Dick Of The Day

Congressman Steven Palazzo (R- Miss)

It all started out very nicely. US Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announce that the Navy would be naming a ship after my Congressman, civil rights icon John Lewis.

 Not the most flattering picture, but you get the idea how respected this man is in our district.

At a ship-naming ceremony in January, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced, "Naming this ship after John Lewis is a fitting tribute to a man who has, from his youth, been at the forefront of progressive social and human rights movements in the U.S., directly shaping both the past and future of our nation."

So nobody could possibly have any problem with this, right?


Bill would strip John Lewis of naval ship namesake

June 15, 2016 | Filed in: John Lewis. 

 

 Wait, what? 

Who could possibly object to this?

It doesn't cost anything, we're building the damn ship anyway. 

Who is  trying to stop this?

Sponsored by Mississippi Republican Steven Palazzo, the legislation would bar the Navy from naming vessels after lawmakers who have not served as president or in the military.

 You know, I could maybe, MAYBE believe that this bill was something other than a huge piece of racist dickestry had it limited ships to being named after people who had served in the Navy, or in the military at all, but no. He has to include "or they were president" so we don't have to re-name the SS Gipper.

 

 So, basically ships can only be named after guys that the right-wing considers admirable. And civil rights heroes are definitely not showing up in that category.


According to WaPo:

The ship naming process has been a hot-button issue in some GOP circles in the recent past. (Secretary of the Navy Ray) Mabus, who was appointed by President Obama in 2009, has been criticized for bending traditions to name ships for figures including civil rights activist Cesar Chavez and former Rep. Gabriel Giffords (D-Ariz.), who survived an assassination attempt at a 2011 event in her district.

But of course, Palazzo's bill has nothing to do with his being offended by the idea of honoring Civil Rights Legends like Chavez or Lewis, or someone whose name has become synonymous with the need to do something to prevent gun violence.

Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.) said believes the naming of ships should be reserved for former presidents, war heroes and people who have served in the military, which neither Lewis (D-Ga.) nor Levin (D-Mich.) did.
“My amendment has nothing — absolutely zero — to do with John Lewis or any other member of Congress,” Palazzo said in a statement.

"It's nothing personal against John Lewis,"  he probably did not add, "it's just the idea of honoring a black person. . .ooogh! Am I right?"

So congratulations, Mississippi Congressman Steven Palazzo,

What I Should've Said

Some idiot actually sent me this message on the Twitter.

The guns do not Kill it's People That Kill. What part of that don't you understand? https://t.co/0gIKokFUKg

— DR. Greene / ROHK (@MistervDanny) June 13, 2016

At the time I couldn't think of a more clever response than "you're an idiot," also I would have only had 140 characters, but here's what I should have said.


Guns don't kill? Then why do we give them to soldiers? Why don't we send our troops into battle with knives and clubs instead of automatic rifles? Hell, why not just send them out into battle empty-handed and tell them to strangle the enemy?

Could it possibly be because guns, and especially assault rifles, are the easiest away to kill people? Especially large numbers of people? Because maybe if someone attacks another person with a knife or a stick or a rock that person could either defend himself or run away? And you can't outrun a bullet? Or a barrage of bullets? Is it maybe because automatic and/or semi-automatic assault rifles  make it possible to kill large numbers of people in a short amount of time, even if those people are trying desperately to flee?



Oh, and also -- You're an idiot.

This Man could be Vice-President

I mean, he won't be.
But he could.
It is actually possible.

“NEWT GINGRICH: Let me go a step further, because remember, San Bernardino, Fort Hood, and Orlando involve American citizens. We’re going to ultimately declare a war on Islamic supremacists and we’re going to say, if you pledge allegiance to ISIS, you are a traitor and you have lost your citizenship. And we’re going take much tougher positions. In the late 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt was faced with Nazi penetration in the United States. We originally created the House Un-American Activities Committee to go after Nazis. We passed several laws in 1938 and 1939 to go after Nazis and we made it illegal to help the Nazis. We’re going to presently have to go take the similar steps here.”

Yes, Newt Gingrich thinks the House UnAmerican Activities Committee should be resurrected.  One of the most shameful chapters in our nation's history, Joe McCarthy's institutional witch hunt, is something that the man who was recently Speaker of the God Damn House of Representatives of the United States of America thinks of as some sort of positive.

have you no shame, Newt? At long last, have you no shame?

Ha! Just kidding. Of course you don't!

No Thoughts, No Prayers

I have nothing. There are no words. What could anyone say that wasn't said after the last mass shooting, or the one before, or the one before. There is nothing to be said.


Except that we all have blood on our hands. Because we, as a society, have opted to accept mass murder as just one of those things that happen every so often and can't be avoided. Like hurricanes or earthquakes. And it's not just the obvious offenders. Not just the slavering jackals of the NRA and its sister gun fetish groups.
And it's not just the politicians who cravenly cower before the gun lobby lest they lose the votes of the supposed "moderates."
Not even the right-wing politicians who wholly, eagerly embrace the insanity of gun culture. Who decided that a military-grade assault rifle was the new flag lapel pin, the new de rigueur accessory for proving one's "real America" bona fides.

Not even the supposedly pro-gun-control President Obama who proposed no meaningful gun regulations after Aurora, or Virginia Tech, not even after a sitting Congresswoman from his own party was shot in the head. It took the slaughter of small children in Connecticut for him to even propose the weak tea gun laws that he did, which of course died on Capitol Hill.

No, it's all of us, because we allowed it. When our state governments expanded open carry "rights," we did not vote them out. When Congress refused to close the gun show loophole, we did not start recall proceedings. When Washington allowed the assault rifle ban to expire, we did not take to the streets demanding its reinstatement.

Every time some monster mows down innocent Americans, we take too Facebook and change our profile pic. We log on to Twitter and re-tweet the hashtag naming the latest city to suffer beedless bloodshed. And we send "thoughts and prayers," which do nothing. Why are we not flooding into the National Mall? Why are we not surrounding the Capitol building demanding change? We now change is possible. Australia gave us the blueprint twenty years ago. But instead, we've learned to numb ourselves, to shrug it off, to accept the spectre of looming violence as inevitable. No other country in the world does this. THESE SLAUGHTERS ONLY HAPPEN IN THE USA. And, as a society, we've chosen to do nothing.

So I don't want to hear any more "thoughts and prayers." They do nothing. It's worse than nothing, because it's a way of pretending that you've done something. And I especially don't want to hear "thoughts and prayers" from Congressmen and Senators and governors and other people who are in a position to actually do something. It's the worst kind of hypocrisy. It's like spitting in the face of the victims and their families if you personally had a chance to vote to keep lunatics from having the ability to slaughter large numbers of people and you chose to side with the grim reaper.
So fuck you, Paul Ryan. Fuck you, Marco Rubio, Fuck you Gov. Rick Scott and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. There's a special place in Hell for all of you, right next to Omar Mateen.

Flashback Friday - Sister Double Happiness and the Dicks from Texas

I don't remember how I stumbled on to Sister Double Happiness in the early '90's. I did see them once in one of San Francisco's smaller clubs, but that was after i already had the cd.
Anyway, I hadn't thought much about them until I read an article on Nightflight.com about a band called The Dicks from Texas. They talked about the lead singer - this guy:

and said his name was Gary Floyd. And I thought that couldn't possibly be the same Gary Floyd from Sister Double Happiness, could it? Then I read a bit further and sure enough:

Singer Gary Floyd left Austin for San Francisco with a new Dicks lineup including Tim Carroll, Sebastian Fuchs, and current Imperial Teen drummer. Lynn Perko. 

Well, Lynn Perko was deefinitely the drummer for SDH, so that's got to be the same Gary Floyd. 

So, please to enjoy a few selections from Sister Double Happiness and the Dicks