drink in the Republican party.” [meaning the 40 rebels]
Absentee ballot leaks
I blew my knee out last July. It still is problematic and I reinjured it at the gym. Why am I telling this info on a blog….well…stay tuned. There really is a point.
I got to wondering if it was going to be better or worse in November. What if it is worse? How can I stand in line to vote? So I did what I thought was the logical thing to do, I registered to vote absentee.
Now I find out that everyone in the world has access to this information. I have already gotten one personalized letter from a candidate. Why is the fact that I am voting absentee a matter of public record?
Is nothing private? I am surprised they didn’t have bad knee written on the form.
Let’s point a finger at the other guy…..couldn’t possibly be us!
At the Nation’s Gun Show in Chantilly, Va., on Saturday, in a cavernous warehouse filled with thousands of customers and tens of thousands of guns, the sharp sound snaps a few heads.
“We’re going to have to have a discussion about those balloon animals,” Annette Elliott, the show’s organizer, said wearily.
Forgive Elliott — and everyone — if nerves are frayed in this era of weekly mass shootings. She, too, has become familiar with the ritual of gun violence in America, but hers comes with a personal twist. Another week. Another massacre. Another round of calls from reporters asking what can be done and who is to blame for the country’s deadly gun culture. After the latest rampage, which ended with 10 dead, including the shooter, at Umpqua Community College on Thursday in Roseburg, Ore., she is hearing the questions again.
“We’re being put out there like it’s our fault,” Elliott says. “But what we’re selling is an inanimate object. And I don’t know what the response is except to arm yourself to protect yourself.” As gun opponents ratchet up the calls for more controls and more regulations, gun owners and sellers have no choice but to push back, she says. The fault, she says, lies with a mental health system that doesn’t have enough resources and with the media which, she says, gives mass killers all the attention they crave.
This response is insane. The problem doesn’t just lie with the mental health system. The problem is imbedded in our culture. We love our guns, we love our violent video games, we love our rights, we love our media, and we love our polarized politics.
The solution to the problem of massacre by gun is not going to be solved by pointing one’s finger at the other guy. The solution has to be found in a subset of all of these components of our culture. You can’t leave anyone out. The gun folks, the mental health folks, the media, and the entertainment industry all have to collude and seek common ground. Each will have to give up a little.
When everyone decides we all own the problem then perhaps we can get to the solution to eradicate some of gun violence. We will never get rid of it all but we have to stop the epidemic of mass shootings.
Oregon Sheriff must have fallen asleep at the switch…
I have no idea why Sheriff Hanlin felt the need to write to Joe Biden, but something must have set him off.
The irony of his words hit home tonight. Sheriff John Hanlin is the sheriff of Douglas County where there was a mass murder at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.
Sheriff Hanlin must be feeling rather impotent tonight as 10 students lay dead and 7 others are hospitalized with life-threatening wounds from a crazed gunman with 4 guns opened fire on innocent people, just trying to get an education.
So we now need to ask ourselves as Americans how many more lives have to be lost because some bat-shit crazy man decides to randomly blow away innocent people to please whatever demons possess him. I refuse to believe that there are no answers. Other countries don’t have mass murders every other week.
President Obama is right about numbness. I have almost become desensitized. How many more school shootings need to happen? These school shootings make a good argument for home schooling and distance learning. They also make a strong argument for change regarding how we purchase and store our guns in this country.
Does McCarthy gaffe make him “untrustable” to Republicans?
Democrats have seized on House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s comments tying Hillary Clinton’s declining poll numbers to the Benghazi investigation as evidence that the congressional panel’s examination is a veiled political attack on the Democratic candidate for president.
McCarthy, widely viewed as the frontrunner to succeed retiring Speaker John Boehner when House leadership elections are held Oct. 8, said in an interview Tuesday on Fox News that Clinton was “untrustable” in a large part because of the committee’s work.
“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable,” McCarthy said in reference to Clinton’s role in events surrounding the 2012 terrorist attack. “No one would have known any of what happened had we not fought and made that happen.”
Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon blasted the remark as “a damning display of honesty.”
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