crumbsroom wrote:

I think it is fairly clear that American Taliban is not a remotely unfair moniker.

I just thought it was amusing that Wajahat Ali thought that it was unfair.....to the Taliban.

Jinnistan wrote:

It is a recent trend of authoritarian-oriented people to claim victimhood based on their having to suffer the oppression of being denied their god-given rights to continue their legacy of domination.  In a zero-sum view of power, any expanded rights to others are necessarily rights surrendered.  "Religious liberty is under attack in many places, because it is dangerous to those who want to hold complete power."  Speaking of his own religious liberty, as if anyone is preventing him from tasting the body of Christ, his real grievance is that he and his institution are no longer able to enforce their immoral cruelty as they had been able to do for centuries.  "The problem that looms is not just indifference to religion, it's not just ignorance about religion. There's also growing hostility to religion, or at least the traditional religious beliefs that are contrary to the new moral code that is ascendant in some sectors."  This "new moral code" refers to the sexual revolution.  Alito and his fellow shepards are under seige by not being able to tell their women when and why to fuck.  He's the true victim here, you see.

One of the things that greatly annoys me is the extent to which true loser mentality seems to guide so much of modern politics.

Americans are now being denied access to their vital medications if those meds happen to be usable in combination with other drugs for inducing abortion. This affects millions of people who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's, and even some forms of cancer, including breast cancer. People are already suffering long–term damage to their health as a result of this. One Tennessee woman was forced into a long–term relapse of debilitating rheumatoid arthritis after being denied her meds (because we can't have her going around killing her babies with them), despite the fact that she had a hysterectomy years ago. 

Tennessee is one of the states whose "trigger" ban on abortion has just kicked in, making abortion a felony without exceptions of any kind, not even for the safety of the mother, let alone for rape or incest. No exceptions. Zip. Nada. 

Yet Tennessee's governor Bill Lee (pronounced "god damned slimy sonofabitch swine, fuck you in your shit–stained facehole") continues to falsely claim otherwise. This fucking pig bastard was also at the helm of the efforts to strip the state's health officials of their authority (for example their power to order closures of businesses and schools) and to strip Tennesseans of the option to vote absentee during the height of the 2020 pandemic.

He's up for re–election this year. I ain't holdin' my breath. 

Slight religious note.

I may not too popular on this, but I was walking home from the store and passed by a couple.  They had a baby.  Wheeling it.  And the woman was wearing one of those full-body burkas.  Black.  Absorbing all the sunlight.  Like, it's still pretty late summer around here, right?  So as I passed, I'm an asshole, as you all know, I say pretty loudly, "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!" and just keep walking, hoping nobody stabs me like Salmon Rushdie.

I don't have a problem with the hijab.  Whatever.  You want to wear it?  I'm all for it.  It's more difficult for me to think that a full-body burka is  truly consensual.  "Oh, peripheral vision and acoustic awareness?  Who needs it?!?!"  But that's just me and my clearly western prejudice.  But here's the thing.  I don't even give a shit.  Just weird, not to see a burka, but to see her with some dude wearing blue-jean shorts and a T-shirt.  OK, fuck right off with this bullshit fake-ass piety.  I mean, how about a bow-tie, at least, Elijiah?
 

The recent SCOTUS hearing on a particularly sexually frustrated Texas judge's ruling against the right to access the birth control medicine, mifepristone, had the unsettlng effect of inspiring Samuel Alito to cite the long-dormant Comstock Act of 1973.  Probably not that surprising for a justice who's already cited the precedent of a 17th-century witchhunter, but it's now offered another opportunity for Americans to get a history lesson in one of many dormant laws still technically on the books, because it's never explicitly been revoked despite being routinely overturned and declared unconstitutional throughout the earlier 20th century SCOTUS courts and having not been enforced in 50 years. 

The Comstock law basically outlaws the shipping of contraceptions and abortifacients over the mail.  But it also outlaws "every obscene, lewd, or lascivious, and every filthy book, pamphlet, picture, paper, letter, writing, print, or other publication of an indecent character", "for any indecent or immoral use", "for any indecent or immoral purpose and every written or printed card, letter, circular, book, pamphlet advertisement, or notice of any kind giving information directly or indirectly, where, or how, or of whom, or by what means any of the hereinbefore-mentioned matters, articles or things may be obtained or made", "every letter, packet, or package, or other mail matter containing any filthy, vile, or indecent thing, device or substance", "and every description calculated to induce or incite a person to so use or apply any such article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing", "any letter upon the envelope of which, or postal card upon which scurrilous epithets may have been written or printed, or disloyal devices printed or engraved", and also makes criminal "whoever...shall offer to sell, or to lend, or to give away, or in any manner to exhibit, or shall otherwise publish or offer to publish in any manner, or shall have in his possession, for any such purpose or purposes, an obscene book, pamphlet, paper, writing, advertisement, circular, print, picture, drawing or other representation, figure, or image on or of paper or other material, or any cast instrument, or other article of an immoral nature".

There should be no mistake.  The namesake Anthony Comstock, US Postmaster, was motivated primarily due to his disgust at the proliferation of pornographic materials during the US Civil War.  So we should consider the full implication of a potential SCOTUS ruling which would reinforce the Comstock Act, because it would not stop at simply forbidding the access to contraceptives and birth control medicine through the mail, but also effect the commercial distribution of pornography, "male enhancement" medicine, "sex toys" and, in its extreme, any scientific information on sexual hygiene and safety which may involve non-procreative acts within a marriage.  It could also involve private correspondence with "scurrilous epithets" and, in its extreme, even the possession of such materials.  It's also worth keeping in mind that these Comstock laws predated any of our mass media broadcast platforms, and it isn't difficult to conceive a reading of "letter carriers" "for the purpose of circulating or disposing thereof" that could apply to the internet, as a medium of information dissemination, much more generally.  Because, again, after all, the original intent was to prevent the dissemination of pornography as much as contraceptives and birth control.  And the only real barrier is in the interpretations of the standards "obscene, lewd, or lascivious", "filthy", "indecent and immoral", and the traditional context that these are descriptors of sexual activity outside of wedlocked baby-making.  (Note that Alito and Gorsuch have already used "traditions" as a basis for legal validity.)

So we might as well have this discussion, which surprisingly was not part of many of the "past week's news highlights" coverage, maybe because it would offer yet another overwhelming reason why Joe Biden is the only sane option in this year's election.  So instead, let's spend our coverage this weekend on these "Genocide Joe" protests.