And Give Young Sally Some Room

Via every-freaking-body on the intertoobz, but in this case from Crooks & Liars:



Nicole Belle:

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), one of the GOP's minions, continues the Joe Wilsonification of Congress to prevent discussion over Stupak's amendment, one that may actually lead to effectively a ban on abortion for low income women:

“The real goal of abortion opponents isn't to maintain the status quo. It's to extend federal prohibitions into private pocketbooks. By restricting coverage offered through the exchange, they hope to make abortion coverage so unattractive that insurers eventually stop offering it in the market for individual and small-group policies.”

And they don't even want us to discuss it. Those white men of the GOP don't want women to insert their remarks into the record.

Kind of makes you long for the day genuine leftists barged into Rotary Club meetings squawking "Property is theft!" and "Are you done with that cheese platter?" It is important to remember that each one of these censorious, shouting motherfuckers would run crying to Fox News if anyone did this to them. Almost no one does, except their own cohorts. Ask Lindsey Graham.

I was inches from losing my mind watching this vomitrociousness when a great, great thing happened:

the Bedlam Rovers' 1990 CD Frothing Green landed in my mailbox. I went from hopping mad to jumping for joy in seconds flat. The band stayed at my house when they passed through New Jersey a zillion years ago and I was hopelessly, droolingly starstruck every time. It's a little embarrassing to remember, but when the CD played tonight, none of that mattered. I love these songs. They've aged beautifully; their politics are more relevant now than ever before. It's even good to recognize that I learned a lot from meeting the band. For instance: genuine socialist health care would be good for everyone and everything, except the careers of corporate water carriers, who no longer even suffer the pretense of democratic process.

It's not easy to dance when I'm this testy.

Crushing A Fly With A Volkswagen: Head Like A Hole Edition

I really, really hate reading these stories. From Feministing, which credits Women of Color Blog with finding this:

School security guards in Palmdale, CA have been caught on camera assaulting a 16-year-old girl and breaking her arm after she spilled some cake during lunch and left some crumbs on the floor after cleaning it up.

The incident occurred last week at Knight High School in Palmdale and was caught on a cell phone camera by another pupil who was then also assaulted by the security guards.

Watch video of the incident here.

The girl, Pleajhai Mervin, told Fox News LA that she was bumped while queuing for lunch and dropped the cake. After being ordered to clean it up and then re-clean the spot three times, she attempted to leave the area out of embarrassment but was jumped on by security who forced her onto a table, breaking her wrist in the process.

Pleajhai also says that the security guard in the picture yelled "hold still nappy-head" at her, which at the time she did not know was a racist comment.

Watch the video. I'll wait.

...

...

You back? Great. Kids tell you half a story - everyone knows they make shitty witnesses. But now you're a witness. What did you see?

If that girl were Miss Sasha, no power on earth would prevent me from doing what Pleajhai's mother did: confronting the cowering school administration.

But it gets worse. When the girl's mother went to the school to complain and rightfully demand that this guard be arrested - she was arrested and suspended from her job with the school district.

Students at the scene captured the assault on their cell phones; one such student was also beaten.

This is a particularly eggregious example of "You Act Your Age While I Act Like A Big Baby." I'm a peaceful person these days. You'd be visiting me on Sundays once a month.

There is just no excuse for arresting kindergarteners for bringing scissors to school or tasering eight-year-olds or asking girls about their periods. Yet, again and again we have school administrators and security guards - almost always men - treating children like armed combatants. It is inexcusable. I don't mean, "Well, maybe there was a reason and what about this and that..." No. No hemming and hawing. No excuses. No compromise. No "It's for their own safety" bullshit. No.

Grownups are so scared they think CHILDREN are the enemy. What happened to this girl could happen to your children. She's not demon spawn who deserved a beating. She's a girl, like your daughter. She's got an arrest record for dropping cake. And there's nothing except the slimmest grasp on common sense and vast, messy litigation preventing what happened from happening again.

I can't wait for a time when authoritarian punk-asses will be shown the inside of a jail cell, and even more so the authoritarian punk-asses who prey on the defenseless, like children.