For Canadian readers of DJ! who may not be following events in the Excited States, two matters. And they do matter, because if Stevie Peevie gets a Majority, this is exactly where Canada is headed.
Item 1
This week Rethugicans stole the Wisconsin Supreme Court election -- I know, weird to elect judges, but hey, otherwise they might be 'activist' judges.
A little back ground: when Rethug Gov Scott Walker pulled his TeaBag-, Majority- and Koch-feuled union-busting attack on the middle class, a number of recall efforts started, but democrats (small and Large) saw an early chance to rebuke (at least) the Thugs in the Supreme Court election on April 5. The good people of Wisconsin campaigned hard for a woman named JoAnne Kloppenberg (D) against incumbent David Prosser (R).
And for a heady but short time, it looked like they were winning a little. Kloppenberg held a 204-vote lead.
Then, ooopsie!
The Political wing of the Tea Party Terrorists have found 7,582 votes for their pet Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate.
The Clerk involved took her computer systems off the State network so vote tallies could not be verified. Some history:
Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus’ decision to go it alone in how she collects and maintains election results has some county officials raising a red flag about the integrity of the system.
Nickolaus said she decided to take the election data collection and storage system off the county’s computer network – and keep it on stand-alone personal computers accessible only in her office – for security reasons.
Check the link for Nickolaus's history of electoral oopsies.
And, oddly enough, the 'found' votes are just enough to avoid a state-funded recount. So, if anyone wants to investigate, it's gonna cost big time. Remember Al Franken's long drawn-out ordeal?
When Michael Moore said: 'They may have the money but we have the numbers', perhaps he should have added: 'But then again, they have the money to corrupt the numbers'.
Sad and disheartening as that is -- not to mention the precursor of much more to come -- dig this.
Item 2
The entire US federal government is about to grind to a halt over Planned Parenthood.
Yes, ladies, the greatest country in the world will stop paying its bills and its soldiers, teachers, and public servants because you sluts insist on having some say over your own bodies, or to use the latest swear word, 'uterus'.
Negotiations on the federal budget failed yet again last night, with reports coming out of Washington that the two parties are more or less in agreement on the numbers, but that they cannot agree on several “social” issues:
Republicans are threatening to shut down the government unless Democrats agree to cut funding for Planned Parenthood. They’re also demanding the de-funding of the UN Populations Fund and the Environmental Protection Agency, because if you’re slutty enough to get accidentally pregnant, your unplanned children don’t deserve to breathe clean air.
Here’s what the Republicans are demanding, in convenient and infuriating bullet point form, thanks to the New York Times:
• No federal financing for Planned Parenthood because it performs abortions. Instead, state administration of federal family planning funds, which means that Republican governors and legislatures will not spend them.
• No local financing for abortion services in the District of Columbia.
• No foreign aid to countries that might use the money for abortion or family planning. And no aid to the United Nations Population Fund, which supports family-planning services.
'More or less in agreement' except for UTERUSES GOING ROGUE!!!!!
(Aside to skeptics: Yes, at DJ!, we do occasionally exaggerate. Check the bloody links. This is true.)
OK, the Excited States have always been particularly insane when it comes to abortion and women's rights. But they gone totally batshitoverthetoploco BECAUSE last November's elections gave the Tea Baggers a Majority.
Majority, as in 'we can do whatever the fuck we want and you can go suck lemons' or bleach or Lysol or other creative concoctions.
Again, we are taught that women's rights are always negotiable.
Coincidentally, a gang of NeoTheoCons here in Canada, who happen to number way too many fetus fetishists among them, want the very same thing. A Majority.
And they need us wimmins on their side -- or the sidelines -- in order to get it.
We cannot let this happen.
Vote. Vote strategically.
And drag every woman you know -- and every friend of women -- to the polls.
There's a saying: 'When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving a cross.'
Well, when it comes to Canada, it will come wrapped in apathy and waving a double-double.
9 comments:
Before the election, I was pretty sure the CPC would win a very slim majority -- if only because people will vote for the devil they know rather than the devil they don't. But Harper has campaigned dismally for the last couple of weeks (IMO) and I no longer think it's in the cards.
I notice the word "coalition" is being intoned less & less, and I think they were counting on beating Ignatieff to a pulp with it. A serious tactical error because instead it ended up being mocked, even by our malleable media. This is pivotal.
I wouldn't lose heart: the cons might well win another minority, but at this point I think it will be a reduced one -- no way do I see them getting a majority. If that happens, Harper is gone, replaced by someone more palatable to centrists. At least that's the way I see it.
As for the states, yikes. Time for the zombie wall.
Every time I bring up the election to people, the majority of the time I get an eye roll and some muttering about how they don't pay attention to politics. So far, I'm the only one at work that knows anything about Wisconsin, knows that the Koch brothers just registered to lobby our provincial government here in Alberta, and that Koch is behind what is happening in Wisconsin. AND I work in a unionized place.
As far as I can tell, the apathy has been fully set in place. The double doubles have been here for a while.
I think we should just make it a crime if a woman's vagina envelopes a conservatard or a rethug's dick. After all isn't the primitive fear behind all this moronic stupidity is that men know women will always choose the baby before the man? That's not male-bashing, that's instinct.
Pro-Vagina
Anti-Uterus
Pro-Viagra
Anti-Child
Women just have to vote for their own self interests, or we're doomed.
JJ: I'm trying not to lose heart. All this crap -- North Africa, ME, Tea Baggers, Canadian election -- has turned me into a manic depressive. Ridiculously elated one second, gob-smacked by terror the next.
Here's my recent elation moment. Video of First Nations group exhorting their people to vote and fill out the census. Things they have been understandably reluctant to do in the past.
And you are responsible for my recent terror moment -- all those earmarks on the US whatever they're calling it bill. Environment, women's rights, poor people all slammed. Coz you know that's what our ReThugs want too.
It's going to be a rough 3+ weeks ahead.
Bleatmop: Yeah, I know. But if most Merkins are hardly aware of what's happening, you can hardly blame Canadians. But let Stevie dismantle the public per-vote subsidy, then institute some free-wheeling anything-goes corporate donation scheme, we'll be right there too à la Citizens United. There was a doozy of a mistake.
In the past, Canadians have averted some of the Merkins' worst mistakes -- Viet Nam, hollowing out cities with expressways -- by watching and learning. Now, maybe the news cycle is too fast for any learning.
Anonymous: I would never ever countenance violence against women, but if a gal pal says to me she's not gonna vote, it'll be a Dr. Strangelove-Mein Fuhrer moment for sure.
Not to adopt a "told-you-so" tone, but this is why every now and then I stress the need to disentangle ourselves - politically, culturally, economically - from the swollen, necrotic, gangrenous mass to the south. Just smile tightly and back away slowly.
Thanks for the video of the First Nation campaign. It's a great speech.
@ Orwell's Bastard
DON'T PATRONIZE US OR WE'LL SHUFFLE AND SLIME OUR WAY ACROSS THE BORDER AND EAT YOUR BRAINS!!!!!
Sorry ;) Please realize that there are little whimpering clots of USians shitting ourselves over the state of the country right now. Unfortunately, as Bleatmop and others, myself included, have said -- the complete apathy and ignorance of most Americans regarding current political affairs is terrifying and completely demoralizing.
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