However, for whatever reason, the Paul campaign has now filed a lawsuit in the federal courts, in the Northern California district, seeking to identify whoever created and uploaded the video — alleging trademark infringement and defamation. Even more ridiculous is that he’s filed for expedited discovery to try to unmask those uploaders quickly. This is all sorts of bizarre and not particularly smart. It also seems to go against a bunch of Paul’s main points — including his belief in state’s rights over federal (he’s suing in federal court, not state court, using some questionable theories) and his support of the First Amendment — which, many courts have pointed out, includes the right to speak anonymously.
On Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked, ‘What God do you pray to?’ (Bloomberg’s voice cracks here a little as he gets choked up.) ‘What beliefs do you hold?’
“The attack was an act of war, and our first responders defended not only our city, but our country and our constitution. We do not honor their lives by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights and the freedoms that the terrorists attacked.
“The attack was an act of war, and our first responders defended not only our city, but our country and our constitution. We do not honor their lives by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights and the freedoms that the terrorists attacked.
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Read the entire address at the link above. (via soupsoup, brooklynmutt, stfuconservatives, rambutan) |
A close reading of the new health care legislation, which will conveniently take effect in 2014 after the next presidential election, is deeply depressing. The legislation not only mocks the lofty promises made by President Barack Obama, exposing most as lies, but sadly reconfirms that our nation is hostage to unchecked corporate greed and abuse. The simple truth, that single-payer nonprofit health care for all Americans would dramatically reduce costs and save lives, that the for-profit health care system is the problem and must be destroyed, is censored out of the public debate by a media that relies on these corporations as major advertisers and sponsors, as well as a morally bankrupt Democratic Party that is as bought off by corporations as the Republicans.
The 2,000-page piece of legislation, according to figures compiled by Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), will leave at least 23 million people without insurance, a figure that translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths a year among people who cannot afford care. It will permit prices to climb so that many of us will soon be paying close to 10 percent of our annual income to buy commercial health insurance, although this coverage will only pay for about 70 percent of our medical expenses. Those who become seriously ill, lose their incomes and cannot pay skyrocketing premiums will be denied coverage. And at least $447 billion in taxpayer subsidies will now be handed to insurance firms. We will be forced by law to buy their defective products. There is no check in the new legislation to halt rising health care costs. The elderly can be charged three times the rates provided to the young. Companies with predominantly female work forces can be charged higher gender-based rates. The dizzying array of technical loopholes in the bill—written in by armies of insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists—means that these companies, which profit off human sickness, suffering and death, can continue their grim game of trading away human life for money.
I grew up a few miles away from where Pat Tillman’s family lived, in New Almaden - a pretty leafy, liberal part of town removed from greater San Jose by a few winding roads, leading up to the few streets that New Almaden actually has. I lived about two or three miles away and used to ride bikes up around there. When Pat Tillman died there wasn’t a house in the area that DIDN’T hear about it. He was the local hero that got shot overseas, and his face was plastered in many a window.
For those of you unfamiliar with Pat Tillman’s story, I’ll give you a brief rundown. A naturally gifted athlete, he became a professional football player. Eight months after 911 he turned down a $3,600,000 contract with the St Louis Cardinals to enlist in the army. He was deployed to Afghanistan. Two years later, as support for the war was waning, he was shot by friendly fire.
The Pentagon decided to spin it that he was a national hero; a God-fearing jock who died valiently fighting the enemy for love and Liberty. The Pentagon also refused to tell the Tillman family exactly the circumstances in which he died, with the three-star general going on record more than 70 times saying that he had a “bad memory” and “didn’t recall the exact circumstances” under which Tillman was shot in the face by US bullets. That link is video of Kevin Tillman testifying before Congress about how transparent the shooting was. Pat waved his hands in the air for the U.S soldier to stop, some thirty feet away.
Pat was then transformed into a war hero.
However, this didn’t sit well with the family - who knew Pat better than anyone else. Pat was highly critical of the war in Iraq, believing that American simply had no place in Iraq. Had Pat not been violently murdered, he was to meet with one of his favorite writers - prominent U.S foreign policy critic and renowned author Noam Chomsky - upon his return to San Jose.
Pat’s memorial service had heavy religious overtones. Pat himself was wholly non-religious, which became glaringly apparent when Pat’s brother Rich got up on stage wearing a t-shirt and jeans holding a beer, and announced to the crowd “”Pat isn’t with God. He’s fucking dead. He wasn’t religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he’s fucking dead.”
Here’s video of Pat’s mother testifying that Army officials remarking that Pat Tillman’s death - due to his lack of Christian faith - was nothing more than “worm dirt”.
It didn’t hurt the U.S propaganda machine that Pat looked like a cartoon of a hero - with the picture most published of him showing off cheekbones and army fatigues like something off of the back of a state quarter. But here’s video of Pat as he usually looked: long hair, stubble, and a stoner’s drawl. Quite different from the chiseled (and literal) poster-boy of the War in Afghanistan, and much different than the for-God-and-Country jock that many, many people think of him as.
There’s a documentary coming out about it soon, if you’re interested in learning more. There’s also his Wikipedia page, which provides extensive links out to more and more articles on the subject. Considering Pat and I were near neighbors, and I had no idea of the extensive government cover-up going on literally a mile and a half away from where I grew up, it’s fucking extraordinary it’s gone on this long.
Trans woman Delphine Ravisé-Giard’s breast size dictated by French civil court
Delphine Ravisé-Giard is a long-serving member of the French Air Force who transitioned in 2007. The Air Force has been respectful and reasonable about her shift in presentation, immediately reflecting her gender accurately and with apparently very little sturm und drang.
But in trying to transition legally, she is facing bigotry and ever-moving goalposts. The civil court handling her legal change is intimately policing her body and demanding that she get specific kinds of surgery. Originally, the court demanded that she get SRS. They have thankfully backed off that, but their new requirements? Not much better.
The court is now demanding that Ms. Ravisé-Giard undergo breast enhancement before attaining legal recognition of her gender, saying “The principle of respect for private life requires that the state recognize gender according to a person’s appearance.”
Huh? So, respecting someone’s private life now means…policing their body? I suppose this is in keeping with the sexist idea that women’s bodies are always, necessarily public property, and that our bodiesmust be sufficiently titillating to be validated.
Ms. Ravisé-Giard said to pink news: “The request is ridiculous but this is what the state demands. I am satisfied with the progress I have made through hormones but as far as the state is concerned, unless I take steps to augment what I have now through surgery, I am not being serious about my gender change. Of course, if the state applied the same test to cis women, it would have to redefine the gender of many French women. But of course, this would never happen.”
This is blatant transmisogyny. Though the French Air Force has responded appropriately, by respecting Ms. Ravisé-Giard’s identity, bodily integrity, and right to privacy. But the civil court is responding to Ms. Ravisé-Giard’s existence as a woman with cissexist bigotry and classist entitlement, without regard to her desires for her body or her monetary ability to pay for these expensive surgeries. Instead of letting her determine the course that her body and identity take, they aremandating the ways in which women are women, when in reality there is no one path to true womanhood.
Ms. Ravisé-Giard asks, “Will that breast size be established nationally by the Minister of Justice or will it be up to the personal tastes of individual attorneys?” This is, sadly, a society where men are allowed to decide what a woman should look like, where cis people are empowered to decide what make a trans woman real. Women’s bodies should always be up to the woman in question to negotiate, but in France, that’s not the case.
