Caveat Emperor

Reminder: Race, gender, and religion are protected classes under anti-discrimination laws. You aren’t allowed to discriminate against people based on those things.

However, “liar”, “bigot”, and “baby snatcher” are *not* protected classes under anti-discrimination laws. If you want to refuse service to liars, bigots, and baby snatchers, i.e., if you want to discriminate based upon the character of their soul rather than upon the color of their skin, you are entirely within your freedom of association rights under the 1st Amendment to tell them get off your property.

I mention this because multiple Trump Administration officials have faced difficulties eating out ever since the story of the baby gulags broke. And the question is this: Is it okay to make sure that baby snatchers don’t get to eat out in peace, as Maxine Waters suggested?

On one side you have rabid racists, baby snatchers, people who harass women outside of abortion clinics, and an assortment of other white racists some of whom, our dear Hair Twitler has assured us, are good people. On the other side you have believers in justice, tolerance, decency, and kindness. We already know what the first side is like. The Trumpanzees come out of the woodwork hooting and howling and throwing feces every time their Hair Twitler tweets a twit on Twitter, making life miserable for anybody who dares criticize their God-Emperor Donald The Trump. On the other side you have nice people who really aren’t all that into getting up into people’s faces and being loud. Unless….

Unless the people they are being unkind to are BAD PEOPLE. And I have a sure-fired way of telling who are BAD PEOPLE right now: If they defend snatching babies away from their parents — or lie about it — they are BAD PEOPLE. People who force 8 year old children to represent themselves in immigration court even though it is illegal to charge someone under age 11 with a crime in Federal court because they are held to be too immature to possess mens rea, the ability to comprehend the difference between lawful and unlawful behavior? BAD PEOPLE. If they defend those who snatch babies away from their parents? They are BAD PEOPLE. If they help snatch babies away from their parents? They are BAD PEOPLE.

Yes, it really is that simple.

And what should be done with BAD PEOPLE when law fails to deal with the fact that they are BAD PEOPLE, other than a good old fashioned shunning, including refusing to date them and restaurants refusing to serve them — especially Mexican restaurants (duh)? I mean, really. Should good people associate with people who are BAD PEOPLE?

And then some good people say, “but if we just explain and are kind and patient to them, they’ll become good people!” Sadly, that really doesn’t happen. Bad people don’t possess the empathy or willingness to listen that is necessary to become good people. You take your average racist inbred vicious redneck, all he’s going to do is sneer at good people who try to be friendly with him. Because they are cruel people, and see nothing wrong with cruelty and sneer at those who do as being “weak libtards”, and are never going to change. They haven’t over the past 50 years of my life anyhow, so why would they change now?

Given that, the only thing we can do with these BAD PEOPLE is to not voluntarily associate with them. Because voluntarily associating with them says we condone being bad people, and encourages children to themselves become bad people.

So yeah, shun these motherfuckers. Shun them good. And those who go beyond being BAD PEOPLE, who actually make it possible to do bad things? Well. Play this for them at high volume:

Because no, they don’t deserve to live in peace. Because people who make children cry for nothing that the child himself did are BAD PEOPLE. And bad people don’t deserve courtesy, respect, or peace.

– Badtux the Vicious Penguin

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ICE commits 1,600 violations of the Constitution of the United States of America — and right wingers are all, [crickets].

ICE is transferring 1,600 people detained pending administrative removal to Federal prisons. Note that these people have not been arrested. The term “arrest” means that they’ve been charged with a crime. Instead, they’ve been detained, pending appearance before an administrative law judge who will rule whether they are subject to removal or not.

This is not a trivial distinction. You cannot place someone into a Federal prison unless they have been indicted for a crime, or have been convicted of a crime. These immigrants have not been indicted for a crime — they haven’t been charged with a crime at all, because that would require the Federal government to provide them with a lawyer and due process rights as guaranteed by the Constitution, which requires due process and provision of a lawyer if you’re going to charge someone with a crime. Instead, they have been scheduled to appear before an administrative law judge pending administrative removal, which gets around that whole Constitution thing by *not* being a punishment, it’s just returning the person back to where they came from. The administrative detention in a civilian detention facility is not a punishment, it’s part of a removal process wherein people who have been cited for being here without authorization are temporarily held pending their hearing. They can waive their hearing and be removed immediately, so under the law they’re there voluntarily.

But that’s a civilian detention facility, which, I might point out, is not a prison and is not a punishment for a crime. A prison is a prison and is a punishment for a crime. Punishing someone by putting them in prison without an indictment, lawyer, or due process is a violation of the 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments of the Constitution, which applies, I might remind you, to *all* people on US soil regardless of their citizenship (the Supremes have ruled on this repeatedly). But I guess the Constitution is just a piece of paper as far as the regime of Orange Julius Caesar is concerned.

— Badtux the Constitutional Penguin

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So apparently Mad King Trump cannot be indicted and can pardon himself

At least, that’s what his lawyer Gooniani says, and what he has tweeted.

Methinks that Mad King Trump’s role model is this:

Except King Joffrey was less petulant.

Apparently “it’s not illegal if the President does it” has become the guiding principle of Republican rule. Huh. Why am I not surprised.

— Badtux the “Was he elected President, or King?” Penguin

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The Constitution is just a piece of paper

The most dangerous place for a reporter to be in America today is at a protest. Not because they’re attacked by protesters. Rather, because police officers regularly attack the press at protests and regularly destroy their equipment. 1st Amendment guarantee of a free press? The Constitution is just a piece of paper, right?

Meanwhile, even when reporters do get the story, media outlets are afraid to print investigative reporting about oligarchs because the oligarchs own the courts and can put them out of business.

Indiana proposes licensing only “responsible” people to be reporters. Presumably any reporter who dares report on a protest or reports things the oligarchs don’t want reported is “irresponsible”.

And of course the Orange Racist Russian Stooge keeps trumpeting that any media critical of him is “fake” and his deplorable followers regularly threaten reporters.

Combined with the fact that most reporters now aren’t full-time staffers of newspapers, they’re part-time stringers for wire services who don’t have access to the legal resources of a major media outlet, and you get a serious issue where proper reporting is being suppressed by the government and the government’s supporters.

One of the first things that fascist regimes try to do is shut down any media that’s critical of them. Erdogan has done that in Turkey, and it appears the deplorables and their God-Emperor Donald the Trump are bound and determined to see that happen here too. Because remember, people. The Constitution, and the 1st Amendment that it contains, is just a piece of paper.

Or is it that the Constitution just has one paragraph, the 2nd Amendment?

So confusing!

– Badtux the Press Penguin

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Deplorable people still filling basket of deplorables

In today’s episode, Jeremy Thacker, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a Trump-worshippin’ deplorable who murdered a homeless man and assaulted several others.

Hillary Clinton was viciously attacked by the press when she dared tell the truth about the “basket of deplorables” who were the core of Trump’s support. Yet there they are.

— Badtux the Deplorable-spottin’ Penguin

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People were talking about the hurricane rather than him, so President Trump had to pardon a bigot

I mean, look. Sheriff Joe Arpaio was convicted of torturing Hispanic people in his jails. Hundreds of Hispanic people hung themselves in his jails, basically tortured to death, costing Maricopa County bajillions of dollars. Then he defied a Federal court order to quit torturing them brown fellers, and got convicted of contempt of court for doing so.

So of course the Orange Racist Pussy Grabber pardoned him today.

It’s a twofer. Now people are talking about Trump, rather than about the hurricane. And, Trump lets all the racists, bigots, inbreds, Nazis, Klansmen, right-wing militiamen, rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, muggers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Southern Baptists know that their God-Emperor Donald the Trump has their back.

Of course, it’s a travesty of justice, and a preview of how Trump intends to deal with the convictions from the Russia scandal, the grand jury for which is still underway. But justice isn’t something that His Fraudulency Donald The Trump ever cared about. He has a life-long history of bigotry against black people, a life-long history of ripping off his contractors, bankers, and anybody else he could get away with ripping off (thus his nickname in New York City banking circles of “Deadbeat Donnie”, which is why he’s so in debt to the Russians), a life-long history of treating women like objects and treating people of color like shit. This is what he does, people. He’s a two-bit con man playing big man in the Oval Office. A two bit con man who has access to nuclear weapons and a pardon pen.

Which is why we are all so, so fucked.

– Badtux the Waddling Penguin

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So a judge’s job is to enforce religion, not the law

So says Trump’s nominee for a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

I… have no more words to say. This… DINGBAT… is going to get rubber-stamped by the Republican Senate. And is going to be enforcing religious orthodoxy — her *specific* ultra-conservative religious orthodoxy — for the rest of her life.

We are so fucked.

– Badtux the

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All hail the Hit^H^H^HTrump Youth of America!

Donald Trump held a rally where the Trump Youth of America chanted “U S A! U S A!” to Trump’s promise to repeal Obamacare and deprive 22,000,000 Americans of health insurance.

Oh sure, they *said* they were the Boy Scouts of America. But hey. Look. Scouts are about helping people, not about hurting people. Depriving granny of her nursing home meds by defunding Medicaid? Dude. Not helping.

So surely these couldn’t be Boy Scouts up there cheering their God-Emperor declaring a death sentence of thousands of Americans deprived of health insurance, right?

Oh wait, this is 1932…. err….. alrighty, then.

SIGH.

– Badtux the WASF Penguin

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The alt-right are truly deplorable people

So, I found out that John McCain had brain cancer. Furthermore, it’s a brain cancer that will likely kill him within the next 18 months, one we currently don’t know how to cure. A friend of mine died of that same brain cancer, as did Teddy Kennedy. It was a kind death, as deaths go, he was not in pain, but his last couple of months were rather… confused… as the cancer chewed up his brain. He died when it hit some part of the brain critical to the functioning of his body. Bye bye, then.

I didn’t say anything about it at the time, because I felt sorry for the old man, but I’m not much of one for being able to express that in the form of a blog post. But now I find out that the alt-right is chortling and celebrating McCain’s illness. Meaning I can now make a post about how they are deplorable people.

Which, of course, they are.

Read the alt-right nastiness on that page. Read it. These are disgusting evil people. I don’t use that word “evil” lightly. I never, for example, used it about George W. Bush, who I considered to be often inept and sometimes mean-spirited but never outright evil. But these alt-right motherfuckers… they are fucking evil. They are the kind of people who would push a small child off a dock into the water then laugh and take selfies as he splashed and drowned behind them. They are the kind of people who would grab a frog and pull all its legs off while the frog was still alive, just to watch it thrash around in pain and die. They are the kind of people who would, if they thought they could get away with it, go on shooting sprees killing minorities just for the fun of it. They are, to put it bluntly, a pestilence upon our civilization.

And their God-Emperor is our President.

We are so, so, so fucked…

— Badtux the Waddling Penguin

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Hunter S. Thompson called it fifty years ago

Fifty years ago, Hunter S. Thompson published Hell’s Angels: The strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. A writer for The Nation remarks:

Thompson concluded that the most striking thing about them was not their hedonism but their “ethic of total retaliation” against a technologically advanced and economically changing America in which they felt they’d been counted out and left behind.
…
For Thompson, the Angels weren’t important because they heralded a new movement of cultural hedonism, but because they were the advance guard for a new kind of right-wing politics.

Thompson pointed out that the whole ethic of this new right wing politics was the ethic of total retaliation. If you can’t win, destroy. If you aren’t very bright, terrorize those who are brighter than you. Decades before “What’s the Problem with Kansas”, Thompson was explaining to us what politics was going to look like in the future… and now is that future.

Let’s put it bluntly: Appeals to reason are not going to work with Trump’s deplorables. Reason is one of those elite things, done by people they hate who are smarter than them, and thus to be hated and destroyed. CNN and dozens of other news outlets (all of whose reporters are visible on camera) cover an anti-ISIS rally by Muslims in London? Clearly completely faked.

Sigh. So an anti-ISIS protest by Muslims is obviously fake, because clearly no Muslim could ever hate someone who beheads, uhm, mostly Muslims.
These people are immune to reason. And their lord and savior, God-Emperor Donald the Trump, tells them exactly what they want to hear — that he’s gonna stick it to all them smarty-pants people that is better than them.

We are fucked.

That is all.

– Badtux the “We’re fucked” Penguin

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