Category Archives: @$$holes

Major Award: Federal Judge of the Week, Possibly the Decade.

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Loyal Readers™ may recall our most recent Coathanger Lobby update, in which we reported that federal Judge Edward Korman called the Obama administration’s decision to override its own agency’s recommendation to make Plan B One-Step emergency contraception available over-the-counter without restriction, “politically motivated, scientifically unjustified, and contrary to agency precedent.” Judge Korman ordered the administration to make it as available as, say, toothpaste. Or condoms.

The Obama administration appealed that decision. But on the eve of the appeal deadline, it approved over-the-counter sales of Plan B One-Step for those age 15 and above provided they produce proof of age with photo ID. I wrote then:

In a noxious bit of lawyering befitting the sleaziest of the profession (and that is saying something, my friends), the administration relied on its brand new 15+ approval rule to argue in its appeal that the case is moot because the plaintiffs — who happened to be 15 or older —”now have access without a prescription and without significant point-of-sale restrictions to at least one form of emergency contraceptive…”

This was, of course, in direct defiance of the Judge Korman’s order.

I also noted of the new 15+ with ID policy:

It’s bad enough that this leaves girls 14 and under to their coathangers and friendly neighborhood Gosnells, but it isn’t even true. 15 year olds — particularly urban and/or poor 15 year olds — typically have no drivers licenses or access to other forms of state ID, and thus will not be able to purchase Plan B. FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Yao said in an interview, “If a 15-year-old is unable to verify their age, they will not be able to purchase Plan B One-Step.”

Well. In an appeal hearing this Tuesday morning, Judge Korman did not exactly take to kindly to the administration’s disingenuous poo-flinging and rained down righteous scorn upon it — along with some primo mockery. It is truly a thing of beauty to behold.

Via Irin Carmon at Salon in a piece titled Judge rips Obama’s right-wing Plan B stance:

Korman repeatedly slammed his hand down on the table for emphasis, interrupting the government counsel’s every other sentence with assertions like, “You’re just playing games here,” “You’re making an intellectually dishonest argument,” “You’re basically lying,” “This whole thing is a charade,” “I’m entitled to say this is a lot of nonsense, am I not?” and “Contrary to the baloney you were giving me …”

As an aside, and as a public service to my Many Tens of Loyal Readers™, I would like to take this opportunity to point out that it is rarely, if ever, a good idea to lie to a federal judge.

Anyway, there was more:

He also accused the administration of hypocrisy for opposing voter ID laws but being engaged in the “suppression of the rights of women” with the ID requirement for the drug.

…

Korman made clear why he found that to be an inadequate compromise: “You’re using these 11- and 12-year-olds to place an undue burden on women’s ability to access emergency contraception. If it’s an impediment to voting, it’s an impediment to get the drug.”

This last point unequivocally reveals that the administration is acting here on something other than any sound principle: if ID is a barrier to voting — and of course it is — then ID is a barrier to purchasing Plan B One-Step. Judge Korman pointed out that in a speech to the NAACP regarding various villainous voter ID laws, Attorney General Eric Holder himself cited statistics “showing that 25 percent of African-Americans of voting age don’t have a photo ID.”

Voting age, as you may recall, is 18.

Korman did not say, “You lying hypocrites cannot have it both ways,” although he might as well have. Judge Korman also dismissed out-of-hand the suggestion that 15-year-olds could simply use a birth certificate to purchase Plan B One-Step, and on such painfully obvious grounds that I cannot even believe the government made such a stupid argument: a birth certificate is not a photo ID. Irin Carmon also points out that although the Judge did not note it, immigrant women would also be adversely affected by the ID requirement. Korman said:

”You’re disadvantaging young people, African-Americans, the poor — that’s the policy of the Obama administration?”

Why, yes. Yes it is. Unless, like other right-wing misogynists, the Obama administration next plans to make the case that young, African-American, and/or poor women are not really people. You know, with actual human rights, and stuff.

Oh, but there was still more:

The government has said it put the age cutoff at 15, because [Plan B One-Step manufacturer] Teva had asked them to in their petition. But Korman said that in previously unreleased correspondence between the FDA and Teva, the government had specifically instructed the company to reapply in that fashion after rejecting its first attempt to lift all age restrictions. When he tried to read aloud from one of those documents, a tense standoff resulted, in which Teva’s representative cut in and insisted that the correspondence was confidential. But Korman did get as far as, “We are amending our application to address the Secretary’s stated concern …” In other words, the new restrictions were apparently initiated by the Obama administration as a compromise move.

And he wasn’t done yet:

[Lawyer for the government Frank] Amanat argued that making a hormonal drug like Plan B over-the-counter was unprecedented, and that the public interest was served “when the government acts deliberately and incrementally.” Korman cut in sarcastically, “Tell me about the public interest. Is there a public interest in unplanned pregnancies? Some of which end in abortions?”

Korman also took a shot at Teva over the pricing of Plan B One-Step, which runs about $50, pointing towards Teva’s representative and referring to “Those price gougers over there.” Hahaha. Awesome.

Perhaps Judge Korman’s most astute — and most damning — observation is this one:

“It turns out that the same policies that President Bush followed were followed by President Obama.”

Would that the members of the federal judiciary were so inclined to take on Obama’s DOJ in matters of torture, war crimes, state secrets, drone assassinations, illegal wars and indefinite detention, instead of getting the vapors at the mere utterance of the words “national security” or “terrorism.”

Regardless, for all of the reasons noted above, Perry Street Palace is pleased to bestow its highly coveted Major Award for Federal Judge of the Day, Possibly the Decade, to

Hon. Edward R. Korman*
United States District Court Judge for the Eastern District of New York.

awardjudgekorman

Congratulations, Your Honor. We know of no one more deserving today of this form of address: you truly do honor to justice.

__________

* Judge Edward R. Korman was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, which would ordinarily disqualify candidates for the prestigious Perry Street Palace Major Award for Federal Judge of the Day, Possibly the Decade. But in light of the above, the Palace cannot hold that against him.

Karla Porter and Shirley Phelps-Roper: BFFs 4EVAH.

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[TRIGGER WARNING: discussion of rape, abuse and death threats.
misogynist language. weapons-grade mockery.]

WIS2

The Palace is pleased to be sending a small contingent to the Center for Inquiry’s Women in Secularism 2 conference next weekend in DC. The speakers include many writers and activists we greatly admire, including Ophelia Benson, Greta Christina, Vyckie Garrison, Susan Jacoby, Amanda Marcotte, Maryam Namazie, Katha Pollitt and Rebecca Watson (see more details here). Here is CFI’s blurb for the conference:

We find ourselves at a crossroads.

Around the world, the forces of religion and superstition are reasserting themselves, working to contain and even reverse the progress made in the cause of women’s basic human rights.

And within the freethought movement, nonbelievers and skeptics are passionately debating the role of social justice, particularly in regard to gender equality and incidences of hostility toward women.

Which is the best path forward? How can we best advance both women’s rights and secularism? How do we set priorities? What changes can be made to the secular movement to ensure true gender equality?

A powerful roster of speakers and panelists will tackle these questions and much more at the second Women in Secularism conference, presented by the Center for Inquiry.

I mean, if you were a godless feminist with a Palace, wouldn’t that sound absolutely fucking amazing?

Well, not so fast there, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. See that part up there that says “within the freethought movement, nonbelievers and skeptics are passionately debating the role of social justice, particularly in regard to gender equality and incidences of hostility toward women”? That’s a rather…nice way of saying that atheists and skeptics — both prominent individuals and groups — have been engaged for some time in a virtual war over the equitable and decent treatment of the women in these movements.

For some background, including details of the abuse, harassment, doxxing, violent rape fantasies and death threats to which prominent atheist feminist women and their allies are relentlessly subjected — by other atheists, of every gender — see How I Unwittingly Infiltrated the Boy’s Club & Why It’s Time for a New Wave of Atheism by Jen McCreight, and Atheism Plus, and Some Thoughts on Divisiveness by Greta Christina, in which she says:

A significant stream in the atheist movement — a minority, but not a trivial minority, and a very visible one — is actively devoted to driving feminists out of atheism.

…

And the reality for me — a reality that makes me sick and sad, a reality that I can hardly bear to talk about — is that, as a public figure, the people I fear the most, the people I am most genuinely concerned about doing me physical harm, are not religious extremists. The people I fear most are other atheists.

See also Melissa McEwan (This Female Atheist, and Where She Is):

I would say I felt exactly as welcome in movement atheism as I did at my Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, but that would be a lie. No one at St. Peter’s ever called me a stupid cunt because I disagreed with them.

Of course skeptics and atheists are a subset of our larger society, so it really should surprise no one that there are vicious misogynists and virulent anti-feminists among us. After all, an estimated 4% of Americans are sociopaths, and the vast majority of them are not in jail. The question from the godless feminist point of view, and a focus of the Women in Secularism conference, is what to do about it.

Over at PZ’s Palace, there has been a heated discussion going on about what would and would not constitute appropriate, ethical and effective tactics to use in response to reprehensible actions by nasty shitheads in our movement. The particular context for the discussion is that some flaming @$$hole named Karla Porter attempted to sic the Westboro Baptist Church on next weekend’s Women in Secularism conference. That would be the military-funeral-protesting, gay-bashing, Jew-hating, Westboro Baptist Church:karlaportertweets

Karla Porter tweets
@wbcshirl Have u heard of Women in Secularism 2 and if so, will u grace it with your presence? http://womeninsecularism.org #wiscfi

Shirley Phelps-Roper tweets
@karla_porter Where do they show themselves? Is there a schedule?

Karla Porter tweets
@wbcshirl schedule not up yet May 17-19 wash DC

When called out on her shittiness, Porter wrote a weaselly blog post, and later said this:

Some people are really bad at understanding tongue in cheek. Today I was accused of trying to sic WBC on WISC2 – let’s get real.

Okay. By all means, let’s get real. Karla Porter directly tweeted to Shirley Phelps-Roper, spokesperson of the fucking Westboro Baptist Church, to alert her to the conference. She sent her a link to its web page. And when Phelps-Roper inquired about further details, Porter replied to her with the dates and location. How that can be interpreted in any way other than “trying to sic WBC on WISC2″ is clearly beyond the capacity of my inferior ladybrainz to comprehend. Further, as the proprietress of a blog specializing in mockery, I am fairly certain that I understand “tongue in cheek.” I also understand that when typical shitheads do something typically shitty and are rightly called on it, they frequently attempt to evade responsibility by claiming they were, you know, just joking. YOU HUMORLESS FEMINISTS! YOU JUST DON’T GET IT.

If Porter were indeed joking, perhaps she might have tweeted to her own followers “wouldn’t it be funny if WBC protested the uppity feminists at the Women in Secularism 2 conference? hahaha #iamsofunny.” And if she were any good at joking, someone would think that was funny.

Now at this point, you are probably asking yourself the same thing I did: who the fuck is Karla Porter?

Well, according the online bio on her professional web site, Karla Porter is a self-employed “New Media Strategies,” “Diversity” and “Recruitment Strategy” consultant, with one of the top 1% most viewed LinkedIn profiles of 2012. Among her clients are several veterans groups, including Pennsylvania Women Veterans.

None of PZ’s commenters disagree that Porter is a flaming @$$hole for siccing WBC on the Women in Secularism conference. However, there is fierce disagreement on whether anyone would be justified in contacting her clients to alert them to her shitty behavior. Taste of her own medicine, and all that. I must admit I relish the thought of Porter’s shittiness coming back to bite her. And were I part of a veterans group, and particularly a women veterans group, I think I would very much want to know that the person I’m hiring is perfectly okay with siccing the military-funeral-protesting Westboro Baptists on a gathering of feminists. As I have said before, I believe that striking back against bullies using their own tactics is not in the same moral category as the bullying itself: it is somewhat more akin to self-defense.

Still, something about this course of action troubles me: by contacting her clients, one would be engaging in the same shitty tactic we condemn when done by her — namely, JAQing off to an organization whose actions in response may cause her direct harm — regardless of whether we are on the side of the (metaphorical) angels when we do so. But you know what also troubles me? Doing nothing. That is precisely how bullies get away with shit.

Ultimately, I agree with PZ’s co-blogger Chris Clarke:

Karla Porter is an amoral shithead, and if it becomes impossible to search on her name without finding that out, that’d be a marvelous thing. And I’m not an absolutist here: I think it’s fine to try to get, say, Rush Limbaugh fired — by a coordinated campaign waged on a transparent basis.

But people who set themselves up as vigilante employment enforcers do not speak for me. They’re legitimizing a tactic that has made my life much more stressful for decades.

On the thread I said that maybe I come out in the middle. I think mockery and ridicule fired in Porter’s direction is more than justified, and that perhaps I would spend the day pasting pictures of Porter’s head into pictures of Westboro Baptist protests while I thought about it, just in case I felt like posting them later. So I did. And I do. To paraphrase Chris Clarke, if it becomes impossible to search on her name without seeing these pictures, that’d be a marvelous thing.

karlaporter4

Karla Porter and some of the people she wants to sicc on a feminist conference.

karlaporter1

Karla Porter and one of her new associates who she hopes will bully and intimidate people she disagrees with.

karlaporter2

Karla Porter and her new BFF Shirley Phelps-Roper.

karlaporter3

New BFF Shirley Phelps-Roper and Karla Porter share a moment in the sun.

karlaporter5

Aww! The Littlest Bigot! Karla Porter attempting to get the kid to protest at a preschool full of kids she disagrees with.

karlaporter6

Karla Porter, viewing a selection of Westboro Baptist signs to select her favorites for the Women in Secularism conference.

Karla Porter and Shirley Phelps-Roper: BFFs 4EVAH!!11!!!

Just joking. You know: tongue in cheek.

Place flags at half mast.

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Two blasts rocked Boston today as runners in the Boston Marathon approached the finish line.  At least two people are dead and at least 22 are injured.  The police commissioner confirmed a third blast a few blocks away at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.

Our condolences go out to friends and family of the deceased, and best wishes for a speedy recovery for those who were injured.

May law enforcement swiftly track down the asshole(s) who committed these heinous acts and bring him (or her or them) to justice in a U.S. court of law.

I must look really stupid or something.

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Iris — We are conducting a membership audit before the first FEC deadline of President Obama’s second term. Your membership is pending.

Name: Iris Vander Pluym
Supporter record: [REDACTED]
2013 Membership: Pending

My membership?  My membership in…what?  Ooh!  Ooh!  Maybe what I have long been waiting for has finally arrived:  my membership card for access to the V.I.P. section in Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell, where I plan to meet all my friends in the afterlife.*

If you support President Obama’s agenda, it is CRITICAL that you renew your membership in the next 72 hours.

Now hold on there, Skippy.  President Obama’s agenda includes illegal wars,  due-process free assassinations that kill civilians, drilling offshore and in the Arctic, constructing the Keystone XL pipeline and cutting Social Security benefits for no good reason whatsoever.  I do not support that agenda.  Why on earth would any Democrat?  (To be fair, this new EPA rule requiring cleaner gas and better emission standards is a good thing — however inexcusably late in coming and insufficient it may be.)

Anyway, there’s more:

John Boehner and Paul Ryan have already stockpiled millions of dollars for the sole purpose of blocking President Obama’s second term agenda. If we don’t catch up soon, we are in real trouble.

OMFG!  You mean the very same Republican sociopath Paul Ryan whose Democratic opponent — ROB ZERBAN — you could not be arsed to support?  Why, it’s almost as if you want Paul Ryan in Congress, so you can use him as a fundraising bogeyman.  Or maybe, just maybe…you’re really not all that far apart.

According to our audit, we need 35,000 renewals by Sunday’s fundraising deadline to keep pace. That means we need you. This is urgent.

You know what’s urgent?  Stopping the killing of civilians in drone strikes.  Single payer healthcare.  Serious action on global warming.  Prosecuting war criminals and returning our standing in the world.  JOBS.

Iris — click this personalized link to renew your membership with a donation of $3 or more >>

Nah.  I think I’ll give my $3 to Rob Zerban instead.  Actually, I’ll make it $25.  Hey, you guys know he’s considering running again, right?  Against Paul Ryan.  Ahem.

Boehner and Ryan depend on the Koch Brothers and Big Oil; we rely on your grassroots support.

Hahaha.  Sure you do.  I don’t know about Boehner, but for sure Paul Ryan depends on your ignoring viable Democratic candidates who run against him.

Thanks for standing with us,
Democratic Headquarters

I stand as far away from you as humanly possible.
-Palace Headquarters

__________
*There is no afterlife.  Which is a really good thing, because shitty Democrats would undoubtedly fuck that up too.

A brief flicker of hope for humanity? Of course not.

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Yesterday former Secretary of Defense and world-renowned sociopath Donald Rumsfeld tweeted:

rumsfeldtweet

(“10 yrs ago began the long, difficult work of liberating 25 mil Iraqis. All who played a role in history deserve our respect & appreciation.”)

The narcissistic grandiosity, profound empathy deficit and detachment from reality characteristic of Conservative Personality Disorder are all on vivid display here, but believe it or not, that is not why I am posting about the epic doucheweasel’s tweet.  I am posting about the epic doucheweasel’s tweet because of the replies that immediately followed: 349 as of this writing, not counting copies with comments that don’t reference his Twitter handle.

The deluge was swift and fierce.  There were many replies that contained succinct gems, like “LOL,” “#warcriminal,” “Where are the WMD?” plus the reliable old standby “Go fuck yourself” and variations thereon.  Then there were earnest, outraged and fact-based responses:

Rob Ullman ‏@robullman
@RumsfeldOffice The absolute gall from you.

RisingHegemon  ‏@RisingHegemon
@RumsfeldOffice To the folks who had no choice but to obey your orders sure. But you personally should be in the dock for war crimes.

Christopher Swartout ‏@chrisswartout
@RumsfeldOffice You were part of the worst decision in US MIlitary history.YOU deserve nothing but the unending scorn of this great country

dream hampton ‏@dreamhampton
9 yrs ago you began building the most expensive U.S. embassy in history in Baghdad. $592 million & 1.2 bill/yr to operate @RumsfeldOffice

dream hampton ‏@dreamhampton
Not only were you & your war criminal buddies calling an occupation an Easter egg hunt for WMDs but you bankrupted the U.S. @RumsfeldOffice

Eric Segall ‏@espinsegall
So what if war crippled our economy, led to thousands of American deaths, and will inevitably fail. You made your money.@RumsfeldOffice

Lena ‏@JarrarLena
@RumsfeldOffice you’re disgusting. By “liberating Iraqis” do you mean KILLING in the millions? Destroying EVERYTHING they have? #TenYears

Ned Hepburn ‏@nedhepburn
@RumsfeldOffice you have created more Iraqi orphans than the population of the city of Topeka, Kansas.

Scott Beamer ‏@Scott_Beamer
@RumsfeldOffice The troops that were forced into an unjustified war deserve our respect, but you, Bush & Cheney, et al, should be in prison.

uSenseChange2 @iSenseChange
@RumsfeldOffice You have no credibility, your reputation is dogshit & if Twitter could hold the vote you’d be convicted for war crimes today

Squirrel Christ ☨ ‏@jimmyirix
@pattonoswalt @RumsfeldOffice As someone who actually served in the US Military, FUCK YOU, Don. You’re an unAmerican idiot with a flag.

Clay ‏@feetoclay
@RumsfeldOffice You illegally destroyed a sovereign nation & liberated taxpayer $$$ for your Halliburton cronies!

Kevin Carson ‏@KevinCarson1
@RumsfeldOffice “Liberating” by CPA “privatizing” assets to crony capitalists, suppressing independent trade unions, &c? You motherfucker.

Kevin Carson ‏@KevinCarson1
@RumsfeldOffice Correction: You MURDERING motherfucker.

Sarah Grisham ‏@segrisham
@RumsfeldOffice Rather early on, your unforgivable errors ensured an important chunk of world history was looted/destroyed. #BaghdadMuseum

American AntiFed ‏@AmericanAntiFed
@segrisham @RumsfeldOffice Fact: Donald played a part in the Reagan WH Admin. transferring USA made chemical WMD’s to Saddam Hussein.

All of these are good.  But it should surprise no one here that we most thoroughly enjoyed the replies demonstrating high-quality mockery most of all:

@RumsfeldOffice @tomtomorrow “It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.” – Donald Rumsfeld, Feb. 7, 2003

Jason L. Sparks ‏@sparksjls
@RumsfeldOffice you forgot poland.

Eric Stowe Eric Stowe ‏@ericstowe
WMD what? revise, rewrite, redact. RT @RumsfeldOffice: 10 yrs ago began the long, difficult work of liberating 25 mil Iraqis…

Brendan Dodds ‏@BrendanDodds
@RumsfeldOffice You do know you tweeted that out loud, right?

Richard Whittall ‏@RWhittall
@RumsfeldOffice You must’ve typed that from under an avalanche of thank you letters from Iraq.

tonyfaulkner ‏@tonyfaulkner
@RumsfeldOffice Don’t listen to ‘em Donald. You had to run the shadow corporations for your fellow Lizard folk. No way around it.

Benari ‏@BenariLee
@RumsfeldOffice Remember 10 yrs ago when you sent troops into combat without body armor or an exit strategy? Haha, good one!

Sam Henderson ‏@magicwhistle
@RumsfeldOffice– congratulations on your 1000★ tweet from people telling you to go fuck yourself!

Ron Marz ‏@ronmarz
@RumsfeldOffice You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

U.S. Dept. of Fear ‏@FearDept
@RumsfeldOffice We’ve begun putting names of people who don’t show “respect and appreciation” for history-makers on a watch list.

Crutnacker ‏@Crutnacker
I see @RumsfeldOffice tweets with the brain he has, not with the brain he might want or wish to have. Thanks for the debt and death, Rummy.

Christine Estima ‏@christineestima
@RumsfeldOffice go home Donald, you’re drunk.

Christine Linnell  ‏@CNell_NZ
Merry Christmas, MSNBC. @RumsfeldOffice

One tweeter reported Rumsfeld for spam — an asshole move for sure, but still kinda funny.

There are many, many more at the link.

Personally, I hope Rumsfeld keeps tweeting.  Regardless, congratulations are due to the Twitterverse for providing me with a brief, fragile spark of hope for humanity…

…which was instantly extinguished when I read this:

Thanks for the oil, Iraq, here’s some cancer

By Susie Cagle

Turns out depleted uranium (DU) munitions are a great thing to use when you’re going to war, so long as you plan on terrorizing people for generations to come. Military-related pollution is suspected of causing a huge spike in birth defects and all kinds of cancer in Iraq since the start of the Gulf War more than 20 years ago.

The last 10 years of the Iraq War, especially, cost a lot of money that we could’ve done way better things with and also killed 190,000 people directly, but that doesn’t cover the full extent of the damage.

“Official Iraqi government statistics show that, prior to the outbreak of the First Gulf War in 1991, the rate of cancer cases in Iraq was 40 out of 100,000 people,” Al Jazeera reports. “By 1995, it had increased to 800 out of 100,000 people, and, by 2005, it had doubled to at least 1,600 out of 100,000 people. Current estimates show the increasing trend continuing.” That’s potentially a more than 4,000 percent increase in the cancer rate, making it more than 500 percent higher than the cancer rate in the U.S.

…

One researcher said Fallujah had been found to have ”the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied.”

The highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied.  Worse than Vietnam.  Chernobyl.  Fucking Hiroshima.

There are not enough tweets in the Twitterverse to alleviate in the slightest my bottomless contempt for Donald Rumsfeld and his fellow doucheweasels.

“Liberating 25 mil Iraqis” wasn’t even the preferred lie used to sell the American public on the Iraq war.  That would be the nonexistent WMD.  It’s not like we’re all mystified about the reason for the invasion.  As the author pointed out by reference to oil industry analyst Antonia Juhasz at CNN:

Oil was not the only goal of the Iraq War, but it was certainly the central one, as top U.S. military and political figures have attested to in the years following the invasion.

“Of course it’s about oil; we can’t really deny that,” said Gen. John Abizaid, former head of U.S. Central Command and Military Operations in Iraq, in 2007. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan agreed, writing in his memoir, “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” Then-Sen. and now Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the same in 2007: “People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are.”

Apropos of absolutely nothing, see this fun interactive map of oil and gas blocks in Yemen:

yemenoil&gasblocks

(Click for larger image.)

President Obama ordered his first known drone strike in Yemen in 2009.  It left 14 women and 21 children dead; only one of the dozens killed that day was identified as having strong connections to Al-Qaeda.  Since then there have been many more, including extrajudicial assassinations of three U.S. citizens, one of whom was a 16-year old boy.  But hey, it’s not like we’re creating terrorist enemies and sympathizers by the hundreds when we drone bomb civilians there or anything.

What’s next?  A tweet from the White House reminding us that they hate us for our freedoms?  I wouldn’t hold my breath for a hilarious and scathing backlash from liberals like the one Rumsfeld received, though.  As Glenn Greenwald noted last year:

What’s most amazing to me about this discussion is how it is simultaneously (a) so obvious (apparently, when you bomb people and constantly kill civilians, you make them want to attack you back: who knew?) and yet (b) so impervious to evidence and reason. It doesn’t matter how much proof you supply that this is true, that U.S. militarism and interference in the Muslim world is largely responsible for the very Terrorism problem that is invoked to justify them. It makes little difference.

I’ll just leave you with one more non-sequitur:  Iran holds the fourth largest oil reserves on the planet.  That’s more than Yemen.  And more than Iraq.

Have a nice day.

The embarrassing authoritarian idiocy of Democrats.

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Today the Palace received this missive from our good friends at the DSCC.  Senator Michael Bennet (D-ipshit) writes:

From: Michael Bennet <info@dscc.org>
Subject: The Washington Post
Date: February 12, 2013
To: irisvpluym@[REDACTED]
Reply-To: info@dscc.org

Iris — The Washington Post called tonight’s speech the most important State of the Union address of the Obama presidency.

In just a few hours, the President will officially propose the most ambitious and important agenda in decades.

Tomorrow, you’ll see the Republicans ferociously attack the President, and every issue you care about and fought for in November — from equal rights to protecting Medicare.

Your Action History
Name: Iris Vander Pluym
Supporter record: [REDACTED]
Last petition signed: 05/16/2011
Current petition: (signature pending)

You helped win that election, but it’s day one of a new fight: making this agenda a reality. And like winning the election, it’s not going to happen unless we stick together.

If you support the President, add your name to support this agenda right away — before he takes to the podium! Let’s get 150,000 supporters on board tonight!

We’ve waited so long for this kind of progress to be within our reach. But success will require the same level of intensity as we had in November.

Otherwise the other side will snatch it from our hands.

Please show your support,
Senator Michael Bennet

Dear Senator Bennet:

According to you, tonight the president will officially propose “the most ambitious and important agenda in decades.”  That sure sounds exciting and inspiring!  I, for one, cannot wait to hear what he says.*  And yet strangely, you are writing to ask me to sign a petition in support of this amazing agenda before he even proposes it.  Do you really not see the problem with this?

I have no doubt that you’ll find 150,000 signatures for your petition.  As you probably know, there are a frightening number of people who will support the president no matter what he does.  I am not one of those people.  Frankly, they repulse me: theirs is the behavior of amoral, authoritarian cult followers.  We had more than enough of them during the Bush years, don’t you think?

A blind cult following is no less fatal to a functioning democracy when a corporatist warmonger that happens to be from your own party is in the White House.  Please do not encourage such people by asking them to support an agenda they haven’t even heard yet.  And if that is not enough to dissuade you, consider that it makes you look like an authoritarian and/or an idiot.

Most sincerely,
-Iris Vander Pluym

* I kid!  I care not one whit what the president says tonight (or ever), only what he does.  Tonight I’ll be doing something far more interesting, informative and meaningful than watching the State of the Union.  Like cleaning hair and lint out of the trap in my bathtub drain.

Greetings from New York Superior Court!

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No, I did not achieve my life’s dream and get arrested for mooning Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.  I write to you today from the impressive jury room of the courthouse at 60 Centre Street in downtown Manhattan, where I am performing the sacred civic duty of sitting around blogging via the Court’s free wifi.

A few items of note:

Cyndi Lauper has apparently drunk the Obama/DCCC Kool-Aid.  The linked article fails to note the subject line of the referenced email: “Dems just want to have fun!”  Shame, that.  I’ve met her a few times.  I thought she was smarter.

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On Sunday evening I watched some of the Golden Globe Awards at a local bar along with with My Amazing Lover™, one of my Many Tens of Loyal Readers™, and a Fabulous Bartender (public domain).  I have long been a fan of the work of Jodie Foster, who on this occasion received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Outstanding Contributions to blah blah whatever.  Not only did she give a weird and rambling acceptance speech, she brought Mel Gibson as her date.  Yep:  ultraconservative, traditionalist Catholic, racist, homophobe, domestic abuser, anti-Semite, adulterer, repeat drunk driver Mel Fucking Gibson.  Naturally, the two were seated at a table right in front of the stage.  This made for plenty of opportunities for cameras to catch him making bizarre, animated faces.  Of course the Palace does not begrudge anyone their friendships with people who do not share their political, religious and/or social views.  (Ms. Foster is a Democratic supporter, an atheist and openly gay.)  Regardless, it is exceedingly difficult to let her off the hook for her part in validating the acceptability of Gibson’s noxious views, even if it is widely recognized that she does not share them.  Jodie Foster is a tremendously talented actress and filmmaker.  But our estimation of her as a human being has plummeted spectacularly.

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This piece in The Guardian [h/t Mr. Born] should give all decent human beings pause (if not apoplexy):

Study finds widespread ‘criminalisation of pregnancy’ in US institutions

Study cites misinterpretation of Roe v Wade in array of cases where women were denied rights based on pregnancy status.

Hundreds of women have been arrested, convicted, jailed, detained in mental institutions or forced to endure medical procedures as a result of the “criminalisation of pregnancy” over the last four decades, a new report has found.

…

The report, which will appear in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, found that women were denied a wide range of basic human rights, including the right to life, liberty, equal protection and due process of law “based solely on their pregnancy status”.

It found a wide range of cases in which pregnant women were arrested and detained not only if they ended a pregnancy or expressed an intention to end a pregnancy, but also after suffering unintentional pregnancy loss.

The cases of detention and forced medical intervention varied widely and included one in which a judge in Ohio kept a woman imprisoned to prevent her having an abortion.

I have written about Bei Bei Shuai and others in her predicament before.  The Guardian piece is calm and reserved in tone — which is fine, but it fails to point to some of the more egregious examples of “fetal personhood” laws, and more importantly the inhumane and deadly consequences of the mindset behind them.  A woman denied chemotherapy for leukemia because she was pregnant.  A woman dead from a miscarriage-induced septicemia because she was denied an abortion.  A woman dead from a forced C-section she did not want: instead of treating her cancer doctors inserted a feeding tube and doped her up with sedatives in an effort to delay her death and increase her fetus’ chance of continued development.  The fetus died two hours after the C-section.  The woman died two days later.

This shit is just getting worse and worse, not better.  In case it’s unclear to any reader, I just want to go on record here and say this:  I am not an incubator.  For additional support for my totally bizarre opinion that I am not, in fact, an incubator, see my post here.  An excerpt:

This brings me to the mother of all abortion analogies (ironic pun very much intended).  In no other situation does anyone ever argue that it is right to make use of another living human’s body against their will.  None.  Hell, we do not even make use of dead human bodies against their previously expressed wishes: we don’t harvest the organs the dead no longer need in order to save other peoples’ lives.  We don’t strap people down and strip their bone marrow to save cancer patients.  We don’t forcibly take a kidney from anybody—not even prisoners on death row—and kidneys are desperately needed.  We don’t extract life-saving blood from anyone who does not volunteer to donate it.  To do any of these things would be abhorrent, even though people are dying every day because we don’t.  This human right to be free from such personal violence and coercion is so basic that everyone understands it, intuitively and viscerally.

Except in the case of pregnancy.  Only in this instance—pregnancy—is it somehow perfectly all right for some other entity to make use of another living human being’s body against her will.

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Hypochondria: An Inside Look is a hilarious piece of writing by Woody Allen in the Op-Ed section of Sunday’s New York Times. [h/t don ardell]

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I have been following intently the news about Aaron Swartz, a brilliant, 26 year old Internet freedom activist who committed suicide last week.  He was a genius who co-created the RSS feed, and Reddit; he suffered from depression; he was hounded by federal prosecutors threatening him with a 35+ year prison term for downloading academic journal articles based on publicly funded research.  I empathize profoundly with both the depression struggles and activist instincts of Aaron Swartz.  Unfortunately, many such scholarly journal articles reside behind expensive paywalls, and are therefore available only to those who (a) have excess funds, and/or (b) attend universities or work at private corporations that have institutional subscriptions.  Aaron’s belief (and intent) was that the public should have free, unfettered access to such information:  we paid for this research.

For a fact-based, credible report and informed analysis (including a copy of the federal indictment) see here.

For a eulogy from a bereaved friend, see here.  Also here.

For an eye-opening list of ten federal crimes with lesser sentences than Aaron Swartz was facing, see here.

Our society should be selecting for the Aaron Swartz’s of this world. Instead, generous and ethical behavior, especially when combined with technical brilliance, turns out to be maladaptive, indeed lethal. If Swartz had been Wall Street’s youngest investment banker, he would be alive today. -Blogger Lambert Strether

The world has lost a truly remarkable young person.

AaronSwartzAaron Swartz at a Boston Wikipedia Meetup in 2009. Photo: Sage Ross (Flickr: Boston Wiki Meetup), via Wikimedia Commons.

R.I.P.

Sometimes I really, really hate The New York Times.

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Palace co-blogger and Loyal Subject™ SJ sent us an uncharacteristically cryptic missive with the subject line “Whatcha all think?”  Its content was a single link, without quotations or commentary (hey are you feeling okay, SJ?):

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/29/us/on-religion-where-are-the-humanists.html?_r=0

I clicked it, and found myself reading a piece in The New York Times “On Religion” section by one Samuel G. Freedman, purportedly about the apparent absence of atheists and humanists in the aftermath of the recent school shootings in Newtown.  Freedman sets the scene by noting that an interfaith service featuring President Obama held two days after the shooting included “clergy members from Bahai, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and both mainline and evangelical Protestant congregations.” Further:

The funerals and burials over the past two weeks have taken place in Catholic, Congregational, Mormon and United Methodist houses of worship, among others. They have been held in Protestant megachurches and in a Jewish cemetery.

Freedman writes that this tableau provokes “one prickly question,” then proceeds to ask two really stupid ones:

Where were the humanists?  At a time when the percentage of Americans without religious affiliation is growing rapidly, why did the “nones,” as they are colloquially known, seem so absent?

Christ, what an @$$hole.

For as long as I can remember, I have attended funeral services at places of worship into which I, an unapologetic godless heathen, would never otherwise set foot.  Invariably I find the services bizarre and deeply offensive, though the music and architecture are often quite lovely.  But I attend respectfully and without complaint, because I am there in support of friends and loved ones.  And I know for a fact that I am not alone in this (and further, that those who hold profoundly different religious beliefs than the deceased or their families are also in attendance, for exactly the same reasons).  So the answer to Freedman’s first stupid question is that the “nones” are right there along with everyone else at Catholic, Congregational, Mormon and United Methodist houses of worship, Protestant megachurches and Jewish cemeteries.

Apparently without realizing it, Freedman goes on to answer his second stupid question — why did the “nones” seem so absent? — but not before a digression wherein we are informed that “some leaders within the humanist movement…are ruefully and self-critically saying the same thing themselves.”  Really?  Who are these “leaders”?  Well, there are three:

  • Greg M. Epstein, the “humanist chaplain” at Harvard University, and author of a book, “Good Without God.”
  • Darrel W. Ray, a psychologist in the Kansas City area who runs the Web site The Secular Therapist Project.
  • Anne Klaeysen, leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture.

I had never heard of any of these people until today.  And instead of pointing out that non-believers are part of the same community as the religious, these three “leaders” bemoan the absence of a separate and distinct godless group doing outreach in the name of non-belief.  There’s just one glaring problem with this complaint, as we find out in paragraph nine:

In fairness, it should be pointed out that the families of each Newtown victim chose religious funerals.

In fairness, it should be pointed out that in light of this simple fact, there is no fucking story here.  At all.  Also:

The interfaith service, by its very definition, precluded the involvement of leaders from non-faith organizations like the Ethical Culture Society or the American Humanist Association.

Gosh.  So non-faith organizations were not invited to take part in the big interfaith services.  Maybe Mr. Freedman could ponder that for a while and inquire with some interfaith “leaders” as to why this is the case.  You know, instead of being mystified that there was no obvious public outreach by the non-religious to people who all wanted religious funerals for their children.

#$%&#@!

But wait!  Twelve paragraphs in, we learn that — contrary to the content of the preceding eleven paragraphs — there was indeed outreach by the godless:

While tacitly excluded from religious coalitions, humanist groups did respond to the Newtown killings. The Ethical Culture Society chapter in Teaneck, N.J., helped organize a gun-control rally there. The Connecticut branch of the American Humanist Association contributed about $370 to Newtown families from a winter solstice fund-raiser. The organization American Atheists reports on its Web site that it has collected more than $11,000 in online donations toward funeral expenses in Newtown.

Freedman’s article is entitled “In a Crisis, Humanists Seem Absent.”  May I humbly submit that perhaps they are all hiding in paragraph twelve?  And that perhaps the reason why the godless seem absent to Mr. Freedman — apart from being deliberately excluded from participating in interfaith organizations and activities — is because he isn’t really looking for them?  They are right in front of his nose:  seated in the pews, kneeling and standing silently with families and friends, offering condolences and support at a time of profound need for human healing.

They’re in paragraph twelve of his own article.

In the United States atheists are despised as rapists.  In light of this, I wonder how exactly Samuel G. Freedman would envision them operating in a religious community in mourning.  How about by raising money for religious funerals, like American Atheists did?  Do churches regularly take up collections for the secular burials of prominent atheists?  That might be an interesting story worth investigating.  But no.  Instead, for Mr. Freedman and The Times editors, it’s a much better ploy to simply posit without evidence the absence of the godless from Newtown, and then — after painting a rueful picture of those heartless, shameless, self-criticizing atheists with nothing to offer the community — go right on to completely undermine this very premise.

I could speculate as to what possible motivation drives that dynamic, but I think I’ll let Loyal Readers™ draw their own conclusions.  After all, coming from someone as untrusted as a rapist, what would be the point of even offering my opinion?

Sometimes I really, really hate The New York Times.  I expect better.  Then again, they run Tom Friedman.  And Ross Douthat.  And David Brooks, fer crissakes.  Perhaps Mr. Freedman aims to join that illustrious group:  The Four Horsemen of the Journalistic Apocalypse.

Do NOT mess with mah post office peeps.

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I arrived at the tiny West Village post office shortly after 11am.  The end of the line spilled out into the tiny lobby.  I’d seen it worse — much worse — as it will no doubt be tomorrow, when I ship more of my inexcusably belated holiday gifts.

I dutifully took my place and whipped out my trusty iphone to read some emails, and corresponded via text a few times with My Amazing Lover™.

As usual for this time of year, the line was excruciatingly slow.  Customers hauled in stacks of packages, filled out multiple forms, calculated international postage, picked out holiday stamps and inquired into endless, inscrutable and byzantine options for delivering objects d’ holiday cheer to places other than Hudson Street in the West Village.

I was finally about third in line when a d00d waving a form in his hand cut the line. He sauntered up to the counter and interrupted a transaction to request from the clerk — let’s call her Beatrice — “the shorter version” of the form he held in his hand.

Imagine, if you will, the following scene taking place against the soundtrack of an inconsolable, wailing toddler.

BEATRICE:  It’s over there with the other forms, sir.

D00d:  No, it’s not!

BEATRICE:  Yes it is sir. You’re looking in the wrong place.

D00d:  Well, you should put all the forms where people can find them easily!

BEATRICE:  If you need assistance you’ll have to wait in line.

D00d:  FOR A FORM?!

BEATRICE:  For assistance.

D00d [reaches over Beatrice's counter and grabs a form]: See this? This is what I needed and I shouldn’t have to wait in line for it!  [D00d heads toward the back of the line then pauses.]

BEATRICE: How ’bout if you need something, sir, you wait in line like everybody else?

D00d:  Unbelievable!  You know what?  You people need to work a lot faster!  See all these people in line here?  They’re all trying to get back to WORK!

BEATRICE:  Uh-huh.

D00d [gets right up in her face]:  You need to work faster!

BEATRICE [smiling and singing to the tune of Happy Birthday]: Merry Christmas to you, Merry Christmas to you, Merry Christmas to you, Merry Christmas to you…

PEOPLE IN THE LINE:  [Laughter.]

D00d [storming toward the door again]:  Well folks, government workers have hit a new low! [turns around and walks back toward Beatrice.]

D00d:  Guess what? See this?  I recorded you on video, singing Merry Christmas!  You’re going to be on Fox News tonight!

BEATRICE:  Oh, great!  I’ve always wanted to be on TV!

D00d:  And it’s going to run unedited!  [storms toward the door again.]

IRIS:  Fox News isn’t news!  [starts video recording of the D00d.]

PEOPLE IN THE LINE: [Laughter.]

[D00d goes to the back of the line and loudly appears to engage in a conversation with a Fox News producer about his major video scoop of Beatrice singing Merry Christmas.]

D00d [storming back up in front of the counter]:  Who is the postmaster here?

BEATRICE:  Somebody give this man a hug.  He really needs a hug.

ANOTHER CLERK: What, sir?

D00d:  You people don’t even know what a postmaster is?!  Incredible!  Okay, who’s the manager on duty!  I want to speak to the manager!

BEATRICE: You have a blessed day, sir, and very happy holidays to you.

ANOTHER CLERK:  The manager is at the Varrick Street post office.

BEATRICE:  Everybody in the line?  Give this man hugs.  He needs LOTS of hugs.

PERSON IN THE LINE:  I think he needs more than that.

D00d:  That’s all I needed to know!  I’m going to Varrick Street! [storms out.]

[It should be noted that during this entire altercation Beatrice never ceased processing her customer's mail. My turn came, and Beatrice was open.]

IRIS:  Wow, you’re going to be a TV star and an internet sensation!

BEATRICE:  I know.  I just wish I had warmed up my voice a little. And fixed my hair.

IRIS:  You sounded great.  And your hair looks fine.

BEATRICE: You know, that guy’s going to get in trouble for recording video inside a post office.

IRIS:   Really?  Shit.  Because I recorded him.

BEATRICE:  You can’t film in a post office.  But don’t worry about it.

IRIS: Why not?

BEATRICE:  He’s going to turn himself in, as soon as he uploads the video.

IRIS:  That’s brilliant.  And you won’t even have to lift a finger.

BEATRICE:  Nope.

IRIS:  See you tomorrow.

BEATRICE:  I’m off tomorrow.

IRIS:  Well I’m probably going to be back here Thursday, too.  I can’t wait to see the show!

BEATRICE:  My next show’s today at 2:30, folks!

The tickets are free, but you’ll have to wait in line.

Urgent?

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The Palace has just received a missive from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee purporting to be “URGENT”:

Iris,

URGENT: The Washington Post reports that President Obama just offered Republicans an “across-the-board cut in Social Security benefits.”

How is this news?  The president already offered Republicans Social Security cuts back in July.  Of 2011.

I remain perplexed that liberals and progressives are perpetually surprised at the incontrovertible fact that the president wants to cut Social Security benefits (just as they seem strangely in denial of the fact that he sold out the public option in the ACA).  As I have explained elsewhere, the best prospect for blocking the cuts these @$$holes want is the Teabaggers throwing one of their trademark hissy fits and refusing to get in line because Social Security isn’t being cut enough. But the PCCC missive breathlessly continues:

The president’s proposal would cut cost of living adjustments for seniors (and veterans and others). You may hear policy wonks refer to this as “chained CPI.”

The Washingon Post explains, “Adopting chained CPI would, in effect, cut Social Security benefits.” Nobel economist Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times that “there’s no good policy reason to be doing this” and calls it “cruel and stupid.”

That is correct:  there is no good reason to be doing it.  Also:  it is cruel and stupid — the very hallmark of conservative policies.  What it is not, however, is surprising, coming as it does from the conservative president in the White House.  And the missive gets weirder:

President Obama and Democrats actively campaigned against these benefit cuts that would hurt seniors and families.

President Obama most assuredly did not actively campaign against such benefit cuts.  Apparently no one at the PCCC can recall a presidential debate that happened all the way back in October:

MR. LEHRER: Mr. President, do you see a major difference between the two of you on Social Security?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, I suspect that on Social Security, we’ve got a somewhat similar position.

What a surprise.  Even more surprising:  now that we’re past the election, it has become urgent that we all do something about this perfidious betrayal, pronto.

The URGENT missive concludes:

Can you give Rep. Nadler a call today and ask him to publicly oppose the White House’s proposed benefit cuts?

Sure I could.  I have Jerry’s office on speed dial.  But if I actually want the Social Security cuts blocked, my time and efforts will be far more effective calling the Teabaggers, telling them to stand strong, and demanding that they do not compromise with those traitorous RINOs on anything.

THE PALACE TOTALLY HAS YOUR BACK, TEABAGGERS!  DO THE RIGHT THING!!!11!!