On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals as his nominee to fill Antonin Scalia's vacant seat
on the Supreme Court. This was hailed by conservatives as courageous, decried by liberals as dangerous, with Nancy Pelosi going so far as to call the choice
"hostile." And most of the Senate Democrats have resolved to hold up the nomination for as long as they possibly can. Not a surprise, considering the
abdication of duty exhibited by Senate Republicans when President Obama nominated Merrick Garland. Scalia's seat has been vacant for almost a year now, and
cases have been kicked back to the lower courts due to 4-4 draws in the current make up. Mitch McConnell basked in the glow of extreme pride that he
successfully held up the process long enough to get a Republican president in office. Not a joke, McConnell himself said at a campaign rally in Fancy Farm,
Kentucky, "One of my proudest moments is when I looked at Barack Obama in the eye and I said, 'Mr. President, you will not fill this Supreme Court vacancy.'"
And the crowd went wild.
Now that they have accomplished this, Gorsuch is supposed to be their heir apparent to Scalia. That may or may not be the case, but there are already cries of
foul from the left because of Gorsuch's professions of concern about the judicial system being leaned on too much for decisions that should remain with the
legislature or voters, yet his decisions show him being a staunch obstacle when liberal issues come before him, versus a red carpet when conservative issues come
before him. He has a history of supporting conservative executives breaking the law (Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal) and dissenting on the rights of protesters
(his entire college career, opinions on Aparteid protests). But a big hint into how he thinks and operates has been brought up in a little known case in Utah,
where the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah (PPAU) sued Utah Governor Gary Herbert, a Republican, for directing his Executive Director of the Utah Department
of Health (UDOH), Joseph Miner, to "stop acting as an intermediary for so-called “pass-through” federal funds that PPAU uses to carry out certain programs in the
State of Utah." Essentially, Planned Parenthood in Utah receives their federal funds via distribution through UDOH. "Pass-through" funds are funds that have been
granted to an entity, but the state has no infrastructure to provide the distribution of the money. So it utilizes an existing entity in that state - in this case,
UDOH - to distribute the funds for them. The Governor basically told Miner to stop distributing the funds, supposedly in response to the long-since debunked
undercover videos purporting Planned Parenthood to be a fetal tissue mill.
So here's what happened:
The district court initially granted the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), but ultimately withdrew it and denied PPAU the preliminary injunction it was seeking.
PPAU filed an interlocutory appeal. "Interlocutory" is a legal word for "interim," meaning that the appeal was filed while claims in the original case had still
yet to be resolved.
This appeal goes to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The three-judge panel randomly selected to hear the case was Circuit Judges Mary Beck Briscoe and Robert
Bacharach, and Senior Circuit Judge David Ebel. The three judge panel is normal procedure.
The panel "granted a stay in favor of PPAU to prevent the cessation of funding during the pendency of this appeal, and we also expedited the briefing and oral
argument schedule... we reverse the decision of the district court and remand with instructions to grant PPAU’s motion for preliminary injunction. In other words,
they overturned the district court judge's decision so Planned Parenthood could continue to receive funds.
"Subsequent to that issuance, a poll was called, sua sponte, to consider en banc rehearing." And here's where the problem comes in. "Sua Sponte"
means an act of authority taken without formal prompting from another party. "En Banc" means that the rehearing is held in front of the entire court bench of
available active Circuit judges (12 total if all are available), instead of a randomly selected three-judge panel.
The reason this is a problem is because, according to Title 7, Rule 35, of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, only a party to the case can request an
en banc rehearing. They have to petition the Circuit Court of Appeals court for it. "Sua Sponte" means that a judge on the 10th Circuit Court of
Appeals requested the en banc rehearing without either party petitioning for it. That is almost unheard of and, some argue, a violation of the rules of
procedure.
A majority vote of the entire bench is required for an en banc rehearing to be granted. Only four judges voted yes: Chief Judge Tim Tymkovich, Circuit
Judges Harris Hartz, Jerome Holmes, and - wait for it - Neil Gorsuch. The en banc rehearing was denied, and who do you suppose wrote the dissenting
opinion? Neil Gorsuch.
Under normal rules and procedure, an en banc hearing would likely have been voted down, even if it had been petitioned by one of the parties to the case.
That is because the decision by the panel was predicated on a "matter of fact," rather than a "matter of law." That's an important distinction, because a "matter
of fact" only affects that specific case. A "matter of law" affects cases in the future, who would look to the current case for "precedent." So because the
decision in the case would not extend beyond that case itself, an en banc rehearing would almost certainly have been voted down anyway. So why would a
circuit judge request one without a petition to do so? Some think the answer to that lies in the fact that Gorsuch wrote the dissent - implying a strong
likelihood that he is the judge who requested the en banc. Since there was no legal reason to request it, the reason would likely be ideological, meaning
the judge who requested it was likely anti-abortion, and wanted to seize the opportunity to go after Planned Parenthood, even though the three-judge panel ruled
the other way. The en banc procedure would be an opportunity to overrule his/her own colleagues' decision.
So, is Neil Gorsuch anti-abortion? No one knows for sure, because there isn't any abortion case law involving him, and he isn't known to have written any opinions
on abortion specifically. But he has ruled against assisted suicide, and he wrote a concurring opinion in the Hobby Lobby case, which granted employers the right
to deny birth control as part of company-sponsored health coverage:
"All of us face the problem of complicity. All of us must answer for ourselves whether and to what degree we are willing to be involved in the wrongdoing
of others. For some, religion provides an essential source of guidance both about what constitutes wrongful conduct and the degree to which those who assist others
in committing wrongful conduct themselves bear moral culpability.
As they understand it, ordering their companies to provide insurance coverage for drugs or devices whose use is inconsistent with their faith itself violates their
faith, representing a degree of complicity their religion disallows… No doubt, the Greens’ religious convictions are contestable. Some may even find the Greens’
beliefs offensive. But no one disputes that they are sincerely held religious beliefs."
In this case, birth control is "wrongdoing," and companies have the right to deny it as a part of health coverage. Moreover, he thought the ruling didn't go far
enough. He believed that individual owners, not just corporations, had the right to make that decision. While he did say that the Green's religious convictions are
contestable, and acknowledged that they could be viewed as offensive, he never really gives away what he himself believes, other than in the religious freedom of
employers to invade the private lives of their employees and dictate behavior. That is a big enough problem for anyone in states that are pushing religious freedom
laws as a legal means of discriminating against the LGBTQ community. But if he is anti-abortion, and was willing to bend or, possibly, break rules to affect an already
decided appeal, that could pose big potential problems with women's rights. If he is part of a court that decides that religious freedom laws are acceptable as a means
of imparting an individual's beliefs on everyone (Hobby Lobby shows he does believe that to some degree), how does a religious freedom law play into Roe v. Wade, if it
comes before The Supremes again? And would he be willing to bend/break rules as a Supreme to get what he wants? John Roberts already did that in the Obamacare case,
when he invented a tax that didn't exist, in order to deem said tax constitutional. Can we really afford to have Supremes who don't believe in the rule of law or, worse,
believe that they make the laws?
We already have a problem with excessive partisanship on a court that is supposed to be, by definition, neutral - take every case individually, on its merits, and
determine constitutionality. That they think their personal beliefs endow them the ability and authority to change or create a law, or it's interpretation within a
constitution that was created, and influenced, by framers who accepted religion but maintained that the government was not founded on religion, and angled to separate
religion from the government, leaves a sour taste on the prospects of the future of American jurisprudence. The United States is, officially, no religion. And the court,
from a legal standpoint, is supposed to be as well. If you can't follow the law, or the constitution, and keep your religion out of it, then you don't belong in any job
that demands exactly that.
Part of this commentary is from a previous Facebook post of mine.
The Ohio Senate passed a revision bill of Ohio's state child abuse and neglect laws on Tuesday. In it, Senate Republicans - flexing a facade of moxie they
believe Donald Trump has instilled in them with his election win - slipped in an amendment, the "heartbeat bill," banning abortion once the fetal heartbeat
is present, which typically occurs around six weeks. Naturally, pro-choice advocates have decried this move, while pro-birthers are very excited to move the
needle more in their desired direction.
If you noticed that I used the term "pro-birth," instead of "pro-life," that's because I don't believe in the term "pro-life." It's not real. Here are some
stats for you, compiled from the most recent Pew Research and Gallup poll results I could find:
59% - Republicans who think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. That number increases to 68% for the conservative end of the GOP,
compared to moderates' 41%. Democrat support is 28%.
While 63% overall support gay adoption, Republican support is only 26%. Democrat support is 87%.
67% - Republicans who supported the most recent cuts to the food stamp program, SNAP. Democrat support was 28%.
72% - Republicans who favor the death penalty, including 69% of white evangelicals. Democrat support is 34%.
So what does this mean? Basically, the largest block who would call themselves "pro-life" seem to not be too concerned with what happens after the baby is
born, so long as it is forced to be born - after that, the baby is someone else's problem. They might be okay with the baby being adopted, but they strongly
support limiting the adoptive parent pool by keeping gays out of the mix, regardless of the effect of keeping more children unadopted for much longer.
In the event the parent has the baby, but is too poor to care for it, they strongly favor cutting or eliminating assistance that is available to the
parent, in the form of welfare and SNAP, by extension making the child's life much harder - but then, that is someone else's problem. And if that baby grows
up to kill someone, they are overwhelmingly in favor of killing it.
Hence, the term "pro-life" is a bit of a misnomer. Anyone who is in favor of the things listed above are "pro-birth," not "pro-life." Very little of what
the "pro-lifers" advocate would fall under the heading of "pro-life." They, of course, don't see it that way as they bang on podiums and harass women at
clinics in a manner that borders on the criminal (that's usually how they do it too, doing everything they can right up to the illegal line). And they always
do it with the encouragement of politicians, who will never dirty their hands or go to jail. They let all of their supporters put themselves at risk with the
dirty work, while they simply try to bend or break the law in the chamber.
And this is where we come back to the "heartbeat bill" in Ohio. They know the bill is unconstitutional, it's why they've held off on voting on it for the past
several years. But Trump is President now. Here is Ohio State Senate President Keith Faber:
So to Keith Faber, Donald Trump winning the presidency means that he will put a conservative justice in the vacant seat on the Supreme Court, so the chance of
his bill surviving is much better. It apparently does not matter that the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals already declared "heartbeat bills" unconstitutional,
after Arkansas and North Dakota previously passed the same bills. The U.S. Supreme Court refuse to grant a writ of certiorari in January of this year.
That is an important thing to note, because a writ requires the "rule of four," whereby four of the nine justices have to approve of a writ to issue it. This means
that The Supremes didn't have four justices in support of reviewing the 8th Circuit Appeals Court ruling declaring the "heartbeat" bill unconstitutional - and
that was with Antonin Scalia still alive on the bench at the time.
Trump can appoint a conservative justice to the court, but it still only brings the count to 5-4 in favor of Roe v. Wade. Where it starts to get sticky is if any
of the three oldest justices - Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Anthony Kennedy - pass away or retire during Trump's term. Right now, Kennedy is the swing
vote. If he is no longer there, the only remaining sometimes swing is John Roberts. I think we all were more than a little surprised at Roberts' decision
during the Obamacare case, not only supporting the non-existent Individual Mandate "tax," but his willingness to break the SCOTUS rules and invent the tax out of
thin air in order to support it. So the question becomes: Would Roberts vote down Roe, or would he instead vote to reverse the TRAP law decisions? The politician
in him gives me the impression he is more likely to do something like that so he can feign that the legitimacy of Roe is maintained.
All of this, of course, brings the politicization of the U.S. Supreme Court to the forefront. They are not supposed to be making politically motivated decisions,
only determining if decisions already made are constitutional. Roberts inventing a tax that didn't exist (because only the House of Representatives can create a
tax, that is federal law) is the starkest abdication of duties seen in years. And he did it to manufacture a facade of bipartisanship to give the conservative
side of the court cover when these exact cases came up, as expected, and they voted party lines most of the time. The legal credibility of The Supremes has been
suspect for many years, to the degree that politicians like Ted Cruz claim "five un-elected people in Washington" are making laws for everyone to follow. It's not
true, but he gets to make this preposterous claim because of justices overstepping their responsibilities, as Roberts did. And now, people like Keith Faber think
Trump winning the election is the open door for all manner of idiotic bills to be put forth, because they see hope that the politician put into the vacant seat
will usher in a new order, where women will ultimately be required to get permission from men about everything pertaining to their bodies. And they have such high
hopes for this that all kinds of ridiculous laws will be coming down the pike. And it will be quick, as they surely think Trump's unbelievably dumb luck of winning
will only last one term.
In the mean time, Ohio folks are hoping Governor John Kasich will realize how easily this "heartbeat" bill would likely be shot down by the Appeals Courts, as it
with the previous two states who tried it, and will spare his own office the embarrassment. I doubt it. Kasich has proven himself to be a pretty stupid fellow in
his time in the governor's office. But I'll take an unexpected surprise any day.
This is one of those stories that can make you want to pull your hair out. On November 30, 2016, Buzzfeed writer Kate Aurthur wrote an article,
"Chip And Joanna Gaines’ Church Is Firmly Against Same-Sex Marriage,"
in which she addresses a video of a sermon delivered by Jimmy Seibert, the pastor of the Antioch Community Church that Chip and Johanna attend,
in which Seibert discusses marriage being between a man and a woman. The Gaineses, stars of Fixer Upper on HGTV, appear to be the target of
the article, but Aurthur couldn't get a comment or response from them, so she goes after their church instead, and then wonders "innocently":
So are the Gaineses against same-sex marriage? And would they ever feature a same-sex couple on the show, as have HGTV’s House Hunters and
Property Brothers? Emails to Brock Murphy, the public relations director at their company, Magnolia, were not returned. HGTV’s PR department
did not respond to initial emails and calls. Two days after this story was published, they released the following statement: “We don’t discriminate
against members of the LGBT community in any of our shows. HGTV is proud to have a crystal clear, consistent record of including people from all walks
of life in its series.
I find it interesting that she asks the question of HGTV, in a not-so-veiled attempt to tie HGTV to the religious faith of hosts on one of their shows.
Yet she already mentioned two other shows on the same network that have had LGBT guests. So she already knows HGTV's stance, through her own statement,
yet she asks them anyway. After dispensing with that prerequisite, the remainder of the article is her quoting the video of Seibert. The Gainses have
dutifully been mentioned - check - so anything discussed beyond that point is just "guilt by association." One could imagine the Gaineses had a suspicion
that they were being baited, which is why they refused to comment for the story.
But this article plays into a larger issue, which is people of faith only being allowed to have a livelihood if they conform to whatever you want them to
agree with. HGTV canceled plans in May 2014 for a show called Flip It Forward, hosted by twin Benham brothers, David and Jason. It should be noted that
the Benham brothers were actively public and vocal about their views on gay marriage, women's reproductive rights, and other religions. So they set
themselves up for the controversy that HGTV simply wanted no part of. But the Gaineses have not put their beliefs front and center, which is why Kate Aurthur
decided to dig, seemingly believing that the Gaineses do not have the right to keep their beliefs to themselves. She has the right to drag their beliefs
out into the open. She wants to castigate them, and she cannot do that if they don't divulge what she needs them to. They refused to respond, so the
church and Seibert get to take the hit and, if she's lucky, that stink will rub off on the Gaineses. It's the worst kind of cynicism, manifested in a
hatchet-job of an article that surmises no rhyme or reason for it's existence in the first place.
And not for nothing, but most churches have a conservative
position on gay marriage and women's reproductive rights. You can appreciate the theology of a church without subscribing to everything. I have attended
several churches over the years that were anti-abortion and pro-one man, one woman. I couldn't disagree more, but still attended a couple of those churches
because I loved the pastors and how they taught the theology. I've had lengthy debates with the pastors over those topics. They respected my views but
disagreed with me because of how they interpret the Bible. And that okay. These are beliefs we are talking about. I can't prove anything any
more than the pastors can. There is no proof. That's what faith is - belief in the absence of proof. They don't know they're right, they only believe they
are. And the Gaineses may believe the same thing as their pastor, they may not. In the belief game, you are not required to believe everything. To the
contrary, you are encouraged to question what you believe. I've never been in a church that didn't do that, because they want to teach, and you can't teach
anyone who's closed off. Questions are a good thing, because it means you are open and thinking, and that alone is proof that believing in everything is not necessary.
We live in an emotionally unstable country and, every so often, we get a reminder of that. For the last 18 months, it has been Trump. In Trump's wake, a lot
of vitriol has fallen to an undercurrent. Mike Pence, our new VP-elect, passed laws in his home state of Indiana that are among the most oppressive to the
LGBT community, under the guise of "religious freedom." I personally believe business owners should have the right to discriminate if they choose to do so.
I also thank them for doing it publicly, so I know who and what they are, and make sure I never give them a dime of my money. If people choose to protest and
boycott them for their discrimination, then so be it. They get to be run out of business because they chose to publicize their bigotry, whether they call it
religion or not. Free market, baby. Sucks to be you, but you already know that as you pack your boxes and close down, don't you? That's how it works. It
takes a lot of nerve to advertise your discrimination, then cry persecution, because you expected everyone to just accept it and continue to give you their money.
It's the height of arrogance.
On the other hand, a couple who maintains their beliefs privately are now targeted for no particular reason, and that I do have a problem with. If the Gaineases had
used their show as a platform for "religious freedom" discrimination, that would be one thing. But they haven't done that. Their beliefs are their own, and their
businesses have never discriminated, regardless of what their personal beliefs are. Isn't that what we want? For people to believe whatever they want, so long as
they don't exercise their rights at the expense of others? Isn't that the core of what our freedom is? Kate Aurthur, whether she is gay or not, has the right to
go after someone if they discriminate. But HGTV doesn't and she knows it. And instead of waiting until the Gaineses issued a public platform or refused an LGBT
guest, she decided they don't have the right to be successful unless she approves of their beliefs. So she wrote a hit piece excoriating a pastor for doing what
pastors do, hoping she could drag the Gaineses out into force a response. In a country where religious people attack with bigotry then laughingly say they need
their religious freedom protected from those they attack, this was a genuine attack on religious freedom. Go figure.
There is a lot of vitriol about third party candidates being a cop-out vote, a waste of a trip to the voting booth. I voted for Ralph Nader in almost every
election until 2012, when I voted for Jill Stein. Did voting for Nader dilute the overall votes available for the two major parties? Yes. Would I have voted
for Bush or Gore, if not Nader, in 2000? No. Do I wish we hadn't had Bush for 8 years? Yes. Do I think Gore would have been a better president than Bush?
Yes. Do I feel guilty that we had Bush for 8 years? No. I didn't steal a vote from Bush or Gore to give to Nader. They never had my vote in the first place.
A "swing vote" is simply undecided. By definition, they are not sure who to support. I'm not an "undecided" voter settling on a third party. I have always been
third party, despite having been registered Republican until this past year. I am voting for Gary Johnson, because I like that he supports fiscal elements that
Republicans are for, as well as social positions that I have also, which tend toward the Democrats. He's what we like to call politically "well-rounded." He
SHOULD appeal to most voters, if they weren't so party-dedicated. I'm not saying he will win. The odds are very long. I AM saying that I refuse to contribute to
Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump getting the job. If I lose, I lose. But those two are not getting their hands on the Oval Office with my help. I know that infuriates
people who think stopping Trump is priority number one. But Trump doesn't win because I vote for Gary Johnson. I am not taking a vote away from Hillary. She never
had my vote in the first place. Trump wins because he gets more votes than the other candidates. And if Trump gets votes at all, let alone enough to beat other
candidates, then those who voted for him are responsible for whatever comes with him as president - not me. If you are voting party lines, just because, YOU are
wasting your vote. If you are ignoring everything wrong with your candidate and voting just to prevent the other one from winning, YOU are wasting your vote.
I don't have any obligation whatsoever to choose only from major party candidates. These candidates have an obligation to win me over. They have an obligation to
convince me that there is no one else available who's better than them. They have an obligation to show me that they should be trusted with the top job over any other.
They have an obligation to show me their character makes them better suited to the job and its high-stakes responsibilities than the others. THEY are obligated - not me.
This is one of those elections where your vote actually says who you are as a citizen and what you want in your leader. I really believe that. We've never had
major party candidates so generally hated by the voters. Which means this can't be a vote "against" someone. It has to be a vote "for" someone. Anything else,
in this state of electoral hatred, makes the voters as disingenuous as the candidates.
The United Kingdom just voted by a slim margin, 51.9% to 48.1%, to leave the European Union. The British exit ("BREXIT") stung world markets immediately,
with an over $2 trillion plunge in stock values, with investors racing to get to "Home Base," i.e. gold, the Yen, governments bonds, etc. Major markets
took the expected big hits as well, with Japan down 8.7%, Germany down 7.4%, France 8.8%, and the Euro dropping 3.8% in value amid fears of the monetary
unit's stability. The hits are especially damaging because they come on the cusp of market rallies in recent days, in expectation of the UK likely remaining
in the EU. These market effects are partly an overreaction. If investors hadn't rallied the markets like they did, they would not have exposed themselves
too much, and feel the need to go hard in the other direction to compensate. Now, recession is an almost near certainty, and global banks have had to guarantee
liquidity, The Bank of England included, across the EU to try to maintain stability.
The UK itself is reeling, obviously. London's major banks are down upwards of 30%, the British pound and sterling both plummeted 10%. Yields on 10-year bonds
dropped .27%. S&P had already threatened to downgrade Britain's AAA credit rating. With the huge effects in evidence, that downgrade now appears all the more
likely. And there will assuredly be interest rate cuts to come, as well as more quantitative easing, both of which will impact markets further. And this is just
the beginning. Scottish First Minister and National Party leader, Nicola Sturgeon, has said she will call for another referendum on Scottish independence from
the UK, especially since Scottish citizens overwhelmingly supported remaining in the EU. This British betrayal will almost certainly boost the odds of a Scottish
exit when the next referendum comes into play. And this is nothing compared to the possibility of more EU member countries following suit. After all, Britain
was one of the anchor members of the EU, many countries became members because of the strength of Britain as a member. And if one wonders why this whole situation
is a cautionary tale for America, the reason of why it happened at all is particularly important to us.
The UK Independence Party (UKIP), headed since 2010 by Nigel Farage, is a Eurosceptic wing of Britain's Conservative Party (aka the Tories) that had been
applying intense pressure on David Cameron to introduce a referendum on exiting the EU. UKIP's main reasoning was immigration. The influx of immigrants has increased
substantially in recent years (330,000 last year), severely straining financial resources of a UK that is still not fully recovered from the 2008 recession. Many
in Britain want to be able to close the borders and curb the influx, but Britain is constrained by border regulations set and maintained by the EU. The only way to
gain the ability to take control of the borders is to reestablish sovereignty, which means they needed to resign membership in the EU. That pressure was applied
publicly, in the form of xenophobia, Islamophobia, nativism, racism, fear-mongering, etc. (sound familiar?) Ahead of the 2015 elections this pressure was coming
to a boil. To appease UKIP voters and bolster his re-election, Cameron promised an In-or-Out referendum on remaining in the EU if he won. If he had been like most
American politicians and simply turned his back on a campaign promise, the referendum would not have happened so soon. Make no mistake, it would have happened
anyway, as UKIP would have seen to it that Cameron was run out of office in the next election. But there would have been more time and opportunity for something
to change, for cooler heads to prevail. Instead, Cameron fulfilled his promise and introduced the referendum, splitting his party, turning supporters and
friends against him, and increasing volatility in Parliament.
On June 16, 2016, Labor Party member Jo Cox was assassinated, shot 3 times and stabbed several more, as she was about to meet with constituents in Birdstall, West
Yorkshire. 77-year old Bernard Kenny was stabbed trying to protect her. Cox founded and chaired Friends of Syria, a group dedicated to aiding Syrian rebels in
fighting ISIS. Member countries include Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
Cox was a supporter of fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and for Britain providing safe-haven for Syrian refugees. 52-year old Thomas Mair was arrested
on terrorist charges for her murder, during which witnesses said he kept shouting, "Britain first!" Upon appearing before a magistrate on June 18, Mair stated his
name as, "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain."
This event punctuated the divisiveness and extreme attitudes exhibited and exacerbated by UKIP members leading up to the referendum. Cameron presumably thought
winning a vote to remain in the EU to not be difficult, a drastic underestimation, otherwise he might have considered going back on his campaign promise in order
to buy more time or, the smarter move, not making the promise at all. But in doing so, Cameron sealed his own fate. Just flirting with this disaster painted him as
weak, and he was losing support by the week. But to enable it to such an extent not only cost them the EU, but probably Scotland as well. It's difficult to imagine
a way in which Cameron could have screwed this up more. In addition to his now nonexistent future, he has virtually guaranteed defeats in future elections for anyone
in Parliament who supported him, especially those who pushed him for the referendum under the presumption that winning a vote to stay in the EU would be easier
to pull off with Cameron and his party in power, than if another party was in charge. Naturally, Cameron resigned, because there was really nothing else he could
do. He wasn't even a lame duck, he simply became an invisible leader instantly - his credibility vanished, and his legacy will tar the British history books for
the next century.
While a referendum would have likely happened at some point, what David Cameron did is an absolute cautionary tale for Americans. When an extreme wing of a party
becomes powerful enough to manipulate and force the hand of politicians too weak and consumed with their own job security to stand their ground, really stupid
things can happen. The xenophobia, Islamophobia, racism, nativism displayed by the UKIP is not unlike what we have been seeing from the Tea Party and Donald
Trump peddling to his supporters. We are not in any comparable position with the UK from a union standpoint, but we definitely have been watching the erosion of
1st Amendment, 4th Amendment, and 15th Amendment rights, states doing everything possible to circumvent 14th Amendment rights for LGBTQ, and Roe v. Wade, and
politicians glorifying the fact that they flat out refuse to do their jobs - all of these pushed by the extreme wing of a major political party. There is much
familiarity to see in what has happened in the UK. Just because union considerations are not something we have to deal with does not mean we are not ripe for the
same type of extreme stupidity by politicians couldn't happen to us.
I want you to read this. It is a series of tweets from a user called
supergrover (@fuzzlaw)
that I compiled. This is as poignant and heartbreaking as anything you will read on the subject. I am not gay, but to the LGBTQ community,
I promise you are not alone, though I imagine it's almost impossible not to feel that way often. We who support you outnumber those who
don't, even if the "leadership" does not reflect that on the whole yet. It will in time, but never soon enough.
I'm an aging dyke, so I'm just going to get this out of my system: kids, y'all 35 and under, this wasn't supposed to happen to you.
The generation ahead of us knocked down the wall: Stonewall. Initial visibility. Standing proud. Being out. They suffered the consequences.
Backlash. Violence. The Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans. Guns fired at the places they dared to gather.
Then AIDS swept in and devastated the community. Reagan and his ilk laughed at our suffering. They closed ranks. Cared for one another.
Tended the dying and buried the dead. There's a reason why most 60+ gay leaders are women. See the genocide underneath the demographics.
Then, the mid-90's. Anti-retroviral drugs came along. Our men started surviving. We began to flourish, stand up, stand out more strongly.
Here and there, we fought for 'gay' marriage. Folks started coming out. Melissa. K.D. George. Ellen. Each was huge and life-affirming.
Reveling in our newfound life and out-ness, Matthew Shepard's death cut us to the core. It was 18 years ago. 1998.
As a community, we threw it down. HELL no. We didn't survive AIDS for this. We mobilized. Flexed our muscles. Change came.
With every step of progress came backlash. But we pushed. And we pushed. And there weren't any Upstairs Lounges. No Matthew Shepards.
We won. We won the right to marry, to have our employment rights protected, to live as fellow citizens. Fights remain, of course.
But we were winning. Then, Pulse. 50 dead. 50 wounded. Babies. Kids. The ones we fought so hard to protect from the backlash.
The backlash we knew all too well, but that the post Matthew Shepard generation has never known.
We never wanted you to know about this. We never wanted you to experience this. It's why we fought, and fight, so hard.
Yes, it's for our generation, but really...it's for you. For us, this violence is...not unexpected. We know it's possible. We've seen it.
But you all...dammit, you've never had to worry about it, not collectively. We never wanted this for you. We thought we had protected you.
But...clearly, the past is not even past. Welcome to being GLBTQ* in America. There are people who want us dead. And that's no exaggeration.
And it's not just the nuts with the guns. It's the politicians who sacrifice us on the altar of hateful rhetoric to score political points.
It's the churches that won't ordain us, won't celebrate us, who insist on continuing to 'love the sinner and hate the sin".
It's the nonsensical fight over who can use which bathrooms. The inability of Congressmen to mention that it was GLBTQ* people who died.
It's the families who turn GLBTQ* teenagers on to the street instead of just fucking loving them. Schools who expel them.
It's every bully who teases and effinite boy and harasses a masculine girl. Every man who tells a lesbian she just needs the 'right dick'.
It permeates our society. It is SO much better than it was, yet remains SO awful. It's why our generation kept fighting, and keeps fighting.
But it's time for our generation to teach the next. Welcome to the fight for your lives, kids. We're with you. We'll guide you.
We'll teach you everything we know. We'll stand on the front lines until you can do it. We'll be the cannonfodder. You're not alone.
But the college-environment-creating-change-kumbaya-all-is-well-everyone-has-to-bow-to-what-we-say approach isn't reality.
The world is not a safe space, and it only gets safer when you fight like hell for it. We weren't given the spaces we have.
It's a fight. So get prepared. Read your history. Talk to your elders. Listen, and learn. And show up. We need you. Your energy and ideas.
We'd still take a bullet for you, literally, and figuratively.
You were just never supposed to have to take a bullet for us.
RIP, my nieces and nephews and sons and daughters in Orlando. I'm so sorry we didn't protect you.
To supergrover (@fuzzlaw) :
This was not your fault. It is everyone's fault. There is failure at every juncture. We don't protect everyone in our society, only
those we don't deem "less than." We continually exercise our rights at the expense of the rights of others, a direct violation of the one
cardinal condition of having those very rights. Our nation's leaders do it daily, and often with the support of the Supreme Court. This is
not your failure - it is systemic failure. Individually, we care very deeply. But as a country, we do not care one bit. Our elections are a
clear indication of this. Voters continually re-elect bigoted and corrupt politicians who have rigged the system to their benefit, at the
expense of the country, in general, and of the people most in need of protection, specifically. We have a segment of the citizenry who wants to
exploit their rights the way the politicians do - so they use "freedom of religion" as a backdrop for discrimination. They tout the 2nd
Amendment as the backdrop for endless and militaristic armament, walking through towns with assault-style weapons slung from their shoulders
to scare and intimidate people, just praying - practically daring - someone to confront them and gives them a reason to engage their weapon.
You live in a country that is not emotionally stable. And the nation's leadership operates in a manner that keeps people there. We try to
improve things, we try to engage people's hearts, so that they might see who the people are that they actually hurt, rather than the demographic.
And you plug along, and you see small indications of improvement, you think things are starting to take on an exponential pace... and then you
watch someone like Donald Trump take over the Republican party. And you realize the improvements are just a facade. That, given a bigoted
presidential candidate to rally around, the id of the hateful segment of this country races to take over the spotlight.
So please, superuser, do not carry this cataclysm on your shoulders. This country was supposed to protect these victims. You are part
of why improvements have occurred all. And they will continue to because, as I said, we who support you outnumber those who don't. As
much as your heart is broken, you are not responsible for what happened. This country is. And we will continue to try to wrestle power away
from those whom thrive on our instability and feed the hateful id that festers just below, and sometimes above, the surface. I promise.
You are not alone.
With the continued frequency of mass shootings across the country, the most recent being the attack on the Orlando night club Pulse, with at
least 49 dead and another 53 injured, the discussion, as expected, has come around again to gun control. Gun control advocates think that
these mass shootings would go away, if only better regulations were in place. Opponents say it's not the guns, it's the people who use them.
Advocates say the countries around the world who have very few, if any, gun fatalities in a given year is because guns are either banned or
heavily restricted or regulated in those countries. They would be correct, but that doesn't settle every issue. And in this country, it's
not so much about rights as it is politics.
Lobby organizations like the NRA would have you believe that the muskets available to citizens in the early years of the country and its
Constitution easily translate to the military-style weapons and handguns of today. It's an idiotic premise rooted in the fact that the
Founders are no longer available to confirm or deny it. The reason we have so many amendments in the first place is because the Founders
knew things might change with the times, and so a mechanism needed to be in place to update the Constitution if the changes with the times
were substantial enough to conflict with the intentions of laws previously written. One might wonder if the Second Amendment, as written,
would still exist today, if the Founders had lived long enough to see the state of weaponry evolve, as well as the conflicting interpretations
of "a well-regulated militia..." But since that is not possible, we are left with NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre masturbatorily
pontificating about what the Founders really meant when they wrote the 2nd Amendment, while Charleton Heston's "cold, dead hands" statement
at the NRA convention in 2000 practically had the membership cheering wildly to communal orgasmic release.
What is lost in all of this is the practicality of regulation. A big reason regulation is impractical right now is because our government does
not address the black market. We only deal with illegal weapons when they interfere with the weapons the government themselves are dealing.
We supply weapons to dictatorship countries, to guerrilla militias and revolutionaries. And as long as no one messes with what we do with weapons,
we do very little to stop it. So our black markets continue to thrive, the government doesn't destroy weapons caches, nay, they raid them and
supply them to criminal enterprises to "track" illegal weapons movement, e.g. Fast and Furious, and then sit back shocked and dismayed to hear
those weapons have been killing our border guards, as if it's a complete surprise that Mexican cartels and coyotes would do such a thing. And
this is the real problem: If the government is, itself, a supplier of illegal weapons, from where do they get the nerve to talk about gun regulations?
First and foremost, deal with the illegal weapons trade and black markets. Regulations on guns will not work if there is a plethora of
places to get them. Regardless of what Wayne LaPierre says, I don't think most gun owners have a problem with regulations. They get their guns
through legal channels and protocols anyway. And as long as they can get what they need, regulations are fine, so long as the criminals being
targeted can't still get them without effort. If they can, then you are just making regulations for the sake of making regulations - THAT they
have a serious problem with. So if the government takes the illegal trade seriously, instead of being the traders, people will take regulations
seriously. To that end, here are the regulations that I believe should be in place, if we are ever to get to that point:
Background checks at all purchase venues, including online. This should include criminal at all levels. It should also include all available
psych records, such as Baker Act or any law enforcement cases involving psychological issues. The system should know if someone has psychological
issues, even those not law enforcement related, but we have to create a system that secures that information to HIPAA guidelines so that doctors
and hospitals will be willing to follow a regulation that requires them to put a patient's name into the system so they can't buy a gun. And it
must be a closed system, ONLY accessible for weapons checks.
Require a weapons license, just like a driver's license. Pass a written test that shows you know the laws regarding what you can and cannot do
with your weapon, and a physical test that shows you know how to handle a weapon. If you do this once, you never have to do it again, the license
follows you for life as proof of weapons competency, unless you are convicted of a crime that revokes the right to have a weapons license.
Just like a vehicle, guns should come with a title of purchase. You should have to notify the registry agency of a gun sale by turning in a transfer
of title, a process that should be streamlined to be handled online. You should be required to confirm that you sold the gun to a licensed purchaser,
and provide the purchaser's name. The agency then contacts the purchaser via encrypted email to confirm the purchase and transfer of ownership. This
information would be available to law enforcement, as a means of absolving the previous owner of any connection to, or responsibility for, any crimes
committed with that weapon after the date of transfer, unless it can be proven that the weapon was reacquired by the previous owner without notification.
All
NFA regulations
already in effect, as well as those involving
Title II weapons.
Miltary-style design weapons, such as the AR-15, should be added to the Title II list. I know the backlash here. But the reality is that people focus
on the rifles being "semi-automatic" as the problem. That is a red herring argument. Most guns are semi-automatic these days, including most handguns.
The real problem with weapons like the AR-15 is the power and range. Handguns, with their short barrels, do not have the effective range of military-style
rifles. That's the exact reason the military uses such weapons in the first place. Even a hunting rifle with the same caliber ammunition is typically not
carrying a magazine that can hold up to 100 rounds. The magazine capacity, combined with the effective range, combined with the semi-automatic capability typical
in most weapons nowadays, are why civilians should not have access to them. This is not an unprecedented philosophy. We banned civilian access to machine
guns, like the M16, in the 1980s. Well, the AR-15 is an M16. It's just been stripped of certain features, like selective fire (the ability to
switch between semi-automatic, fully-automatic, and burst fire), so manufacturers could sell the weapon to civilians. And AR-15s were originally banned
in Bill Clinton's Assault Weapons Ban in 1994. The weapons only became legal because the ban expired in 2004. So this is not a revolutionary argument.
These are military weapons, and no civilian has a justifiable reason to have them. If the weapon, and all iterations of the kind, are added to the Title
II list, there is no expiration.
These are just the basics. Even with these in place, we still have no way of guaranteeing the emotional capability of trained and licensed gun
owners to react properly, to know when and when not to pull their weapon, to hold fire to protect innocent people from getting hurt instead of opening
fire with adrenaline feeding it (the "cowboy effect"). We need to know that the people who buy weapons know how to use them, and know the laws governing
them. And we need to know that weapons are not being bought and sold at will with no oversight as to who has them. Gun owners like to point to mental
issues being addressed. But if we have no mechanism for knowing if someone has sold their weapon to someone with mental issues, it becomes a moot point.
And no matter what Wayne LaPierre says, no one is coming for your guns. This has been a common tactic by the gun lobby and manufacturers to stoke fear
of government-turning-Gestapo, and they reap huge power and profits from such fear. Profits from gun sales exploded when Obama was elected president,
because the race for your guns was on, and just a matter of when, not if. President Obama has never indicated, or even implied, that such a
confiscation was even considered, let alone planned. And no president going forward will either, there are simply too many guns out there for that to
be practical. But if the black market can be dealt with, most gun owners would not have a problem with common sense regulation. Having said that, you
do not get to claim a standard that all law abiders who respect their weapons would already follow, yet leave the rest of it open to the criminals. And
when the government itself feeds the criminal market, there is no respect to be had with the "do as I say, not as I do" argument.
