quote:In video highlighted Tuesday by BuzzFeed, Huckabee suggested that, in today's climate of increased acceptance for transgender rights, men will lie about their gender identity in order to ogle women in bathrooms. In fact, Huckabee said he would have done exactly that as a teen.
"Now, I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE," Huckabee said. "I'm pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, 'Coach, I think I'd rather shower with the girls today.'"
Huckabee's remarks prompted laughter from the audience.
"You're laughing because it sounds so ridiculous doesn't it?" he asked the crowd.
posted
I saw that yesterday. So he admits that he would have eagerly lied so as to leer at girls in the shower? And he doesn't feel particularly ashamed of that either.
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quote:Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said this week that he was a “huge fan” of Pope Francis but that the pontiff should stop buying into the global warming debate and, instead, “leave the science to the scientists.”
During a Monday interview with WPHT, host Dom Giordano noted that Pope Francis was expected to urge lawmakers to take action on climate change when he visits the U.S. later this year.
According to Santorum, who is Catholic, the liberal media had been misrepresenting the pope as less conservative that he really was.
“He’s someone who is as committed to the nuclear family as I am,” the former Pennsylvania senator opined. “I’m a huge fan of his and his focus on making sure that we have a healthier society.”
“I understand and I sympathize and I support completely the pope’s call for us to do more to create opportunities for people to be able to rise in society, and to care for the poor,” he continued.
But when it came to a responsibility to care for the planet, Santorum advised the church to proceed with caution.
“The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think that we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists,” the candidate insisted.
quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade: I saw that yesterday. So he admits that he would have eagerly lied so as to leer at girls in the shower? And he doesn't feel particularly ashamed of that either.
Well this is the bizarre old saw for social conservatives isn't it? Deep down, they believe that their own prurience is so profound that the law (or biblical law) must be responsible for keeping it in check. It's not fundamentally different from conservative muslims who don't allow their women to be in the same room as a man, alone, because they believe that the natural state of men is so deeply flawed as to make raping a woman they are alone with irresistible.
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posted
The further dirty secret: one is not really flawed if they are as God made them, are they? Or perhaps they are, but it's a special kind of flaw that carries no personal stigma and further, less of an ethical obligation to change.
Also, it's difficult though I admit I can't stand him to regard Santorum as anything other than a lying douchebag for his sudden defense of science. When in other contexts he has called the overwhelming, landslide support among scientists for the belief that climate change is happening something akin to believing the earth is flat. Seriously. The Pope (who doesn't he have a degree in a hard science? I forget.) needs to shut up about science and leave it to the scientists...meanwhile scientists who believe in climate change are like people who believe the Earth is flat.
God bless America. Even hateful jackasses like Santorum, likely to be the most religious of 'candidates' for President (because seriously, is he really a candidate with his chances of making it to the general?) have to try and thread some sort of needle to keep the credibility of science.
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quote:The Kansas trouble started in 2014, when the state supreme court ruled that the disparity between school funding in rich and poor districts violated the state constitution. The justices ordered the legislature to fix the problem. Soon after, the legislature passed an administrative law that stripped the supreme court of its authority to appoint local chief judges and set district court budgets. (Instead, district court judges—who are often quite conservative—were allowed to elect their own chief judge.)
Arriving shortly after the school funding ruling, this law was widely seen as a retaliation against the court—and a warning. In their first ruling, the justices stopped short of declaring that the school system as a whole was constitutionally underfunded. But the court acknowledged that it would one day answer that question. And if the justices mandate more school funding, the legislature will have to raise taxes, a step few legislators are eager to take.
The administrative law, then, was likely an effort to scare the court out of issuing a dramatic ruling in favor of greater school funding. Just in case the court didn't get the message, Brownback and the legislature have also threatened the justices with blatantly political reforms, like subjecting them to recall elections, splitting the court in two, lowering the retirement age, and introducing partisan elections. (Currently, a nominating commission creates a pool of candidates, and the governor selects from that bunch.)
Now the court has an opportunity to strike down the administrative law, which probably violates the state constitution. And that's where Brownback's insane new law comes in. The law declares that if the supreme court strikes down the administrative law, the entire state judiciary will lose its funding. Brownback and the legislature are essentially bullying the judiciary: Uphold our law or cease to exist.
posted
I hope the courts call their bluff, because without the judiciary there's no income from fees, fines and tickets. Court cases can't go to trial and will be dismissed. Etc.
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quote:Public shaming would be an effective way to regulate the “irresponsible behavior” of unwed mothers, misbehaving teenagers and welfare recipients, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) argued in his 1995 book Profiles in Character.
In a chapter called "The Restoration of Shame,” the likely 2016 presidential candidate made the case that restoring the art of public humiliation could help prevent pregnancies “out of wedlock.”
quote:One of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations is that there is no longer a stigma attached to this behavior, no reason to feel shame. Many of these young women and young men look around and see their friends engaged in the same irresponsible conduct. Their parents and neighbors have become ineffective at attaching some sense of ridicule to this behavior. There was a time when neighbors and communities would frown on out of wedlock births and when public condemnation was enough of a stimulus for one to be careful.
Bush points to Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter, in which the main character is forced to wear a large red "A" for "adulterer" on her clothes to punish her for having an extramarital affair that produced a child, as an early model for his worldview. "Infamous shotgun weddings and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter are reminders that public condemnation of irresponsible sexual behavior has strong historical roots,” Bush wrote.
As governor of Florida in 2001, Bush had the opportunity to test his theory on public shaming. He declined to veto a very controversial bill that required single mothers who did not know the identity of the father to publish their sexual histories in a newspaper before they could legally put their babies up for adoption.
posted
Oh boy oh boy! Another election cycle of republicans tripping over themselves to say stupid things about women?
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posted
Uh, did he actually read The Scarlet Letter? You know, past the part where Hester Prynne has to wear a scarlet letter?
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posted
Hey Sam, what's the most blatant act of being a shill that an elected official committed in the past several years that you can think of? Something that they can't even pretend was done for the public good but attempted to justify anyways.
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that is a good question. i know there has to be a single breathtaking act somewhere that eclipses other events, but it's hard to really know where to start picking out an outlier.
i think there are definitely two possible questions to be asked: who is the greatest shill overall over the course of their entire political careers in terms of total shill influence and output, and who was the person who committed the single most egregious case of shilldom possible
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posted
Initially I was thinking I would want to go with Cheney as biggest shill, or the chief probably instigator of the biggest and most disastrous intentional misdirection, but the PNAC rationale for Iraq was still definitely in their minds a public good for various reasons. Cheney's attachments to Halliburton were practically an aside.
I need someone whose shillness was clearly demonstrated where we have proof they didn't see it as a public good.
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quote:While speaking at the California ProLife Legislative Banquet last week, California Assemblywoman Shannon Grove (R) suggested a theory that the state's worst drought in 1,200 years may be divine retribution for California providing women with access to abortions, RH Reality Check reported.
“Texas was in a long period of drought until Governor Perry signed the fetal pain bill,” she told the audience. “It rained that night. Now God has his hold on California.”
Grove was likely referring to House Bill 2, RH Reality Check noted, a Texas abortion bill banning abortions 20 weeks after fertilization, four weeks earlier than the standard set by Roe v. Wade.
Grove did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation that she made the statement at the event, but she elaborated on her theory in a Facebook comment.
"I believe --and most Americans believe --that God’s hand is in the affairs of man, and certainly was in the formation of this country," she wrote. "Is this drought caused by God? Nobody knows. But biblical history shows a consequence to man’s actions."
quote:A Utah man is refusing to eat until his state restores a ban on same-sex marriages.
Trestin Meacham, 35, has been surviving on water and the occasional vitamin pill since Dec. 21. Although he's already lost 25 pounds, Meacham claims he won't eat until all of Utah's counties stop issuing gay marriage licenses.
"You can start a blog and you can complain on social networks until you're blue in the face and nothing will happen but actions speak louder than words and I'm taking action," Meacham told 4Utah.
One day before Meacham began his fast with "no end in sight," federal judge Robert J. Shelby ruled that Utah's ban on same-sex marriages was unconstitutional.
"I cannot stand by and do nothing while this evil takes root in my home," the man wrote on Facebook. "Some things in life are worth sacrificing one's [health]and even life if necessary."
In particular, Meacham is pushing for Utah to "nullify" Shelby's ruling. The principle can be traced back to Thomas Jefferson, who argued that the state legislatures have a right to nullify federal statutes that are unconstitutional.
Meacham believes Utah doesn't need to enforce Shelby's ruling.
"They can end this tomorrow," Meacham said. "They don't have to go through the legal court battles and waste our money, they can end it tomorrow with the act of nullification."
quote:The 35-year-old one-time state senate candidate had been fasting for 15 days in protest of the court’s decision, hoping that his hunger strike would result in Utah nullifying the ruling. That didn’t happen. But Meacham is happy to count the Supreme Court’s stay as a personal victory, even if he acknowledges that starving himself almost certainly had no impact on the high court’s decision.
Meacham lives in Richfield, a small town of about 7,500 in Utah’s “Mormon Corridor.” In 2012, he ran a self-financed state senate campaign on the ultra-conservative U.S. Taxpayers Party ticket—a “very not fun” experience that he has no plans to repeat. While he makes no effort to deny that he is wholeheartedly opposed to same-sex marriage, Meacham insists that his hunger strike was in response to “the unconstitutional nature” of the judge’s ruling. “If a judge can do that and overthrow the people, there is no part of the constitution that’s safe,” he told The Daily Beast. “He could strike out the Second Amendment tomorrow.”
He’d also like to make one thing clear, as most vocal gay rights opponents often do: He doesn’t hate gay people. He has plenty of gay friends and relatives, he just happens to disagree with them on this one issue. Still, the man did starve himself in the name of a same-sex marriage ban and it, unsurprisingly, earned him a lot of backlash.
So what happens if a federal appeals court decides to uphold the original judge’s ruling and make same-sex marriage legal in Utah again? “I’m going to make the ultimate sacrifice. I’m going to give up football,” says Meacham. He promised his fiancée he’d only fast once.
posted
At first from those quotes I thought he was claiming he had been fasting for nearly 7 months and was, you know, still alive and speaking to the press. I felt sure there would be a pivot to God's strength sustaining him and such.
posted
as probably the only person who has actually ever really even spoken to a mormon on this entire board let me clear up some misconceptions about them
- they are not actually practitioners of breatharianism (strange but true)
- they consider jello perfectly appropriate for fasting, it basically is like water to them
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posted
i actually snuck into a temple and baptized myself precisely at the moment a young mormon was being baptized by proxy for me in order to cause a segfault error
god reprimanded me and ordered the carpets replaced
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posted
What do you mean by Mormon name? What's an example of a possible Mormon name? To my mind there isn't really such a thing.
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posted
Well, "Utah Mormon" is a distinct demographic and subculture. It's distinct from Mormon culture, since only a fraction of Utah Mormon culture inheres to being Mormon.
But I'm not sure if this is actually a Utah Mormon thing, or not. It would indeed fit right in, but maybe it would elsewhere too.
Since "Mormon culture" in general would refer to things that come from the church itself, there's less of a general Mormon baby naming culture that would result in "Mormon names". But, still, Moroni and Helaman surely qualify as Mormon names.
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You could have "Mormon Names" I guess if you had kids named after prominent early members of the LDS church: Hyrum, Heber, Brigham, Parley, Joseph. But those would *also* probably fall into Utah Mormon Names.
They are infamous for latching onto a name then applying a bazillion variations to it. And awful spellings.
quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: What's the difference between a Utah Mormon name and every other Mormon name?
That's not the start of a joke, I'm actually curious.
What scifibum and JanitorBlade said. Weird names like Trestin don't seem to be part of a broader Mormon culture but are more limited to Utah and other parts of the West. Yes, there are some names from the Book of Mormon or LDS Church leaders that you might find among Mormons all over the world, but the practice of misspelling, combining, or making up names seems to be more limited to Utah and some of the surrounding states.
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quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade: Aiden, Braiden, Jayden, Kayden.
The Aiden, Hayden, Laydan, Zaiden trend isn't limited to Utah by any means. I have a nephew named Aiden, and two friends who just named their children Aiden/Aidan. I also know of a Zaiden. I have no idea why these names suddenly became so popular - it's not a particularly interesting name IMO.
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quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: What's the difference between a Utah Mormon name and every other Mormon name?
That's not the start of a joke, I'm actually curious.
What scifibum and JanitorBlade said. Weird names like Trestin don't seem to be part of a broader Mormon culture but are more limited to Utah and other parts of the West. Yes, there are some names from the Book of Mormon or LDS Church leaders that you might find among Mormons all over the world, but the practice of misspelling, combining, or making up names seems to be more limited to Utah and some of the surrounding states.
I get it. I was reading it as a Mormon equivalent of a Jew saying "Thats one of the most Ashkenazi Jewish names I've ever seen." Like in Judaism there are Jewish names and then there are distinct Ashkenazi or Sephardic Jewish names. I thought there was a parallel in LDS for Mormon names and distinct Utah Mormon names.
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posted
Aidan has Gaelic roots, and means "fiery". Irish names have been very popular the last decade or two, especially among white, middle class folks. It was #14 on the list of most popular boys names in 2014, and has been in the Top 15 since 2009 (crested the top 30 in 2006, and joined the top 50 in 2003).
Variants like Zaiden or Kaiden are a different thing entirely, though.
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posted
In my daughter's second-grade class, she has one Aiden, one Haden, one Bayden, one Brayden, one Caiden, one Kayden, and one Cade. Among girls, there's a Hayden and a Jaiden. This is in Wisconsin.
posted
I seem to recall that Utah has some level of predictive power on names that eventually become popular nationwide. There was an article about it specifically mentioning Aiden as a name template.
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quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade: They are infamous for latching onto a name then applying a bazillion variations to it. And awful spellings.
Aiden, Braiden, Jayden, Kayden.
no, aah, no
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: In my daughter's second-grade class, she has one Aiden, one Haden, one Bayden, one Brayden, one Caiden, one Kayden, and one Cade. Among girls, there's a Hayden and a Jaiden. This is in Wisconsin.
quote:South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (R) on Tuesday said that there was no need to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse grounds because it was not an issue for CEOs, and the state had “fixed” racist perceptions by electing an Indian-American governor.
“What I can tell you is over the last three and a half years, I spent a lot of my days on the phones with CEOs and recruiting jobs to this state,” the governor noted. “I can honestly say I have not had one conversation with a single CEO about the Confederate flag.”
Not a single rich white guy mentioned the Confederate flag, so it can't possibly be racist! QED.
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quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade: They are infamous for latching onto a name then applying a bazillion variations to it. And awful spellings.
Aiden, Braiden, Jayden, Kayden.
no, aah, no
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: In my daughter's second-grade class, she has one Aiden, one Haden, one Bayden, one Brayden, one Caiden, one Kayden, and one Cade. Among girls, there's a Hayden and a Jaiden. This is in Wisconsin.
*shudder*
stop, no, no aah
So glad my sister named her kid "John".
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quote:In an interview with Steve Malzberg’s Newsmax TV program on Friday, Republican presidential candidate and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry called the shooting deaths of nine black church members in Charleston, S.C. an “accident.” “This is the M.O. of this administration, any time there is an accident like this — the president is clear, he doesn’t like for Americans to have guns and so he uses every opportunity, this being another one, to basically go parrot that message,” Perry said
quote: The NRA, the largest and most powerful gun advocacy group in the world, typically mutes itself after mass shootings, and demands that others follow suit out of respect for the dead. The group’s social-media accounts, normally used to promulgate weapons enthusiasm, fall silent.
On Friday, an NRA spokesperson hewed to that strategy, saying that the group would have no comment “until all the facts are known”.
“We are praying for the victims and their families and, given the tragic loss, we don’t think this is the time for a political debate,” spokeswoman Jennifer Baker told the Guardian.
Board member Charles Cotton, however, strayed from the script late on Thursday, when he posted a comment online blaming the pastor killed in the South Carolina shooting, Clementa Pinckney, for the death of his eight congregants.
Cotton, who did not return a message left at his Houston-area law firm, pointed out on a Texas gun forum that Pinckney was a state senator who had voted against a law allowing gun owners to carry concealed weapons without permits.
“Eight of his church members who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church are dead,” Cotton wrote. “Innocent people died because of his position on a political issue.”
“Individual board members do not speak for the NRA,” Baker said.
quote:Bristol Palin has for the past few years been the face of abstinence-only policies, making close to $1 million through her outreach efforts to prevent teen pregnancy.
And now she’s pregnant again, expecting her second out-of-wedlock child.
The daughter of former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin announced this week that she is expecting a child. Bristol Palin announced her pregnancy in a Patheos blog post, saying it was a disappointing revelation.
“I wanted you guys to be the first to know that I am pregnant,” Bristol wrote. “Honestly, I’ve been trying my hardest to keep my chin up on this one… Life moves on no matter what. So no matter how you feel, you get up, get dressed, show up, and never give up.”
She added, “I know this has been, and will be, a huge disappointment to my family, to my close friends, and to many of you. But please respect Tripp’s and my privacy during this time. I do not want any lectures and I do not want any sympathy.”
Ironically, it was lectures on abstinence that helped to make Bristol Palin a millionaire. In 2009, she went to work for The Candie’s Foundation as a teen pregnancy ambassador, giving speeches to warn against teen pregnancy.
“There may be multiple forms of contraception, but I’m here to say that one fact remains. Those that practice abstinence have no chance of becoming pregnant,” Palin said at an appearance in 2010. “Abstinence is not about morality, it is about reality. It is the only thing that works every time. My message is a simple one: Don’t make the same decision I made, just wait. Young ladies, please hear me.”
Her work generated a bit of controversy in 2009 when her take-home pay for Candie’s was seven times what the charity actually brought in donations.
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