I'll be surprised as hail if this story gets covered, so I'm going to mention it here. SCOTUS is back in session! A case that I'll be watching as closely as possible is being argued this Wednesday; it's Snyder VS. Phelps. This case is the one involving Fred Phelps & his gang of "merry men" who crash military funerals with their hate & intolerance.
At least according to the SCOTUS website, transcripts from the day's oral arguments are supposed to be online by the end of the day that day, so I'm going to try to get my grimy paws on the sucker to see what each side brought to the proverbial table. I have a distinct feeling that this Court will wind up ruling in favor of Phelps; the immediate lower court behind SCOTUS overturned the ruling in favor of the Snyder family on the basis of free speech. Frankly, I'm a little puzzled why SCOTUS took this case. But, like I said, I think Phelps will win out. In reading the Elena Kagan "stuff" in advance of her confirmation, I see her as a free speech "absolutist" - meaning that ANY suppression of ANY speech is not a good thing. It's the quantity of the speech that important - not the quality. We'll see much later on if I'm correct.
Let's get to "this day in history." On Oct. 4, 1957, the Space Age began as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, into orbit. Yea, but WE went to the moon so {insert Bronx raspberry here}! USA! USA! USA! ;D
On Oct. 4, 1895, Buster Keaton, the American comic actor of silent films, was born. My Hubby thinks he's the greatest; I prefer Chaplin my own self.
Finally, On this date in 1895, the first U.S. Open golf tournament was held, at the Newport Country Club in Rhode Island. Now, ya' know we HAVE TO hear from THIS GUY!
Let's Countdown - FORE! ;D
#5 "War on the Middle Class" AKA "The GOP Wage War" AKA "Class Warfare" - Dems are allegedly working on campaign strateegery to address this component of the GOBP’s strateegery. Uh, there’s been a war on the middle class for a long damn time. The Dems are JUST NOW noticing?! Joe Miller (Bat$hit – AK) thinks a federal minimum wage is unconstitutional. If I recall, letting women vote wasn’t originally in the Constitution, either. Ending slavery wasn’t originally in the Constitution, either. There’s a whole truck – load of $hit that’s not originally in the Constitution; that’s why the Founding Fathers created AN AMENDMENT PROCESS! A whole mess of GOBP candidates either don’t know what the minimum wage is, or they just want to get rid of it. OK, all this $hit about wait staff earning "the highest minimum wage" is just that – BULL$HIT!
When I was a bartender & waitress at a country club, I made $4/hr plus tips. The minimum wage, even back then, was more than $4/hr. Minimum wage workers must not only work for less, but they need to work longer, according to the "good" Dr. Paul. Rachel Maddow gets double duty tonight! ACORN’s all wrapped up in this minimum wage shtick?! HA! Gee, that playbook worked SO WELL; well, I guess it did because ACORN is gone, baby, gone. Rachel called Joe Miller "a 10th – er"; I call him bat$hit. And, the next time someone in the GOBP cries, "Won’t someone think of the children?!" we can point out that fact that these "people" want future generations to pay for tax cuts for the rich, the future generations to have to work ‘til they drop – literally, etc.
#4 "Obtuse Angle" AKA "Try Angle" - There’s yet another "party" beyond the tea baggers? Great! Sharron Angle wants said "third party" to drop out of the NV Senate race to make more room for votes for her in the voting booth. Uh, didn’t some people want HER to drop out to make room for the Chicken Lady?
She said,
The Republicans have lost their standard...their principle.
O...K...the last time the GOBP HAD standards & principles was...when? How much money will Ms. Angle see from Senator Cornhole Cornyn NOW, I wonder? ;D She’s talking getting juice from tea baggers, too {insert juvenile adolescent joke here}. Dave Weigel gets to talk Angle games tonight. The memo coming from the GOBP is that it’s OK to say on tape that people in DC are morans. Even the GOBP in DC?! Ya’ know...the ones with the purse strings?! The Ashton dude that Sharron was conversing with is NOT dropping out of the race.
**There’s a bear in a convenience store in British Columbia – AaaaaaWWwwww! In Hungary, a whole mess of people are playing with Rubik’s cubes. WHY?! Some break dancing dude took out a lady with his fancy shmancy leg moves – OOPS! **
#3 "The Price is Right" AKA "Corporations United" - President Obama warned against a big ‘ol influx of coin from special interest groups in the wake of Citizens United. Guess what? He was correct & THEN SOME. Anonymous corporate interests are spending oodles & oodles of cash on campaigns for November. Some of might even be foreign?! Uh, how’s that legal? $80 million has been spent by these groups, and we, the people, know where little of it came from. TurdBlossom’s PAC is one of the identified spending leaders. Here’s Howard Fineman. He called any campaign resulting from contributions from TurdBlossom’s PAC as being a combination of GWB’s administration & the McKinley one. OK, President McKinley’s a little before my time, so I’ll have to do some research on him. Sadly, I think I and a whole mess of other people are going to be having PTSD with GWB’s reign of terror for a long damn time. Citizens United has paved the way for the good ‘ol days of the robber barons. THANK YOU, SCOTUS! Worse yet, our P.O.S. Congress can’t/won’t do a damn thing to pass legislation to effectively counter this shameful SCOTUS decision. *&^%$#@!
The foreign coin might be coming in through the Chamber of Commerce – YIPPEE! *&^%$#@! How ‘bout that Christine O’Donnell ad?! She sure as $hit ain’t me!!!!!!!!! Besides, in an admittedly shallow comment, her hair looked awful.
WPITW – A charter prep school dude was fined by the school’s director because he misspelled the name of the school on the yearbook cover. Lonesome Rhodes thinks slavery was caused by big government. Yea, all those people in Africa were DYIN’ to get on those boats! The Secessionist Governor of TX has some sort of technology fund that’s funded by people who just happen to have contributed to & supported his campaign. How convenient!
#1 "A La Carte Government" AKA "Pay to Spray" AKA "Burn Rate" - A home in TN caught fire, the fire department arrived, and said fire department watched the house burn because some tax or fee hadn’t been paid to the local fire department. When the fire spread to a neighbor’s property, the fire fighters put out THAT fire because they’d paid the fee. Mr. Gene Cranick was the victim of this policy. The fire fighters wouldn’t even come out when Mr. Cranick promised to pay whatever it took to get them out there. Exceptions to this rule have been made in the past, but there was a different fire chief back then. At least Mr. Cranick’s home insurance is going to pay, it sounds like.