Different Day, Same Shit.

Despite his odd name, his place of birth, his non-conventional upbringing and the fact that he looks vastly different than what the majority of Americans and most mainstream media outlets usually imagine when the word "President" is uttered, Barack Hussein Obama is just as American as your average ordinary American citizen, perhaps even more so.

He was born on American soil, despite how some would see Hawaii as being a very foreign locale*. He was raised in a loving family, in spite of his father making a very poor and rather selfish choice early on in his upbringing. He survived and thrived, becoming a well-respected community activist, civil rights attorney and United States Senator before being elected to the Presidency in 2008. He's faithfully married to a loving wife with two children. The man would be, and should be, the living embodiment of the perfect American success story.

Unfortunately, there are many of the unreconstructed among us who believe that, despite all of this, the President is not, and as far as they are concerned, never will be who he say he is. Since the President, by virtue of his appearance and his origins, runs counter to their idea of who should occupy the Oval Office, these unreconstructed beings are agitating for just about any reason or rationale for removing him from office. To them, he's little more than a Marxist, Socialist, liberal Kenyan usurper who slid his way into a place he simply does not belong.

The big meme pushed along by the Tea Party and the "Birthers" since the beginning of President Obama's term in office was, well, he's a ferriner. Just look at him, with that dark complexion and ferrin' name. The kicker? He wasn't born in Hawaii. Nope, his place of birth is Kenya. Or Indonesia. Or whatever sufficiently foreign locale the Teabaggers and Birthers could come up with. A lot of people jumped on that bandwagon, including The Donald himself, although Trump did it for the same reasons most bottom-feeders would do anything. It took the president showing his birth certificate, something that no other president had to do or perhaps will have to do, to kill this meme, along with any chance of Trump being anything but a footnote in this ridiculous portion of our nation's history.

At least, that's what I thought.

A judge has ordered President Barack Obama to appear in court in Atlanta for a hearing on a complaint that says Obama isn't a natural-born citizen and can't be president.

It's one of many such lawsuits that have been filed across the country, so far without success. A Georgia resident made the complaint, which is intended to keep Obama's name off the state's ballot in the March presidential primary.

An Obama campaign aide says any attempt to involve the president personally will fail and such complaints around the country have no merit.

The hearing is set for Thursday before an administrative judge. Deputy Chief Judge Michael Malihi on Friday denied a motion by the president's lawyer to quash a subpoena that requires Obama to show up.

When was the last time any sitting U.S. president was called into a U.S. district court over any issue (possibly other than Watergate)? Just asking, at this point. And yes, I know the above is old news.

The energy that's being expended on devising new and improved ways of denigrating and attacking the President and the First Lady could be used on more positive pursuits: child mentoring, helping the homeless, combating spousal abuse, assisting the elderly, etc. This is what happens when hatred, dislike and loathing of someone for whatever reason encompasses your very being. It's an ugly sight.

*You can't blame folks for thinking that. After all, it was it's own actual sovereign nation before Americans began taking an interest to it.

Unfortunately, yours truly cannot be arsed to create a blog post about the boring hilarious antics of Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. So I'll point you to others who have done just that. Yay you.

Field Negro - CNN Laughfest.
Angry Black Lady Chronicles - Shit! I Have to Tidy Up the Place for Yet Another GOP Herp-Derpbate! – Now with Bonus Chirpstory!
Molly Ball @ The Atlantic - That Was Not the GOP Debate Rick Santorum Needed
The Political Carnival - Video- CNN Debate: GOP Candidates Attack Leniency With Contraceptives And ‘Legalizing Infanticide’

In the interests of DDSS's devoted viewers, I humbly present to you the first edition of "Shit Santorum Says," a collection of quotes and video of the inane verbal diarrhea that flows unchecked from the smarmy mouth of conservative America's current front-running GOP nominee.

Those with weak stomachs and fragile constitutions should have their barf bags at the ready.

[T]he idea that the federal government should be running schools, frankly much less that the state government should be running schools [italics mine], is anachronistic. It goes back to the time of industrialization of America when people came off the farms where they did home-school or have the little neighborhood school, and into these big factories, so we built equal factories called public schools. And while those factories as we all know in Ohio and Pennsylvania have fundamentally changed, the factory school has not.

"[Santorum] told an Ohio audience on Saturday that Obama’s agenda is based on "some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology."

In this blog post, we have a 45-year-old rapper whose career was built on heaping piles of misogyny, the "Pimp" allure, flagrant disrespect and objectification of women and overall coonery giving "fatherly" tips on how to "turn girls out." As Phlip over at the Intersection of Madness and Reality explained, fathers everywhere should be lined up for several blocks for an opportunity to beat this man senseless.

“When you get to late middle school, early high school and you start feeling a certain way about the girls… I’m gonna tell you a couple tricks. A lot of the boys are going to be running around trying to get kisses from the girls… We’re going way past that. I’m taking you to the hole.”

“You push her up against the wall, you take your finger and put a little spit on it and you stick your finger in her underwear and you rub it on there and watch what happens.”

Sadly, beyond black-oriented news sites and blogs, I haven't heard much about Too Short's predatory pontificating. Perhaps if he made the same mistake as Jamie Foxx and directed his "advice" towards the ever-so-impressionable white teenagers, there would be a bit more exposure. In fact, the outrage generated by this would probably make Michael Vick's dogfighting conviction seem like a quaint shoplifting incident at Target.

But when it comes to bullshit that happens within the black community, events like these don't even rate an eyebrow raise. Black men in general who predate on black women and girls don't rate a mention unless the target happens to be extremely famous or white. It's how Anthony Sowell managed to get away with his crimes for so long and why Rihanna's abuse at the hands of Chris Brown became as noteworthy as it did.

I know there was a time where I had thicker skin for this kind of talk; usually ending it with “meh, it’s just music,” but something about the situation in which the person posting this from the position of a now-former rapper (pending earlier explanation, naturally) at age 45 and presumably a father, one would hope that one just wouldn’t take it this far, especially not providing specific rape instructions. I guess achievement of the ripe old age of 32 and the presence of a 7-month-old all too willing to show me her two teeth changed that.

Just like the words spewed by Troi Torain (also known as "DJ Starr") against the daughter and wife of then-rival DJ Envy, most people who are up and up on rap and R&B are quick to dismiss those words as just that: words. Unfortunately, those words can often take a life of their own, reinforcing a negative lifestyle and negative trends that go a long way to hurt the most vulnerable within the black community. It's bad enough that the media and rap culture both go out of its way to devalue black women and reduce them to nothing more than mere sexual objects, but when the famous black men actively advocate said commodification and other black Americans see it as being no big deal...you have to wonder if there's a disconnect somewhere:

Just as it's incredibly offensive and wrong for Star to bring a 4-year-old girl into an ugly radio debate, it seems wrong for Envy to be taking the fight to the same level by calling the police in on the case, when it's really quite clear that Star was just being an asshole in public.

People tend to just shrug and not take these things seriously until 1)it personally affects them or 2)it happens to someone who "matters" and in turn generates publicity that's too big to ignore or shrug off. To get a better idea of what was said:

“I will come for your kids” and I want to “do an R. Kelly (i.e. urinate during sexual intercourse)…on your seed (i.e. child)”. Torain also offered $500 to any listener who could provide information about the rival DJ’s daughter’s school and used racial slurs when talking about the DJ’s wife. Torain went on to say that he wanted to “put mayonnaise in the ass cheeks” of the rival DJ’s young daughter, immediately adding that he also desired to take a bite out of it.

The shit is downright pedophilic. It's no wonder DJ Envy brought the police in on this. Despite his involvement in the beef between him and Torain, this stepped over the line.

It took constant hammering against the walls of tone deaf mass media to momentarily knock Torain off his "hustle." His antics didn't reverberate throughout the media like those of Chris Brown or Jamie Foxx. When your bullshit is aimed at ordinary black women and girls - people whom, in the eyes of the media, don't matter all that much, it's easy to get away with it. Although Too Short and the people at XXL have been called out for it, I doubt it's knocking anyone from those camps off of their hustle. No wonder folks like Gina McCauley are greatly concerned:

"The black community has a problem with how it treats its girls and boys as it relates to violence," McCauley concluded, and she called on black men to take Too Short to task for his comments and re-educate him about respecting black women.

Too many black men are willing to just stand back and not call guys like Too Short out on hurting black women and girls. Too many people want to remain in such a person's good graces rather than risk being ostracized for standing up. The longer these black men sit in silence, the more black women and girls get hurt.

He probably has daughters by multiple women. This is what happens...he tells his daughters to keep her legs closed; he tells his sons to "Be a pimp player"; he has a rotation of women for his children to see. Straight up mixed signals.

That's true for just about every ethnic group and culture. Men and boys are encouraged to predate and fornicate to their hearts' content (except in very specific circumstances), while the onus of sexual protection from said predation falls squarely on women and girls. The menfolk get little blue pills while the womenfolk get little white pills...to hold between their knees.

I hereby re-submit Todd Anthony Shaw's name to the Field Negro for consideration for House Negro of the Day.* I'm sure DMX will be glad to get some of that heat up off him. I'd submit Chris Brown's name, but he doesn't need the publicity or another award.**

*I've just been informed he already made House Negro once.
**He's probably been in the House himself.

The New York Times has a rather thorough article on the Jefferson County, Alabama bankruptcy and the sewer debacle that started it all. I covered this in a previous blog post, which also contains a link to the even more detailed Rolling Stone article authored months ago. I guess since the NYT had its content ripped by those bastards over at Fortune, they had to make up for lost eyeballs with a quick rehash of old news.

Meanwhile, governments all over the globe are responding to economic crises with resounding cries of Austerity™. In a quaint three-bedroom villa on the outskirts of the European Union suburbs, Daddy Germany and Momma France want Greece and its fellow PIIGS siblings (Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain) to eat a piping hot, value-sized portion of Austerity™ for dinner, on the auspices of it being healthy for them. Greece set itself on fire at the kitchen table in protest, while the rest of the PIIGS went to their rooms without supper. But seriously, Greece is hurting in a bad way. Deep in debt, with no way of practicing their traditional solution of currency devaluation (because Euro) and with tax evasion a national pastime, the Greek government is busy cutting whatever scraps of fat they can find to stay afloat, even with Germany secretly wanting the country to emancipate itself declare bankruptcy and get the hell out of the house Euro.

Austerity™, according to conservative fixtures who fancy themselves as being learned in economic matters, supposedly works by drastically cutting worker pay and benefits, social services deemed unnecessary and even essential services to the bone, not to mention helpful programs that are considered "entitlements" by the conservative set. Spending is drastically lowered, while taxes are also lowered or at least held at the same rates. In other words, it's the government pretending to budget like an ordinary household of five.

In the case of the United States, it's a household of five where the hubby only spends his money on guns and countless rounds of drinks for his wealthy buddies from the office. Apparently, if he shows he can flash a little cash and kisses enough wealthy buddy ass, he thinks they'll let him in the country club and they'll all be BFFs 4eva. Meanwhile, the wife works, but nearly every single dime she makes winds up in hubby's hands. They barely have enough for the necessities and niceties like new clothes for the kids or a decent night out for the wife are deemed "entitlements." The family trucks no handouts and despite scraping by on the thinnest margins, sincerely believes that if it just cuts back on the food and the utility usage, they'll be able to put back enough money to get themselves back on track again, despite hubby getting his paycheck cut once again and all of their savings going towards more guns for hubby's collection and more rounds of drinks for the wealthy boys back at the pub.

So what does Austerity™ have to do with a county that's knee-deep in debt accrued from what turned out to be a massive fraudulent subprime loan?

Well, when you think about it, the later stages of Austerity™ involve the family selling off the prized family silver and jewelry. For countries, those jewels are public infrastructure, already built and just waiting to be sold to creditors and private interests for literally pennies on the dollar. In other words, Austerity™ eventually turns a country into a glorified estate sale.

For Jefferson County, that may involve selling off portions or even the entirety of the Jefferson County sewer system. Now there's a public asset that a private company can use to make money hand over fist. And that's the whole point - a private entity taking hold of a formerly public asset that features a built-in captive consumer base and a license to literally print money. It's Comcast (or AT&T) sipping a steroid/crack smoothie infused with meth crystals for added punch.

Conservatives are happy about how this shit is well on its way to hitting the proverbial fan, as it supposedly validates the continuing cries for "small government," which, if you're reading the news these days, turns out to be a government that funds moral busybodyism (banning abortion and gay marriage), wealth worship (more tax cuts to wealthy individuals and corporations, with looser or nonexistent regulations) and unbridled aggression (see our military funding sometime) while condemning and defunding things that actually help people (national healthcare, social programs, etc). It's a government run on the Just World fallacy with Dickensian logic. Many of the suburban and rural collapse fetishists are banking on the county keeling over (and the city of Birmingham along with it*) just for the validation of their world view such an event would bring - "the county was a liberal shit pool that blew up because it wouldn't follow the hallowed way of conservative 'small government'."

Rick Santorum says President Obama wants to cull the disabled from the nation's ranks:

"One of the things that you don't know about ObamaCare in one of the mandates is they require free prenatal testing," Santorum began telling about 400 people here. "Why? Because free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions and, therefore, less care that has to be done, because we cull the ranks of the disabled in our society. That too is part of ObamaCare -- another hidden message as to what president Obama thinks of those who are less able than the elites who want to govern our country."

Santorum has a young disabled daughter, who has had several health complications.

So what are you saying, Rick? That there's somehow a correlation between the number of abortions and those who happen to be born with disabilities? That the GOP is willing to fund more care for those with disabilities instead of finding new excuses to have such funding cut? Gee Rickster, you've been mouthing off a lot of useless shit lately:

"Ladies and gentleman, we have a president who not only apologizes for America, but consistently makes our country less safe," Santorum told the 750 people gathered here for a Lincoln Day Dinner on Friday.

The comments came just hours after FBI and Capitol police arrested Amine El Khalifi, a Moroccan authorities say was intent on carrying out a suicide bombing inside the U.S. Capitol, in a sting operation.

Mittens, where are you? Why haven't you eliminated this slimeball from the primary so we can focus on wailing on your wooden ass until it becomes splinters and firewood? You have the money, the backing and the approval of the GOP Establishment, but you just can't seem to seal the deal. At this point, the big boys on the Hill are gonna start wondering if they're getting their money's worth out of you.

I suppose this is how Republican Rep. Darrell Issa and his all-male panel on contraception and religious freedom feels. Oh, they won't openly admit it, but they're probably thinking it. From TPM:

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) held hearings on contraception and religious freedom that produced the now-famous picture of a table full of men called to weigh in on access to contraceptives. Democrats wanted a woman — a Georgetown law student with a friend who lost an ovary because the university doesn’t cover birth control — to say her piece at the hearing, but Issa wouldn’t let her on the panel. He said she wasn’t “appropriate or qualified” to discuss the topic at hand.

*cue Scooby-Doo "huh?" noise*

Issa bristled at the charge and said Democrats could not add their witness because she was not a member of the clergy, but a student at Georgetown. He also faulted Democrats for not submitting the name of the witness, Sandra Fluke, in time.

Fluke would have talked about a classmate who lost an ovary because of a syndrome that causes ovarian cysts. Georgetown, which is affiliated with the Catholic Church, does not insure birth control, which is also used to treat the syndrome.

Issa said the hearing is meant to be more broadly about religious freedom and not specifically about the contraception mandate in the Health Reform law.

It's an issue that affects women's health, so you'd think there would be, well, women on the panel concerning a topic that affects them most. No dice. And plenty of people are calling foul, as they should.

“This is an issue about women’s health and I believe that women’s health should be covered in all fo the insurance plans,” Pelosi insisted at her press briefing this morning, refuting the GOP’s claim that the debate should focus on “religious liberties.”

“Where are the women? And that’s a good question for the whole debate. Where are the women?” she asked. “Imagine, having a panel on women’s health and then not having any women on the panel, duh!”

One of the great things about the Internet is that you can find any number of equally unique platforms on which to converse, discuss and trade information with one another. Reddit was one of those places, unique in that users themselves could create separate, specialized boards known as "subreddits," tailored to any specific interest. These subreddits and Reddit, as a whole, are not subject to any sort of moderation or administration from above and it's often left to the moderators of the subreddits themselves to enforce etiquette and rules, if there are any. At times, this is treated as a good thing. This time, it wasn't.

Yesterday, I read up about Reddit's deletion of several unsavory subreddits, most of them having to do with "jailbait." In keeping with their claims of respect for the First Amendment and "free speech," the administration at Reddit was rather reluctant to do anything about reports of users posting and trading pictures featuring underage teens and young children for sexual gratification, even when there were reports of actual child pornography present within these subreddits. At first, it took the attention of CNN's Anderson Cooper along with well-known humor site and social forum Something Awful for Reddit to shut down "jailbait"-related subreddits, but it was business-as-usual for months afterward.

The people at Something Awful cranked up the pressure, creating a "Redditbomb" that was distributed to practically every outlet possible -- news stations, schools, government officials, bloggers, etc. It was a concerted effort to bring the activities that were going on within those subreddits to light, thereby shocking people into pressuring Advance Publications, the owners of Conde Nast, which in turn once owned Reddit, into cracking down on these activities. This led Reddit to shut down many of the more obvious subreddits and modify their policy on such matters.

There's been debate about the legality of the pictures within these subreddits, especially those involving "jailbait" (essentially those who are below the Age of Consent in your home country). These included otherwise innocent photos of teenagers pulled from Facebook walls and Myspace profiles, in various states of dress, used largely for varying degrees of sexual satisfaction by many subreddit visitors. One could ask why a subreddit full of otherwise "legal" pictures should be closed and others would more than likely point to the sexual satisfaction aspect. Ditto for those "non-nude" models consisting of children under the age of 16, in various states of dress ranging from fully clothed to scantily-clad.

As a member, I had a front-row seat to the forum post over at Something Awful that started the whole thing. For those who can't afford or don't want to pay the $10 membership fee, there's a drastically abridged version of it on the main website.

Throughout the entire episode, I noticed there were three types of people who were upset over these proceedings:

• Those who believe strongly in the concept of free speech on the Internet, no matter the cost or collateral damage.
• Those who are genuinely offended over being denied what they see as their right to ogle at and achieve sexual self-gratification via pictures of teens and preteens in photos spanning the entirety of the COPINE scale.
• Those who have other "guilty pleasures" on Reddit that are not directly related to "jailbait" and see this sea change in moderation as a potential threat to those pleasures.

The former accept the good that comes with concept of free, unfettered speech (the ability to freely speak without being persecuted politically/religiously/etc.) along with the bad that is bound to turn up (racism/sexism/pornography/etc.). The main argument focuses on how this crackdown sets a precedent for future crackdowns, with the scope of said crackdowns widening until you eventually get to political persecutions and the like. Give the administration (or government entity) an inch and they'll take a mile, a few inches at a time. Even if such crackdowns or self-censoring (which is what Reddit is really doing) are for the good of the website and the general public, it's bound to lead to far more aggressive crackdowns or cases of self-censoring in the future. In the end, it's better to simply ignore the offending content and move on. Given the ability to hand-pick your favorite subreddits to the exclusion of others, it's easy to avoid the offending subreddits, as long as the content doesn't spill over.

The problem with the argument of the former group is that it places them in uncomfortable proximity with the second group, a collection of individuals who've enjoyed the unfettered access to photos and stories of young children and teens, some of them being "teen models" or "child models" that flirt with the bleeding edge of legality, others being intimate photos yanked from hacked Myspace and Facebook accounts, with the occasional appearance of what could be considered actual child pornography. These photos and stories are often used to derive sexual satisfaction from those who, for whatever reason, find such images arousing. These people even go as far as utilizing some of the arguments used by the first group: the possible repercussions of bringing the hammer down on what is perceived as child pornography, with these people going so far as to question what constitutes child pornography in the first place and whether or not the removal of "jailbait" images, which some argue as not being seen by most as being "child porn" in the classic sense, are even valid in the first place.

The third group, along with the second, features a wide variety of mentally questionable beings who are genuinely upset over being denied what seems (to them) to be "harmless" activities by what they see as "busybodies" and "puritans." The crackdowns and self-censoring could spill over to their subreddits, as the scope of valid targets deserving of a crackdown expand. Actual child porn today, a fictitious story involving rape tomorrow.

Most people see the second group as bad news, but given the ability to sequester oneself in their own personal selection of subreddits, it's easy to ignore them. There are plenty of people who've implored the Reddit admins to do something about this group, but those complaints often fell on deaf ears. The subreddit segregation combined with a laissez-faire attitude from the higher-ups created an atmosphere where it was only a matter of time before someone, somewhere, brought the hammer down.

---

There's a problem with free, unfettered speech on the Internet: It actually doesn't exist, and for good reason.

The Internet is a vast place with a largely western and a largely American bias, but many of the concepts enshrined within the U.S. Constitution, concepts that govern American lives, simply don't exist on the Internet. Even though users must abide by the laws of the country they're located in, the Internet itself is a lawless Mad Max landscape -- unless national or international entities have enough support and resources to enforce laws uniformly throughout most of the Internet landscape. The RIAA is doing its damnedest to become the Internet's first U.S. Marshal when it comes to actively seeking and punishing those accused of copyright infringement.

As a consequence, you make your own rules and regulations in regards to how you want things run. Nearly every website features basic Terms of Service and house rules that outline what you can and can't do. Free and unfettered speech means eliminating most of those rules, since they're by far and large restrictive of said free speech. This attracts people who don't want to be hemmed up or limited in their speech, but it also attracts users intent on abusing or perverting that free speech. It gets to the point where you want to ask if viewing child porn is considered "free speech" or not.

Here's the problem for Reddit and Advance Publications: free and unfettered speech brings in the good, but if left unchecked, brings in plenty of the bad. If the website's administrators refuse to root out instances of child porn and other such images that could be construed as such, on the grounds of free and unfettered speech for all members, it will eventually find itself under the duress of either legal action or federal investigation.

And that's where this comes in:

Senator Lamar Smith, lead sponsor of the currently dead SOPA bill you’ve heard so much about, has another bill in the works that uses Child Pornography as a screen to push through an amendment that’ll have your internet service provider tracking all of your financial dealings online. Each time you use a credit card, each time you read your bank statement, all of your IP information and your search history will be required by your ISP to be stored for 18 months at all times. This bill is H.R. 1981 and will have more dire consequences than SOPA or PIPA ever had the potential to have.

What it does is to amend several rules that have to do with Child Pornography and preventing it, the bill itself called the “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011.”

This bill is the "think of the children" canard on steroids. The underlying fear is that a concerted effort to rid Reddit and the Internet of these unsavory elements could be the stepping stone to genuine suppression in other areas. SOPA/PIPA didn't pass in their current forms, but if they were to be wrapped in the cloak of protecting American citizens from pedophilic content and those who indulge in it, the unsuspecting public would be too caught up in a righteous storm of pitchforks and torches to realize exactly what they're signing.

A commercial provider of an electronic communication service shall retain for a period of at least one year a log of the temporarily assigned network addresses the provider assigns to a subscriber to or customer of such service that enables the identification of the corresponding customer or subscriber information under subsection (c)(2) of this section.

(1) to encourage electronic communication service providers to give prompt notice to their customers in the event of a breach of the data retained pursuant to section 2703(h) of title 18 of the United States Code, in order that those effected can take the necessary steps to protect themselves from potential misuse of private information; and

(2) that records retained pursuant to section 2703(h) of title 18, United States Code, should be stored securely to protect customer privacy and prevent against breaches of the records.

Beyond your IP address, the above is very vague about what kind of "customer or subscriber information" will be retained for an entire year. There's talk that it's credit card information -- storing credit card info for an entire year sounds like a hacker and credit card theif's dream come true.

In the interests of preserving free and unfettered speech, the admins at Reddit largely turned a blind eye to a problem that has now attracted plenty of negative attention and the possibility of laws being crafted to obstinately crack down on the problem, laws that could be used to crack down on other things, including political speech deemed undesirable by the governing authorities. Reddit could have nipped the child porn and jailbait problem in the bud by discouraging and removing such images beforehand, but the horses are long out of the barn.

For those wondering why anyone should bother with shutting down a few "harmless" boards featuring "jailbait," an except from this PCMag article should shed some light:

The term "society" itself doesn't necessarily reflect the size or diversity of its population; instead, it represents a common set of values, beliefs, and institutions. The United States represents a society, as did the Fiji cannibals of 150 years ago. Or those that consider a 14-year-old in a bikini fair game for lewd comments.

It's not that far-fetched for some men to go from considering a 14-year-old in a bikini fair game for lewd comments to considering said 14-year-old fair game for sexual activity. One should ask whether they would go as far as tolerating several breeding grounds for sexual behavior towards the youngest and most vulnerable of society's members in the name of free, unfettered speech at all costs. Meanwhile, we should all ask ourselves if cracking down on this activity will end up being the crack that allows SOPA/PIPA's foot to squeeze through the Internet's front door.

“Freedom of speech is a good thing. Common sense, tact and dignity is even better. Bravo admins. Long overdue,” wrote one Reddit user.

“Common sense, tact, and dignity ARE NOT BETTER THAN FREEDOM OF SPEECH,” countered another user.

Is freedom of speech more important than removing environments that allow behaviors that sexually exploit and threaten children and young teens to thrive and propagate? That's a debate that would burn most discussion forums to the ground. I would have to say that they're all equally important and that each one has to be taken in moderation.

Last time, President Barack Obama sidestepped the GOP and Catholic Church's opposition to birth control as a part of health insurance coverage, by allowing health insurance providers to directly offer that coverage to employees without religious entities and employers paying a single dime, thereby eliminating the possibility of "material cooperation with evil." Bereft of the ability to claim a religious objection to birth control in health care plans, the GOP is going for broke:

In response to the Obama administration’s requirement that all healthcare plans provide birth control, Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO), in another effort to pander the 1% of the female population who have never used birth control and the men who want them to be barefoot and pregnant, introduced an amendment to the transportation bill (that’s right, transportation bill) that would allow any employer to deny any coverage on any whim.

Sen. Blunt knew this measure would die a hot death if it wasn't quietly buried in an unrelated bill when no one was looking. And this, ladies and gents, is why the Democrats should be constantly on guard for such legislative treachery from the GOP -- they'd do anything to achieve their goals, no matter how.

Fortunately, Harry Reid was able to smell this bullshit and put a quick end to it:

The move was intercepted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who blocked the contraception-repeal amendment being called for by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., calling it “senseless.”

”I appreciate the Republicans’ opportunity to never lose an opportunity to mess up a good piece of legislation,” Reid said sarcastically. “Let’s do the banking part of this bill. Let’s do the finance part of this bill. Let’s do the commerce part of this bill. But to show how the Republicans never lose an opportunity to mess up a good piece of legislation, listen to this: They’re talking about 1st amendment rights, the Constitution.”

Now, now, Harry. We all know the First Amendment and the Constitution in general only applies when it works in the GOP's favor.

And here is why this measure was so dangerous in the first place:

Under the measure, an insurer or an employer would be able to claim a moral or religious objection to covering HIV/AIDS screenings, Type 2 Diabetes treatments, cancer tests or anything else they deem inappropriate or the result of an “unhealthy” or “immoral” lifestyle. Similarly, a health plan could refuse to cover mental health care on the grounds that the plan believes that psychiatric problems should be treated with prayer.

Imagine going to your doctor to have a life-saving procedure performed, only to be denied health coverage for it because your employer deems it anathema to his/her/their religious beliefs. In order to eradicate the scourge of women having open and affordable access to birth control, they're ready and willing to place other lives in danger.

Whitney Houston was an amazing singer and wonderful actress who made some extremely poor choices in her life: falling prey to drug addiction and a hellish marriage with shades of co-dependency and enabling, leading to the loss of her looks, singing voice and career. In the brief time before her death, she managed to overcome those poor choices and it seemed she was coming out of what was a long period of darkness in her life, but it wasn't to be.

Fox News produced a news post concerning the details of her death and how many of our most famous celebs were handling the horrible news. Like so many other websites, there was a comments feature below the story. This news piece drew over 5000 comments, many of them lacking a great deal of charity for Houston and by extension, those of her ethnic background in general.

This is Fox News we're talking about, but you'd think that the unreconstructed and hate-filled among us would have some semblance of respect for the recently departed, irrespective of ethnic background or deeds.* You'd be dead wrong:

A tragedy is when someones passes away from a terminal disease or something else that no one saw coming.Whitney is just an inferior lo w life ni gg er that needed to go,no tragedy,no loss.

Any death is a tragedy you heartless bástard.

not nignogs their death is a plus

SHe couldn’t even sell issues of “the national enquirer” anymore. Everyone was tired of the TNB. Niqqer flaps her lips and screeches, niqqer becomes rich. Niqqer ends up nearly broke after spending all of her money. Niqqer in constant fights and drug binges. Niqqer ODs when she learns she’s nearly broke and she is so wasted physically she can’t make another album. Niqqer hit the end of the road, niqqer thinking and niqqer behavior led her to where she had nothing. She couldn’t face life without the “bling bling”, she knew she would never have any more “kaching kaching”

I am now patiently waiting for the grand messiah Obama to have a blk fundraiser in honor of Whitley with Kevin Costner as guest of honor with all the Hollywood elites invited along with Alan Colmes, Al Sharpton, Jeremia Wright, Charles Rangel, etc. with a menu featuring blk eyed peas, grits, Imported Kobe steak, Dom Perignon, sweet potato pie and a mus lll im scarf as a momento of this great occasion.

Of course the door prize will be an all expense paid trip to Kenya to visit the Obama tribe and birthplace of his ancestors while the American people still look for this imposter’s birth certificate in Hawaii !!!

This is typical of the blk gene pool; it happens all the time. They cannot handle fame and fortune whether it’s derived from music, acting, sports or just plain entertainment. Too much fame and too much money at one time will ki ll ll you.

How many blk people have died from drugs including alcohol that have been in the sports and the entertainment industry or screwed up their married lives like Tiger Woods or worse, OJ Simpson !!!

This is the same disease that got Obama voted into the White House.

i don’t even consider them to be included in the human race let alone on a pedistal. the people that do are a bunch of loosers.

Story goes Obama sh0ved to much cr@ck up the wh0res @zz when he was going to sniiff it…

Obvious the use of to much hair strengthener did her in.That s__t will peel paint

unfortunately like most nignog crack hoes she was able to apply her trade on “da streets”

Another nignog off the public social rolls

BIack females are the fattest segment of the population. BIack males are the most murderousss segment of the population. Africans have the lowest IQ of all people.

Like most of her species, she suffered from chronic stupidity.

tough break niqqer.

Nothing wrong with Coors, what is good about it most_n i g g e r s_ don’t like it

oh niqqa please,nigga please.

one of the only b l a c k chics i would have ever banged…..once you go c r ack er…..you dont do cr a c k

Woo Hoo One less obama voter

Whitney who?!? some /\/iggress music artist that had a couple of hits in the early 90’s. She’s since been forgotten and now she’s dead.. Who cares..

Africans love their drugs.

Jungle Buggie ??

This is a good lesson for all of you God loving Christian girls out there, stay away from “Jungle Love.”

One less bIack crack addict in the world today. Not such a big loss.

We Whiteys dont care about some monkey crackhead, change the headline!

How funny would it be if they fuckedup the tombstone.

WHITEY HOUSTON

Their are B L A C K S and their are N i G G A S, which class do you put her mentor Bobby Brown into??? Whitney chose ???

Who cares? Black_trash gone is enough.

She is just like any other gh e tto queen.I hope the rest of these worthless piles in the inner cities follow her act .

What a waste of a good slit.

HER REAL NAME SHOULD BE KUNTA KINTI OR MOGUBA MAGABA, WHY AFRO-AMERICANS ARE USING ENGLISH NAMES AND LAST NAMES?….SHAME ON THEM!!

You know what you call Whitney Houston in a bathtub? A dead n i g g a h

Another buckwheat supporter bites the dust, oh well.

hatesandniqqers 3 hours ago

phuk you w hore,,,,,,,,,

Buckwheat is ne gro trash!

Bammy should not have given her crack from his personal stash!

B l a c k s have little to brag about about so they strut and crow about anything. The politically correct whites whine and cringe and try to be b l a c k themselves and identify with their “brothers”. Great singer but as stupid as her pal, the malignancy in the white house

she still be voting for the head niggg this nov

To bad it wasnt the monkey in the White House

Once upon a time, I'd figure that the bulk of these comments were the work of young and warped minds who found delight in leaving the electronic equivalent of a lit turd in a paper bag on one's doorstep. You know, "for the lulz."

No. This is hate. Pure, 100% hatred. The type of hatred that seeps through every pore of one's being despite attempts to keep it contained. It's the type of vile, vicious bile that eventually finds an outlet at some point - it has to, as keeping it bottled up only leads to the most explosive of results. The comments about Whitney Houston, the comments about Obama and black Americans in general...this is hatred we're dealing with. Irrational, color-aroused hate that has been imprinted and implanted in the minds of many for generations on end.

I'm not even sure I want to blame Fox News on any level. These hateful comments could have very well found their way on a news site with a more liberal bent. No matter where a story like this pops up, if someone wanted to ooze their hatred all over it, that's what they would do, at least until the moderation (if any) kicks in.

Because sifting through 5000+ comments is a arduous task for any moderation team, the entire comments section was nixed. Apparently, no comments are good comments in some cases. But this should serve as a reminder that for all of the talk about how racism is "in the past" or how this society we live in is a "colorless" one, there remains racial hatred, albeit bottled up and penned in by polite social standards. Nevertheless, it remains just underneath the surface, constantly poised to seep out at any given moment, whether in public, in private or within the electronic confines of the Internet.

HT to Little Green Footballs blogger Charles Johnson for scraping up this vile batch of detritus and placing it on display before the whole thing was swept under the rug.

EDIT: Fox News apparently has a rudimentary word filter that blocks offensive words and perhaps phrases, but the commentators made a conscientiousness effort to evade the word filter. Amazing how some people can find ways to vent bigotry in spite of safeguards and roadblocks.

*Although that'd bring us to the question "Well what about folks like Joe Paterno?"

The only exposure to Catholicism I've had was back in first grade, when my mother placed me in a private Catholic school. I don't remember attending any mass service and I never could (and to this day never did) understand why Catholics placed Mary on an even higher pedestal than Jesus. I never understood the Catholic prohibition on birth control, either. God had His famous "be fruitful and multiply" command, but I don't think He meant that as a clarion call for reproductive recklessness, nor as a blank check for patriarchal authority figures to grab women by the ovaries and dictate what they could and could not do with their own bodies.

But that's what many religious figures and prominent conservative figures have done. One major roadblock towards birth control coverage in health insurance plans was the religious opposition to it. In effect, religious figures and employers with a religious bent did not want any culpability in allowing a woman to receive contraceptives or abortions on their healthcare plans. The GOP, which would prefer women not having any access to anything other than the finest back-alley clinics, often stood in solidarity. The Democrat Party, when faced with this immobile opposition would have rolled themselves up like an old rug and rolled out the door in defeat. That was then. This is now.

After two solid weeks of Republicans rapidly escalating attacks on contraception access under the banner of "religous freedom," Obama finally announced what the White House is proposing an accomodation of religiously affiliated employers who don't want to offer birth control coverage as part of their insurance plans. In those situations, the insurance companies will have to reach out directly to employees and offer contraception coverage for free, without going through the employer.

The significance of this? Religious organizations and employers can't cross their arms and declare "you shall not pass" when it comes to contraception and reproductive health coverage, not when the insurance companies themselves can simply walk around this obstacle and offer said coverage directly to those employees. There. Those organizations won't have to get their hands dirty over "material cooperation with evil." Insurance companies are down with the idea, from a pragmatic monetary standpoint. As it turns out, contraception and abortion are much less expensive than the health care expenses from having an unwanted baby.

Once again, President Obama proves that the best way to deal with an unmovable object is to simply walk around it. He stands to gain a groundswell of support from women, plus he managed to make Mitt Romney and his fellow GOPers look rather silly.

No, homies. Just no.

You need brain bleach. Here, have some brain bleach.

Rick Santorum seized an important opportunity Tuesday to become the chief conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, as he made a clean sweep of three Republican presidential nomination contests in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, was expected to remain the front-runner for the GOP nomination nevertheless, thanks to his huge advantages in campaign cash and organization going forward, and his impressive earlier wins in New Hampshire, Florida and Nevada.

Still, the strong Santorum vote provided fresh evidence that "Romney's is a troubled candidacy," said Lawrence Jacobs, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. "The outcome of the race is far from certain."

Santorum's most stunning victory came in Colorado, where he was proclaimed the winner with 38 percent of the vote to Romney's 36 percent, with 96 percent of precincts reporting. Romney had been heavily favored in the state, whose 2008 caucuses he won with 60 percent of the vote, and he campaigned hard there in recent days.

Former speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich took 13 percent in Colorado, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul 12 percent.

In Minnesota's caucuses, with 83 percent of precincts reporting, Santorum had 45 percent, Paul had 27 percent, Romney trailed with 17 percent and Gingrich had 11 percent. Romney won the Minnesota GOP caucuses in 2008.

In Missouri, a crucial swing state in the November elections, Santorum was headed for a landslide. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, he had 55 percent to Romney's 25 percent. Paul had 12 percent. Gingrich was not on the ballot; 4 percent were uncommitted.

And here I was thinking that Romney would walk away with the remainder of the GOP caucuses all sewn up and in the bag. Just because you're the GOP establishment's top pick for candidate doesn't mean the Teabaggers and "real" Americans that make up the voting populace have to tolerate that choice. Being a Mormon guy with a lead personality and a case of "out-of-touchitis" doesn't help, either.

There isn't much else you can say about this shit. Eddie Long is a sick man and has been that way for quite some time.

Update: The Komen Foundation reversed their decision to withhold funding from Planned Parenthood. Too bad it won't reverse the damage this debacle's done to their organization.

The Susan G. Komen Foundation's seemingly sudden decision to pull funding from Planned Parenthood garnered a great deal of attention these past few days and remains a popular topic in most corners of the Internet. Personally speaking, there's been so many perspectives already written on the topic that I've been vexed about whether it'd be worth offering one of my own, as opposed to just sending readers off to other sites with more detailed info, but I digress.

Seeing first-hand what breast cancer can do to a family member, I didn't mind giving my support to the Komen Foundation and I found their overall mission to be an admirable one. Detecting breast cancer (or any other type of cancer, for that matter) early on is one of the best ways to ensure that those who have it won't lose their lives over it. Improper screening of another form of cancer allowed it to metastasize into a more serious and deadly condition in another family member. I didn't know about the corporate goings-on behind the scenes, nor about how the foundation spent most of its donations on suing smaller foundations for petty copyright infringements.

So hearing about the Komen Foundation unceremoniously pulling its funding from Planned Parenthood took me by surprise, given how I didn't expect an organization such as this one to jeopardize itself over what appeared to be a case of ideological weight-slinging. The Komen Foundation gave $680,000 to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening and other related services. Not a single dime went to abortion services, something that Planned Parenthood is assumed to be big on. On the contrary, the organization's is largely devoted to testing and treating sexually transmitted diseases, as well as providing contraception and other reproductive health services, especially to those in areas where access to such services are hard to come by. Despite what many people think, Planned Parenthood is not an abortion mill that has fetuses hauled off by the truckload to be reformulated into tofu or stem cell soup or Mitt Romney's toothpaste.

"It's a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher's pay scale, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach.

"To go in and raise someone's child for eight hours a day, or many people's children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn't want to do it, OK?

"And these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It's just in them to do. It's the ability that God give 'em. And there are also some teachers, it wouldn't matter how much you would pay them, they would still perform to the same capacity.

"If you don't keep that in balance, you're going to attract people who are not called, who don't need to be teaching our children. So, everything has a balance."

The above comes from Alabama state Senator Shadrack McGill (R). It's not every day you're confronted with a statement that is so irretrievably stupid that it takes the rest of the day just to wrap your mind around the sheer stupidity of it all.

For starters, I have yet to run into a passage in the Holy Bible that holds keeping teacher salaries at well below the national average as a "biblical principle." That's just something you won't see in the Old or New Testaments any time soon. McGill must have one of those custom-made Holy Bibles filled with "scripture" specially designed to justify the entire conservative philosophy.

Second, those who have a calling for teaching might initially go in without regard to how much they're being paid, but eventually their thoughts will turn towards keeping the lights on and the fridge stocked up. As this whole "calling" thing, sounds like McGill is mixing up teaching with preaching. The classroom is not a pulpit, the students are not church folk and there's no deacon walking around the room with a collection plate in hand.

Last but not least, sounding off a desire to keep teacher salaries as low as possible should be a red flag to just about anyone who is teaching or thinking of teaching in the state of Alabama. One of the things that brings the cream of the crop to the surface is a decent salary. Although the state has one of the highest starting salaries in the nation, the average salary is well below the national median. Depressing those salaries won't bring in the best and brightest, because the best and brightest want to be paid a decent salary that is commensurate to what they're worth and if they have to go outside the state to be paid well, then that's exactly what will happen. The idea that great teachers have to sacrifice their salaries and livelihoods just to do the job they love is quite nonsensical and patently stupid.

Meanwhile, McGill believes that such sacrifices should not extend to the legislature:

McGill, R-Woodville, said a 62 percent pay raise in 2007 - passed first by a controversial voice vote and later in an override of a veto by then-Gov. Bob Riley - better rewards lawmakers and makes them less susceptible to being swayed by lobbyists.
Lawmakers entered the 2007 legislative session making $30,710 a year, a rate that had not been changed in 16 years. The raise increased it to $49,500 annually.

McGill said that by paying legislators more, they're less susceptible to taking bribes.

I doubt that. No politician who's getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and perks is going to suddenly give that up over a nearly $20k annual pay raise. That's just extra change dug out from underneath the couch for those guys, on top of the kickbacks and gifts they'll continue to receive. It's interesting how McGill is willing to give legislators such as himself a larger paycheck, yet he's adamant about keeping teacher salaries as low as possible.

I suppose the end game of all this is to keep teacher salaries depressed to the point at which no one in their right mind would want to take up the job (at least in that state) for a living. This will be one of the many sources of justification for pushing ahead with the idea of charter schools as a replacement for the "failed" public education system, a system that is currently being driven into failure thanks to a number of factors, with underfunding being one of them. If you take a close look at most school systems in Alabama, you'll notice how inflated the salaries of the administration are in comparison to the faculty and staff within the schools themselves. That might not bother someone who approaches the issue of public education with a business mindset - after all, the CEO and other execs have to be "well-compensated" in order to perform a good job.

Looking at education from a business perspective also demands that the guys on the ground floor - the teachers and support staff - be paid as little as possible to preserve the bottom line. That's something that Casey Wardynski is introducing to Huntsville City Schools with "Teach For America." Instead of having qualified teachers with hundreds of hours in traditional training and years of experience in connecting with and motivating students, HCS students will be taught by fresh-faced college graduates who have relatively little experience. While the strong push for "Teach For America" is just Wardynski's way of making sure the Broad Foundation gets a return on their investment, a cunning politician can seize on TFA as being a backdoor for dumping qualified and experienced teachers in favor of what will eventually amount to as "temp workers." There is a certain allure towards paying teachers fry-cook wages, on the mistaken believe that they don't do much of anything aside from sit on their asses and babysit kids all day.

Perhaps McGill should borrow a proper copy of the Holy Bible and spend the next few days going over it from cover to cover, preferably with a good minister who'll guide him through the text. That should help him separate genuine biblical principles from the principles he's conjured up in his head.

"I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair , I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich.... I'm concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling."

"We will hear from the Democrat party, the plight of the poor.... You can focus on the very poor, that's not my focus.... The middle income Americans, they're the folks that are really struggling right now and they need someone that can help get this economy going for them."

I know exactly who Mitt Romney's talking about when he speaks of the "very heart of America" and the "middle income Americans." Mittens is talking about the vast score of middle-class Americans, many of them dotting "flyover country." And now Mittens wants them to feel as though they've been ignored by President Obama. After all, he's taking care of the very poor and the very rich (of which dear Mittens himself is a ranking member of), but he's brushed the middle American dirt off his slim shoulders.*

It's tragicomedy at its best: a wealthy politician pandering to middle-class Americans by pitting them against the poor and the wealthy, and big Mitt's ready to take care of them if only they cast their lot with him. Anyone who thinks this is some sort of gaffe is deluding themselves big-time.

*Romney has since backed off a bit. Now he's concerned about the very poor, just not as much as he's concerned about middle America. Cold comfort, that.

Mittens winning the Florida primary was a far-gone conclusion, considering how southern belle Newt Gingrich realized that the same tactics that won him the South Carolina primary wouldn't work in the Sunshine State and how Rick Santorum was being, well, Rick Santorum. The "rape babies are gifts from God" thing didn't do him any favors, and despite his performance at the debate prior to the primary, he still clocked in at a distant third.

At any rate, I'm glad to see Rick's kid pull through okay. Trisomy 18 is no laughing matter and neither is pneumonia in both lungs. Given that he's already lost a child, the last thing he needs is the loss of another. Of course, some people are wishing otherwise.


Only 19 tweets since mid-December and this person is already attempting to make a name for his/herself by crafting these beyond-the-pale tweets. If you find yourself wishing death on a three-year-old just because she's the daughter of a guy you happen to loath, you'd probably need to step away from the keyboard for a while and rethink your life.

Last, but not least, Jeffery Goldberg tells the rest of America what plenty of us already know about the GOP primary:

Here are some things you could learn about black Americans from the recent statements and insinuations of Republican presidential candidates, Republican congressmen and Republican-friendly radio personalities:

Black people have lost the desire to perform a day’s work. Black people rely on food stamps provided to them by white taxpayers. Black people, including Barack and Michelle Obama, believe that the U.S. owes them something because they are black. Black children should work as janitors in their high schools as a way to keep them from becoming pimps. And the pathologies afflicting black Americans are caused partly by the Democratic Party, which has created in them a dependency on government not dissimilar to the forced dependency of slaves on their owners.

Judging by these claims, all of which have actually been put forward recently, here is a modest prediction: This presidential election will be one of the most race- soaked in recent history. It is already more race-soaked than the 2008 election, which, of course, marked the first time that a black man became a major-party candidate.

Yes, Jeff. Tell us more shit we already know. We're all ears.