Author Archives: oinsketta

Democracy tyrannizes wealthy elites

Here’s a great piece from Dana Milbank in today’s Washington Bezos, called “Supreme Court’s hacks reward Republicans’ betrayal of democracy.”

Worse, this McConnell-packed Roberts court has returned the favor by stacking the deck in favor of minority rule by Republicans. It has blessed partisan gerrymandering, giving Republicans representation in the House disproportionate to their share of the electorate. It has allowed elections to be decided by billionaires and corporations spending unlimited sums of untraceable money. It has kneecapped labor unions, co-signed voter-suppression schemes by Republican-run states and eviscerated the civil rights era Voting Rights Act, to disastrous effect for Black and brown voters.

Now comes this breathtaking assault on the rights of women, a strongly Democratic constituency, eliminating the right tens of millions have firmly relied upon for half a century to control their own bodies.
The five justices have aligned themselves with the 16 percent of Americans who, according to the latest Post-ABC News poll believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances, and against the 79 percent who believe it should be legal in at least some circumstances. Eighty-two percent of Americans believe abortion should be allowed if a woman’s life is endangered, 79 percent in cases of rape or incest and 67 percent if the child would be born with a life-threatening illness.

https://wapo.st/3sjTCrn

Nice analysis of Alito’s grand slam

“Deeply rooted in this country’s history and traditions” is the standard seething reactionary Samuel Alito sets for what is permissible when the Supreme Court enumerates an unenumerated constitutional right of citizenship. Like a citizen’s unenumerated right not to be forcibly sterilized, for example, enumerated in 1942 by the Supreme Court.

He gets legal support for the argument that abortion was always illegal in this country, and thus deeply rooted, from an English aristocrat, the guy who codified procedures for witch trials in the 17th century, making it easier to execute the female minions of Satan. He cites this English Lord, Sir Matthew Hale, over and over as an unimpeachable legal authority on abortion, unimpeachable as the twice impeached Putin ally who appointed a supermajority from Alito’s judicial fraternity to decide what is deeply rooted in the history and traditions of this country (lynchings and pogroms are two that spring to mind). Hale denounced the Satanic evils of abortion in the 1640s, which is more than good enough legal authority for the Federalist Society Six.

Here’s an excellent discussion of the drive to “repeal the twentieth century” now in full, ugly swing, as a mob of top GOP officials calls for the blood of a partisan leaker of unknown allegiance, for, as many have noted, violating the sacred privacy of the Supreme Court. Talk about your fucking unenumerated rights…

Beware the silently raging

The quietly enraged are dangerous adversaries. Because they’re quiet and seemingly calm, their rage, when it gets a chance to express itself, is perhaps the most chilling kind of rage of all, because it’s so stealthily hides in seemingly unruffled quiet and seems to explode out of nowhere. This kind of rage waits for the perfect moment to quietly and inexorably express itself, rendering a final opinion that cannot be appealed. You cannot come back from the conclusions a quietly angry person imposes when they finally make their disapproval clear.

Silence itself is perhaps the single greatest weapon for expressing rage.

The beauty of silence as a weapon is that it is infinitely deniable, you cannot prove the intent of silence, it could have no intent at all. It could certainly have nothing to do with you, why is everything about you? Isn’t your interpretation of my silence just your perverse gloss on it? I said nothing, nothing, how can I have expressed any opinion on what you asked me about, you demanding dick? 

How about we put you on the defensive by not answering, by maintaining complete and total silence, and when you cry out we will point to the proof, you are a goddamn, whining hot head.   

The beautiful part about expressing rage with silence is that any unbiased observer can plainly see that the person getting upset seems to be working themselves up about nothing. 

Picture a ten year old black kid, going to bed every night scared, in the sudden violence of the projects, gunshots outside,  in the stairwells, no-knock warrant, undercover police, housing authority security,  gangs. Picture answering that kid’s question about the segregated poverty all around him saying, with the smug assurance of Bagpiper Bill Barr, that there’s no systemic racism in America, and its debatable that there ever was race-based slavery here, let alone a Supreme Court ruling [1] that people like you had no rights a white man was bound to respect that you were bought and sold like property because that’s what you were, nothing racist about it.

And then, silence. 

The problem of scary, inherited poverty is yours, boy, and nobody else’s.

We can go down a long list of examples of this despicable technique, but consider the quietly enraged reactionary Samuel Alito and his enraging rationale for why Jesus Christ must have the final say in US Constitutional matters, establishment clause be goddamned. You have Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz, the other day, squealing like stuck pigs about the nefarious malefactor who leaked the Alito draft ruling that women have no rights a white man is bound to respect, the partisan far-left criminal leaker (someone like Ginni Thomas is a much likelier culprit, since the draft must now stand as it is, with no retreat!) who silently stole and leaked a confidential Supreme Court draft decision, in an effort to politicize the fairest court an emissary of Jesus Christ Himself could appoint, to defend the unborn, the rights of good people not to be exposed to perverts, to lies about good, white Christian children, etc.

Makes me wanna holler.

Into the silence of a prosecutorial judge’s quick deliberation, sentence already in hand, not making eye contact as he listens impatiently to your version of events. Lots of cases, nothing personal, I have a lot of hate in my heart, I’m not giving you eye contact as you make your case because, as you know, I am not listening, too enraged. 

Silence, the verdict and punishment already in the mail. 

[1]

Obvious Commie twaddle:

Chief Justice Roger Taney (above) bluntly and maliciously described the status of persons of African origin in the 1857 Dred Scott decision:

“[Black people] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it.”

The silent death of Little Girl

Reminding us again that the real sting of death is that eternal silence where a beloved life once was.

two young kittens 2018

Little Girl (foreground, her sister White Back behind her, as always), who greatly resembled her beautiful mother Mama Kitten, her constant companion and ally, left us as gracefully as she came into this short, precious life four years ago. 

Her absence hangs heavily over the turf she bravely defended and enjoyed the many roosts of, and where we touched base late almost every night.   She was an agile, athletic hunter who could grab a bird out of the air, a gold glover who could catch a tossed treat and pop it into her mouth. She always showed up in the driveway to shake us down every time we approached the door. She carried on the tradition her mother started. They were known as the Driveway Bitches, two natural beauties, demanding their due, and they always happily collected their toll.

An ordinary event, the natural death of a sometimes affectionate feral cat we loved, filling our mortal hearts with sorrow, threatening to burst them, until the sorrow overflows.

Reminding us again that what takes your breath away at death is that eternal silence where a soul we loved once was.

Alito sez

Samuel Alito, joined by four fellow extremists from the Federalist Society, states in his draft opinion that abortion was never mentioned in the Constitution, and therefore, under Originalism, may not be added as an unenumerated privacy right by activist federal judges flexing their judicial muscle, beyond appeal, beyond ethics.

Note that slavery is not mentioned in the Constitution either, except obliquely as “such persons as the states shall see fit to admit” and “three fifths of all other persons”. Nonetheless slavery was vigorously enforced at law under perfectly constitutional federal statutes like the Fugitive Slave Acts and all that followed, up to the present day.

Alito’s probably not too happy about the outcome of the Civil War and all those messy amendments giving rights to people who never had them and more powers to the federal union than the Founding Fathers, in their almost divine wisdom, provided for. His ilk believe that all unenumerated rights, like the right to vote in federal elections, are best left up to the independent state legislatures, under the poison pill doctrine set out as dicta in Bush v. Gore…

Nothing activist about these five activist fucks, though. Ask Ginni Thomas.

From fucking Alito’s draft decision

The right not to undergo forced sterilization, we learn from Alito’s draft, was not recognized as a constitutional right until 1942, though it is an unenumerated right seemingly so fundamental that one would not think it needed to be enumerated.    Alito focused on constitutional rights “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and traditions” such as, one imagines, the presumption that police killing of unarmed citizens is justified, unless that citizen is wealthy, and white, or that the Second Amendment may not be seen as a license to regulate a “well-regulated militia”, or five unelected lifetime appointees, from the same activist judicial fraternity, overruling (by a single vote) enforcement of a law protecting the right to vote that passed the Senate 98-0, because, you know, such things are deeply rooted in this nation’s history and traditions.  

It’s the quietly seething motherfuckers, like Alito, Gorsuch and the Black Klansman, that you have to watch out for. Meanwhile, the party of the five unappealable justices calls for a swift investigation of, and harsh punishment for, whatever unprincipled traitor leaked this secret document. As they obstruct “partisan” “illegitimate” investigation of a riot that stopped all business at the Capitol related to the peaceful transfer of power, the cornerstone of our democracy, because, you know — mobs of angry Blacks and women! Tax and spend! Queers! Commies!

Enough to make you angry enough to vote? Come on, now.

see also

low carb vegan nachos

Heat a little avocado oil in a skillet. Cover half of the bottom with cumin seeds, half with fennel seeds. Stir. Add 2 to 5 large cloves of garlic and a thick 3 inch chunk of ginger, minced, and a chopped red pepper, stir until lightly sauteed.

Add one can each of red and black beans (drained and rinsed), sprinkle liberally with ground cumin, stir. Add a large can of crushed tomatoes, stir. Add small amount of water to tomato can, swish it around to get remaining sauce, add to mixture.

Continue cooking on medium low flame stirring frequently for maybe 40 minutes, adding small amounts of water as needed to keep it simmering. Cook until done to taste. Add a chopped jalapeño (seeds removed) at the end, stir.

Sprinkle top with vegan cheese, a yellow and white mix, cover and heat until cheese melts.

Serve over a bed of salad containing chopped scallions, thin sliced jalapeños (watch them seeds), carrots, red cabbage, red peppers, shredded romaine lettuce. Top with cubed avocado. Enjoy.