The gasps turned into shrieks

Conservative extremism is still death-rattling; it's just doing so a little louder than before. This was the scene yesterday in front of City Hall at lunchtime, just before council members convened to move forward on Houston's equal rights legislation.

Mayor Annise Parker and supporters of her proposed nondiscrimination ordinance announced a compromise Tuesday in hopes of deflecting controversy over a small provision that had dominated discussion on the measure.

A paragraph specifying that no business open to the public could deny a transgender person entry to the restroom consistent with his or her gender identity had outraged conservatives. Church and Republican political leaders have used the clause to claim the ordinance "provides an opportunity for sexual predators to have access to our families."

This 'sexual predator' bullshit is a transmogrification of the Xtianist, homophobic paranoia associated with conservatives having to potentially share a urinal or a stall with a TP (not a Tea Partier).  That and swastika cakes dominated the anti-HERO message before city council yesterday, and well into the night.

There may be some wavering, quivering CMs after yesterday's show of force by the local Talibaptists -- in which case you can shore up support by calling or e-mailing yours here, this morning -- but I expect this little fire to die out shortly after the vote is taken.

One more thing: the white face to the left of the bullhorn in the photo above -- white hair, grinning -- is that of Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart.  The man who cannot get the county's votes properly counted.  The same man who cannot tally the county's early votes and post them to the website on time, as his predecessor was consistently able to do, is out of the office at a hate rally.

Please remember the name of his worthy challenger, Ann Harris Bennett, in November.

Update: Kuff has a good roundup of developments that include protests from the various caucuses within the Immoral Minority.

Update II: Postponed for two weeks.  Like others, I believe that justice delayed is justice denied.

The last gasps of conservative extremism

They're dying hard, but they're still dying.

-- Keep in mind that Donald Sterling isn't a racist.  He told Anderson Cooper so.

"He's got AIDS!" Sterling said loudly at one point, cutting off Cooper as the interviewer attempted to cite (Magic) Johnson's accomplishments after Sterling asked, "What has he done, big Magic Johnson, what has he done?"

Sterling changed course briefly during the interview to call Johnson "a good person," but resumed his criticism.

"He acts so holy," Sterling said. "He made love to every girl in every city in America, and he had AIDS, and when he had those AIDS, I went to my synagogue and I prayed for him, I hope he could live and be well. I didn't criticize him. I could have. Is he an example for children?"

He's not a homophobe, either.

-- Lindsey Graham has decided he'll try to outlaw women's reproductive choice again. He's being primaried from the right, naturally.

The South Carolina Republican is organizing a group of his colleagues to speak in support of a bill that would federally ban abortions after more than 20 weeks of pregnancy, legislation that has the support of 41 Senate Republicans and has already passed the House. Graham is centering this legislative push on the May 13 anniversary of Kermit Gosnell’s conviction for killing infants that were born alive.

[...]

Graham introduced his abortion legislation in November and after a recent lull, the South Carolina Republican is ramping up activity alongside the Gosnell anniversary and — perhaps coincidentally — his own Senate primary in June, where he is trying to avoid a run-off by accruing 50 percent of the vote.

Because it's not whether you win or lose, it's how TeaBaggeringly thuggish can you act.

-- Ann Coulter got served, over and over again, on Twitter.  What she has also made a mockery of is the Republican urban legend of voter "fraud" (sic), the elaborate, well-established nationwide effort to intimidate minority voters from the polls.  Ann Coulter, you should be reminded, got away with actual voter fraud.

For more info and the complete documentation of Ann Coulter's well-documented voter fraud in Florida, and most likely in Connecticut as well, see BradBlog.com/CoulterFraud. (Here's a version of the full story, in one article, as it stood as of mid-2008.)

If you'd like more information on actual and apparent voter fraud by other very high-profile Republicans (none of which would have been prevented by the purposely disenfranchising polling place Photo ID schemes the GOP has been pretending are needed to stop "voter fraud"), please see the list included at the bottom of this article from just before the 2012 Presidential election.

Finally, for the record, please note that while a recent, non-partisan study of election fraud related offenses documented in all 50 states from 2000 to 2012 found just ten (10) cases of the type of voter fraud that could have possibly been deterred by polling place Photo ID restrictions, there have been zero (0) calls by high-profile Republicans for the prosecution of Ann Coulter for the crime of actual, very well documented felony voter fraud that she absolutely committed.

-- It's not just Coulter, of course, that is completely immune to hypocrisy.  An ability to grasp even the most rudimentary irony is required if you're going to be a Republican these days.

For example, you have to be terribly concerned (to the point of, you know, outrage at your income tax rate) about your grandchildren's future because of the federal debt... but not about global warming, because that's a hoax.  Which is why it costs so much to combat it.

The largest, most-consistent money fueling the climate denial movement are a number of well-funded conservative foundations built with so-called "dark money," or concealed donations, according to an analysis released (in December of 2013).

The study, by Drexel University environmental sociologist Robert Brulle, is the first academic effort to probe the organizational underpinnings and funding behind the climate denial movement.

It found that the amount of money flowing through third-party, pass-through foundations like DonorsTrust and Donors Capital, whose funding cannot be traced, has risen dramatically over the past five years. In all, 140 foundations funneled $558 million to almost 100 climate denial organizations from 2003 to 2010.

Meanwhile the traceable cash flow from more traditional sources, such as Koch Industries and ExxonMobil, has disappeared.

The study was published  in the journal Climatic Change.

Liberals like Al Gore invented global warming, you see, in order to make money off of it.  They make much more money off the climate change "fraud" (sic) than Charles and David Koch make from polluting our air and water.  After all, the Kochs have only spent $67 million fighting global warming since 1997.  That's chump change.  Literally.



I mean, if it was a bigger deal, they would have spent more on it, right?  Created more jobs.

This sort of alternate reality delusional behavior is, as you know, everywhere you look.  Benghazi, Obama's birth certificate, death panels... on and on and on.  Climate change just happens to be the place where there is the most at risk and the most money involved.  The battle fronts in the Republican War on Earth include fracking and the Keystone XL pipeline, among others.

 It would be nice if we could just laugh it off.

After claiming on Sunday that human activity does not cause climate change, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) suddenly found his ignorance credentials under attack by potential rivals for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination.

“Now that Marco’s thinking of running for President, he doesn’t believe in climate change,” said Texas Governor Rick Perry. “To those of us with long track records of ignorance on this issue, he seems a little late to the rodeo.” 

Yeah, Texas Republicans.  Ignorant, arrogant, and built to stay that way.

And there's no place like my adopted hometown of Houston that better illustrates Upton Sinclair's words: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

That said, Ted Cruz's grandson and Pat Robertson's great-grandson will someday blame this on teh gayz or something. Or else they'll claim it's a sign of the Apocalypse. But, sorry, there will be no god magically rapturing you out of your flooded home, either.

It's times like these when I'm even more glad that I never had any children.  Because if I had, I would definitely be concerned for their future... having to live with so many stupid people.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance says Bring Back Our Girls for this post-Mother's Day roundup.

Off the Kuff takes a closer look at the competitive legislative races on the ballot this fall.

Horwitz at Texpatriate notes that, while there may be a Democrat now on the Court of Criminal Appeals, he is not doing anything of use to stop cruel and unusual punishment.

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos found Greg Abbott hiding from Wendy Davis again. Perhaps it is because she and Texas cancer survivors have a bone to pick with him: Wendy Davis Links Greg Abbott to Cancer Institute Scandal.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson on the troubles of establishment Texas Republicans in the GOP primary runoff election: Thoughts on the GOP runoffs for Lt. Gov and AG.

Polls show that even with 8 million Americans signed up, people still don't like "Obamacare", even though they support most provisions of the law. Texas Leftist wonders if this is simply an issue of nomenclature. Perhaps it's time for Democrats to drop the name entirely when discussing the ACA.

Antonin Scalia and Kesha Rogers have more than the usual something in common, observes PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Bay Area Houston has a series titled "What idiot would....." starring Greg Abbott. Today's post is "What idiot would steal from cancer research fund?"

Neil at All People Have Value says Wendy Davis needs to take up the real issues to get more folks to vote in the upcoming November election.

=======================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Socratic Gadfly wonders if Denton could actually ban fracking.

jobsanger posits that the root of morality is not in religion.

The Citizens Transportation Coalition reports on a presentation by Texas Central Railway about their proposed high speed rail connection between Houston and Dallas.

The Makeshift Academic explains the impact that senior status federal judges can have.

Texas Clean Air Matters summarizes the state of air quality in Texas.

The Feminist Justice League announces the North Texas Abortion Support Network.

Unfair Park reminds us that climate change denialism is alive and well in Texas.

At the Rivard Report, UIW student body president Jonathan Guajardo presents his recommendations for the reformation of campus police policies that led to the shooting death of a fellow student.

Juanita Jean notes the love Tom DeLay has for Cliven Bundy.

The Lunch Tray isn't all that optimistic about the war on obesity.

Mother's Day, for health and peace

Long before it was commercialized, Mother's Day was first a call for activism in regard to public sanitation, and then one to end armed conflict in the wake of the Civil War.

Ann Jarvis of Appalachia founded Mother’s Day in 1858 to promote sanitation in response to high infant mortality. After the Civil War, abolitionist Julia Ward Howe made a Mother’s Day call to women to protest the carnage of war. To explore the history and purpose of Mother’s Day beyond the textbooks and commercial media, the Zinn Educational Project offers below the original proclamation by Julia Ward Howe, a short film called Mother’s Day for Peace, an excerpt from an article on the Appalachian origins of Mother’s Day, and an excerpt from an article called “The Original Anti-War Mother’s Day.”

Beginning in chronological order...

If the founders of Mother’s Day saw how we celebrate this day, they would be dismayed. Ann Jarvis, founder of Mothers Work Day in 1858, created a day for mothers to work for better cleanliness and health. Because two of her children died before the age of three, Anna asked doctors in her Appalachian community to teach her how to prevent disease. On Mothers Work Day, and in Mothers Day Work Clubs throughout her county, those mothers taught others how to prepare food properly and clean their homes. This gradually improved the health of their  families.

Sadly, not all children survived. Although Ann gave birth to eleven children by 1867, only four lived to adulthood. Their lives were cut short, perhaps by childhood diseases of measles, smallpox, diphtheria, whooping cough, or tuberculosis. Infection spread easily among the mining towns and small communities. (Today most of these diseases are controlled by childhood vaccinations.)

Death was a constant presence in the area because of the Civil War (1861-1865). Taylor County (KY) was a major battlefield between the Union and Confederate armies. Since both sides surrounded them, Ann declared Women’s Friendship Day, convincing local mothers to be fair to both sides. They went into camps to treat the wounded and to teach sanitation and disinfection. After the war, local leaders asked these women to teach former enemies how to get along.

Julia Ward Howe, a mother, author and activist, was inspired by Ann Jarvis. Julia wrote the words to the Battle Hymn of the Republic early in the war. In 1862 she and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, joined the U.S. Sanitary Commission. More men died in the Civil War from disease in prisoner of war camps and their own army camps than died in battle. The Sanitary Commission helped to reduce those deaths later in the war.

After the war, Julia  wanted to bring an end to war and equality for all people, regardless of race, religion, gender or nationality.  She wrote the Mothers Day Proclamation, calling mothers to leave their homes for one day a year and work for peace in their communities. Julia translated her proclamation into several languages and  traveled around the world, urging all to join in a Mothers Day for Peace. On the second Sunday in June, 1872, the first Mothers Peace Day was celebrated in Boston, Massachusetts. For the next thirty years Americans celebrated this day in June.

The tradition died out after that.  Continue reading “Is Mothers Day a Lost Cause?,” by Sharon Montgomery.  More from Gary G. Kohls at Common Dreams.

The modern Mother’s Day, with its apolitical message, emerged in the early 20th century, with Howe’s original intent largely erased from the mainstream consciousness. Howe’s vision of an antiwar mother’s call to action was watered down into an annual expression of sentimentality.

And the video below, Mother’s Day for Peace, features Alfre Woodard, Gloria Steinem, Vanessa Williams, Felicity Huffman, Fatma Saleh, Ashraf Salimian, and Christine Lahti talking about why Howe started Mother’s Day as a protest against war, and the relevance of that today.  It was produced by Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films and featured on Democracy Now! in a 2009 broadcast here.



And the original Mother's Day proclamation issued in 1870, by Julia Ward Howe.

Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient. And at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, and the great and general interests of peace.

It's long overdue for the women of this great state and nation to take over its leadership.