Conservatives are fragile snowflakes in every nation

So let’s look at conservatives in the UK.

The Tories have proposed a new policy where they will reject all asylum seekers who enter the country without already having a visa. Which is a violation of the 1951 Refugee Convention, of which the UK was one of the original signers, as well as being a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights which the UK also signed, and would result in the UK basically rejecting 100% of refugees because the UK has no provisions with other countries to accept refugees in a more formalized way.

How big is the refugee problem in the UK? Last year, around 45,000 refugees crossed the English Channel in small boats and applied for asylum when they reached the UK. The population of the UK is 67 million people. In other words, .006% of their population, a tiny fraction of their population.

Let’s face facts: the proposed Tory policy is all about racism, not about any actual threat to the economy or stability of the UK. And famous footballer(*) Gary Lineker called them on it, calling the proposed policy “an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s“. And the response of the Tory chairman of the BBC, Richard Sharp, who bought his position by “donating” a major sum of money to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, was to suspend him for a bogus violation of a social media policy that does not apply to a contract sports analyst, thereby violating his right of free speech, a right (freedom of expression) not guaranteed in the non-existent British constitution but guaranteed in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights that the UK signed.

Here’s the thing, though. Lineker is a multi-millionaire. He doesn’t really give a shit about the BBC trying to muzzle him. The same applies to most of the other sports commentators at the BBC, the BBC hires former sports stars to run their sports programs, and most of them have plenty of money in the bank and are doing it because they love their sport and were bored in retirement. So, most of the other sports analysts stayed home today, and the BBC was showing lots of reruns of non-sports shows to fill dead air space. They weren’t even able to have the few sports reporters remaining interview football stars about the games after the games, because the football stars refused to talk to the BBC in solidarity with their former colleague.

None of these are people that the BBC can intimidate. The butt-hurt Tories can replace their sports commentators with random Tory schmoes with no credibility and lose all their audience as well as create an uprising by a football-crazed viewing audience, but the Tories can’t intimidate them. So butt-hurt conservative snowflakes either are going to have to double down and risk a rebellion by even some of their own supporters, or are going to have to back down with some sort of face-saving gesture. That’s it. That’s their choices. We’ll see what happens… but one thing is clear: Conservatives are fragile snowflakes who can’t stand criticism regardless of what nation they’re in.

— Badtux the Snowflake-melting Penguin

(*) For some reason, Americans call football “soccer”. The term used in the entire rest of the world is used here. 

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CBP — Child Border Perverts — kidnaps another child, a US citizen who had to be rescued by the Mexican embassy

Julia Isabel Amparo Medina was 9 years old, presented a valid U.S. passport card to cross the border to go to school, and was detained by the Child Border Perverts because she gave “inconsistent information” when interrogated. She was detained for 36 hours as she was interrogated by multiple strangers who threatened her and lied to her. She had to be rescued by the Mexican embassy after CBP refused to release her to her mother. That’s right, an American had to be rescued from the Child Border Perverts by the Mexicans.

WTF? Apparently none of these Border Patrol agents ever had a sister or a 9 year old daughter of their own. Expecting a 9 year old to give consistent answers when being subjected to deliberately manipulative questioning and false statements from investigators is idiotic and indefensible. A 9 year old girl simply isn’t developmentally capable of handling that situation, period, and shouldn’t be saying *anything* to law enforcement — only their parent should be talking to law enforcement. This is disgusting, racist, and perverted. Great job, child abusers at the CBP, I bet you were stroking yourself in the bathroom afterwards too at that hot 9 year old action.

But hey, she’s *brown*, so that makes it okay. Right? Right?! GRR.

— Badtux the Disgusted Penguin

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Republican culture is white supremacist conspiracy theories leading to violence

So we had:

• The MAGAbomber, sending letter bombs to prominent Democrats,
• A shooting at Kroger where a white supremacist apparently decided to start shooting black people,
• and a shooting at a Jewish synagogue where a white supremacist killed eleven people.

All within a week.

So I’ll drop this quote here:

“[These deaths] say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 18 September 1963
Birmingham, Ala.

What is the commonality between them all? All three murderers (or wanna be in the case of the MAGAbomber) subscribed to various right-wing conspiracy theories about Jews, Democrats, and black people.

Who is spreading these conspiracy theories? Is it a few nuts and cranks on the Internet? No, it is prominent Republicans, including top cabinet members and officers in our Federal government — including, of course, the President himself.

At which point we’re back to MLK Jr., who was responding to a church bombing that killed four little girls. The bombers were prominent KKK members who were also top officials in local law enforcement. MLK’s point was that if it was not these particular people, it would have been someone else who murdered civil rights workers, because the whole system of white supremacy was based upon violence against black people and their supporters.

At this point, I think we can say that the whole system of Republican supremacy is based upon violence against black people, Hispanic people, Democrats, Jews, and their supporters.

That is all.

– Badtux the Waiting-for-Kristallnacht Penguin

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The new Iron Curtain would destroy the American economy

According to a new study, withdrawing from NAFTA would cost 18 million jobs in the United States during the first year alone.

So where would those jobs be lost? Well, large swathes of the economy are dependent upon Mexico and China now. U.S. automakers Ford and Chrysler would be especially hard hit. I know Chrysler best, so here’s the scoop on what repealing NAFTA would do to Chrysler:

Roughly 40% of Chrysler’s engines are built in their Saltillo, Mexico engine plant, including 100% of their world-famous Hemi V8 engines and roughly 60% of their Pentastar V6 engines. 100% of Chrysler’s best-selling minivans are assembled in Windsor, Canada, and roughly 60% of their pickup trucks are assembled in Saltillo, Mexico, accounting for a significant portion of their profits. 100% of their large cars — the Charger, Challenger, and 300 — are assembled in Brampton, Canada.

In short, if NAFTA is repealed, Chrysler has no engines for their large vehicles, and many of their most profitable vehicles get stranded on the other side of the new Iron Curtain that Trump is trying to build. It’s unclear whether Chrysler would survive. Jeep is about the only thing actually built in the United States today, but Jeep isn’t enough to sustain an auto company, especially a Jeep that has no access to V8 engines and limited numbers of V6 engines.

But hey, gotta keep them darkies on the other side of the border. And make sure that none of them benefit from money spent by white folks. But there’s an interesting thing about walls. They not only keep people out. They keep people in, too.

Just like the original Iron Curtain.

– Badtux the Walls Penguin

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Daw, racists are *so* upset with Prince Harry!

So, Prince Harry of Wales, army veteran of the Afghanistan war and one of the world’s most eligible bachelors, and also currently 5th in line for the British crown, is getting married. He’s engaged to marry a beautiful actress, Meghan Markle. And racists are having a hissy fit.

Why?

Well, that’s simple: Meghan is mixed-race, with a white dad and an African-American mom. And that makes racists start frothing at the mouth and spitting out ridiculous names as they stomp up and down spewing spittle and bile and their blood pressure goes out the roof.

But the marriage is on anyhow. Because these racists and bigots are on the wrong side of history. These deplorables having a white hot emotional meltdown and crying bitter tears is how they should spend their pathetic despicable lives, and it looks like they’re going to be crying bitter tears for many years to come, because Prince Harry ain’t going away, and neither is Meghan Markle.

– Badtux the “Darn, aren’t those despicables so CUTE!” Penguin

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We need statues to remember the history of the American Civil War, because history books don’t exist.

Oh wait….

From the Library of Congress:

“According to the Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference, 2002, page 860, approximately 70,000 books have been published on the Civil War over the years up to that date. The Library of Congress, though not owning every one of these books, most likely owns copies of a great majority of them. The shelf space taken up by the Civil War books just in the E call number classification in the closed book stacks is considerable. This does not include those books which cover Civil War related information and may be cataloged primarily under other subjects. One should also consider that the Library owns many thousands of photographs and illustrations, maps, and manuscript materials on the Civil War.
I hope this information proves to be of help to you. Thank you.
W. Elsbury
Reference Specialist
Main Reading Room
Humanities and Social Sciences Division
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave. SE
Washington, DC 20540-4660
202-707-3399”

Oops!

It’s interesting that the same people who keep telling blacks to get over that whole slavery thing, already, seem to be the same people who want to keep all those statues of slave-owners on every street corner in the South because they’re still not over the Civil War.

– Badtux the Snarky Penguin

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Why do these talking heads mention only the *white* working class?

So a (predictably white) talking head claims that “liberal elites” are clueless about the white working class.

Why are these (always white) talking heads never talking about the *black* or *Hispanic* or *Asian* working class, all of whom the Democratic Party and “liberal elites” reach quite well, thank you very much?

Hint: The white working class hasn’t been in play for Democrats since 1964. No Democrat has won with a majority of the white vote in any election since then. Not Jimmie Carter. Not Bill Clinton. Not Barack Obama. None.

Hint: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed in 1964. The Civil Rights Act of 1965 was passed in 1965.

But I’m sure that has *nothing* to do with why the *white* working class (but no other working class voters) deserted the Democratic Parties and decided that liberals (the people who got those civil rights acts passed) are icky. Nope, racism has *nothing* to do with it. SNRK!

Hint: Many of us “liberal elites” are from a working class background and understand the working class plenty well, thank you very much. Which is why we know that worrying about getting white working class votes for the Democratic Party is an exercise in futility. As far as the majority of the white working class is concerned, the Democratic Party is the “nigger party”. Their word, not mine, I’ve heard my working class relatives say it often enough. Short of throwing our black and Hispanic and Asian working-class voters under the bus, there isn’t a goddamn thing we can do to get their votes. And that ain’t happening — the liberal coalition got two Presidents elected in the past 25 years without the white working class, so fuck’em.

– Badtux the Former Working Class Penguin

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Scratch a tighty righty anti-gay zealot, uncover a pervert

The latest? Judge Roy Moore. Yeah, that Judge Roy Moore, the one with the 10 Commandments statue, the one who ordered county clerks to disobey the U.S. Supreme Court? Dude obsessed with gay sex, even more than most gay people I know?

Yeah, that Roy Moore, who apparently abused his position as an assistant district attorney to get close to a 14 year old girl and, eventually, boff her.

Not the only underage girl he had inappropriate contact (snrk) with either. So, how are Republicans reacting to finding out that their guy is a pervert?

Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, a Moore backer: “Even if you accept the Washington Post’s report as being completely true, it’s much ado about very little. ”

So, uhm, how many parents of 14 year old girls are okay with a 32 year old adult man hitting on her? Hello? Helloooo?!

So how’s this playing out with the base? I asked my local Trumpanzee, who is the father of a little girl, and he was, like, “where were the parents?” And I replied “Her mother was in a courtroom. Moore was a district attorney and offered to watch the girl while her mother was in court.”

At which point he blew a fuse, sputtering “That’s abuse of power! That’s just wrong! He ought to be flayed alive in the public square! And kept alive and revived and flayed some more for years and years and years!” Uhm, yeah. Judge Roy’s base doesn’t seem to agree that a grown man is supposed to be hitting on 14 year old girls…

But never fear, Judge Moore will appear on live television, in tears, saying how he’d been a bad awful man when he was young but then he’d accepted Jesus Christ as his Personal Lord and Savior and had his sins Washed away in the Blood of the Lamb glory Hallelujah and was saved, saved I say, by the Blood of the Lamb. And the illiterate hicks and inbred cousin-fuckers of Alabama will elect him as their next senator, glory Hallelujah, AMEN.

So it goes.

– Badtux the Cynical Penguin

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A question for anybody who thinks the Confederacy was “honorable”

As their very own secession statements and their very own Constitution point out, the Confederate States of America was founded in order to defend slavery. This is not controversial amongst anybody who has actually read these founding documents, all of which are available on the Internet for your perusal. Fuck, the CSA Constitution even forbade Confederate states from outlawing slavery. State’s rights my fine-feathered ass! It was all about the right to own human beings as farm animals, as livestock, to be treated the same way as any other livestock on a farm.

So here’s a question for anybody who thinks the Confederacy was “honorable”:

How honorable would someone be if they ripped your daughter away from you and sold her as livestock to some stranger to be used as a brood mare by a big strapping male buck? And how honorable would someone be if they sold your daughter’s children resulting from this breeding to other strangers as livestock to either work in the field as a farm animal or be used as breeding stock?

Would that be an honorable person?

Well, look: That’s every goddamn motherfucker who founded the Confederate States of America. It’s not just that they kept humans as livestock. They fucking fought a goddamned war for the right to keep humans as livestock. I don’t have a particularly high opinion of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson because they kept humans as livestock, but at least they didn’t fucking fight a goddamned war for the right to keep humans as livestock. That, at least, is a stain upon their character that they do not possess.

But Robert E. Lee? Jefferson Davis? Alexander Stevens? Those evil-ass motherfuckers can burn in hell, as far as I’m concerned. They’re no more honorable than a pimp or a gang-banger. Hell, they’re fucking *less* honorable than a pimp or a gang-banger — at least the pimp or gang-banger only wants to own women as property, not women and men both.

– Badtux the Honor Penguin

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In Louisiana, the right to an attorney apparently only applies if you speak standard English

Louisiana Supreme Court states that the right to an attorney only applies if you state a request for an attorney in standard English. Speak Spanish? Tough shit. Speak vernacular Creole? Tough shit.

I mean, look. Gotta send them darkies to prison, y’all. You know they’re all criminals, after all. As for the Constitution? Yeah, well, according to the U.S. Constitution, the amount of justice you receive isn’t supposed to be different based upon the language that you speak (that whole “equal protection of the law” thingy in the 14th Amendment). But hey, the Constitution is just a piece of paper, right? Right?!

And people wonder why I would never move back to Louisiana even if I had a million bajillion dollars and was wanting to start up a business… shit, their “justice” system is so goddamn corrupt, it’s worse than India. Like in India, if the rich and powerful who control the state decide they want your shit, they’ll use corrupt D.A.’s and judges to take it. At least in India the judges will take bribes to stop the process. In Louisiana, the judges are basically selected by the rich and powerful, so they just rubber stamp whatever the rich and powerful in the state want rubber stamped. It’s a “justice” system, not a justice system.

– Badtux the Corruption Penguin

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