There's no place like home

Early voting in Texas started on Tuesday. The genius of early voting is that it’s convenient. You can usually vote at any polling place in your county, instead of having to make sure you’re going to the right one. Which makes it simple to vote during your lunch hour or at the grocery store on the way home from work, etc. Great idea, right? I think so. I’ve always enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, it appears that the system is rigged so that convenient polling places are only available to some people, which changes the demographics of who actually votes. Surprise surprise, one of the targets of such abuse is a historically black university outside of Houston called Prairie View A&M. Their county is only providing two voting machines, and they are located away from the university, so voting is convenient for townies, but not the students. The students, who have been victimized by this sort of disenfranchisement tactic before, decided to stage a protest.

> Too bad you decided not to impeach him.

Hey, I didn't "decide not to impeach him" my motherfucking cocksucking spineless toadying representatives did.

I sent those motherfuckers emails and told them to impeach. I signed petitions telling those cocksuckers to impeach.

And did it do any goddamn good? Fuck no!

And can I, personally, start impeachment hearings? Fuck no!

Can you tell I'm pissed off? I sure hope I don't have to be pissed off all the time at the next president, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

And if McCain ends up the next president you can watch the news for me. I'm sure I'll have a stroke driving in my car and screaming at the goddamn cocksucking motherfuckers on the radio.

Fuck it, I'm moving to Mars.

Hey, I didn't "decide not to impeach him" my maternal-procreating male chicken oral pressure-intake(ing) ( adv.) and expelling spineless toadying representatives did.

I sent those maternal fertilizers (adj.) emails and told them to impeach. I signed petitions telling those Foghorn Leghorn orifice pleasurers to impeach.

And did it do any dog-gone (adj.) good? Sexual Intercourse no!

And can I, personally, start impeachment hearings? Sexual Intercourse no!

Can you tell I'm urinated (adj. or v.) off? I sure hope I don't have to be catheterized (v.) all the time at the next president, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

And if McCain ends up the next president you can watch the news for me. I'm sure I'll have a stroke driving in my car and screaming at the dog-darn (adj.) Sanders-munching, implanters of seed into those whom have been previously pregnant (ed.) on the radio.

Impale it sexually and fervently, I'm moving to Mars.

That's it. I've had it. For the past decade or so, I've been assaulted by the whims of homophobic, sexist, racist, xenophobic, ethnocentric right-wingers.

I've heard them say absolutely outrageous crap, I've read their deluded rants, I've watched their insane, unethical, and fabricated "news" stories, and I've waved them off with a "Yeah, those are some crazy fuckers".

No more.

I've lived long enough now to watch the political pendulum swing a few times, so I knew that sooner or later, the pendulum would swing back from this radical pull to the right -- at times, I even thought: "Fine. Go on. Get crazy with it!"-- knowing that for every action, there is an equal and opposite re-action.

I don't know exactly what happened today, but, for me, this is that time. Reaction day has arrived.

If fundamentalist Xtians (I use this term consciously because I do not believe that anyone who espouses hatred, judgment, killing, etc. is actually a Christian -- any "real" Christians out there? -- you can consider yourself not included in this rant) -- if fundy Xtians have the freedom to claim that LGBT people are "less than", or sinful, or destructive, or threatening -- if Republican sock-puppets can claim that the media is owned and controlled by the "radical Left", and justify torture, and unlawful imprisonment, and wars predicated on lies -- if xenophobic, racist right-wingers can claim that illegal immigrants are over-running our country and ruining it -- if no less an august body than the presidential administration of the USA can dodge and weave and flout the rule of law -- and all of these people can do this while claiming that they are "protecting" my country somehow -- then I can speak, too.

...

From this moment forward, every time I hear some crap like:

1. Homosexuals are dangerous and want to subvert your kids to their lifestyle, OR
2. Women are already equal to men (and even have privilege over men), OR
3. Racism doesn't exist any more and isn't really a problem, OR
4. The media is controlled by the Radical Left, OR
5. Water-boarding isn't torture, and even if it is, sometimes torture is necessary,
6. OR, OR, OR . . . . .

I'm going to say: "No. That is factually incorrect, and I believe that you know that it's factually incorrect."

Prior to that, I received my first bill from her original hospital. It came after six weeks of treatment—before my daughter was officially listed as being under the insurance plan (see, you have to produce a birth certificate first, and there’s a time lag between when you can obtain the official birth certificate from the state, and the processing of the paperwork with the insurance plan. First, I had to prove that the baby that came out of my body via the fully-paid for emergency c-section, was actually mine. Don’tcha just love bureaucracy? It didn’t include neonatology services, radiology services, pediatric cardiology, respiratory therapists, or even surgery. But it was about $750,000 just the same. Now remember, that was before the hefty insurance discount was applied.

And I laughed. Yes, I laughed. What the hell else could I do? Who the hell did they think was going to be pulling $750,000 out of her ass? Because it sure wasn’t me. At the Ronald McDonald House, I traded war stories with the other parents. Most of the parents there were long-termers—waiting for the call for new organs for their sick children. Everyone had lost their jobs because of their children’s medical crises. At least once. I met folks whose employers couldn’t be bothered to give them a week of time off. I met a family where both parents had hepatitis C (and that ain’t cheap, people); they were waiting for their toddler son to get a lung transplant. People from all over the nation. A nation of isolated medical crises.

But look now what we have lost. Now when a bad guy crosses our threshhold, America becomes a pants-piddling mess.

Iran's president speaks at a great American university. That university's president, in the act of introducing his lecture, whines like a baby bereft of his pacifier that his guest is a big meany poopy-head. City Council members, too, and a rabbi, make like ten-year-olds, giving their press conference in front of a sign with his face struck through and the legend "Go To Hell." Up in Albany, Democratic leader Sheldon Silver treat the students of this great university like ten years olds, threatening to defund Columbia University lest censors like himself prove unable to shut the poor children's ears to difficult speech. (What, was he worried they'd be convinced, join the jihad?) Then a Republican presidential candidate chimes in—bye, bye, federalism!—saying Washington should starve the school of funds, too. American diplomats used to have the gumption to spar face to face with dreaded foreign leaders. Now they go on cable TV and whine about what a "travesty" it would have been to visit a site which properly should belong to the world. Hundreds of foreign nationals died in the World Trade Center on 9/11 (maybe even some of the Iranian!). Yet we have to systematically repress that—as if our national ego would crack like fine crystal if we were forced to acknowledge the mingling of American blood with that of mere foreigners.