Howdy-do, friends. First let me say, thanks for all the kind words during my “guilt” dilemma this past week – you can’t know how much your kindness and support meant to me. Second, let me say, I’m over the guilt, and I went out and bought myself a new(used) pickup that didn’t break the bank, so I’m feeling pretty good about life right now. Thus, I will be keeping the WTF?? to a minimum on the buffet table today, because…well, the WTF?? mood isn’t totally on me this week.
WTF?? 1. Anti-Choice Crowd Tries To Make the Abortion (non)Debate a Racial Thing. It seems they don’t have enough African-American support in the Anti-Choice crowd. That could be because the anti-choice crowd tends to be overwhelmingly republican, and the Republican Party tends to be overwhelmingly white. Some of the republicans have a really nasty habit of being raving bigots. So, yeah, I can see why they wouldn’t be able to make much inroads with blacks given what else they claim to “stand” for, for example killing off social safety-net programs and gutting public education, just to name a couple of really heinous political trends they subscribe to. Georgia Right To Life has hired a black woman as its minority outreach director. She goes around to black colleges and churches in Georgia telling everyone that abortion is a method to commit genocide on the black race. The group put up billboards saying “black children are an endangered species.” I agree, they are. But for far more insidious reasons than abortion – in fact, abortion is just a symptom of the real problems that black americans face. Their children overwhelmingly living in poverty. Poverty breeds ignorance, and ignorance breeds unwanted pregnancies and unwanted pregnancies sometimes lead to abortions. Sometimes. “Black children are an endangered species” is just a smokescreen for an anti-choice group that doesn’t care what means it utilizes to its ends. But back to poverty – it also breeds drug abuse, and I personally think that the single most damning action taken against the black community since the end of slavery is the so-called War on Drugs. It has been anything but. The War on Drugs has become a war on the poor, with prisons full of men and women serving sentences for being addicts and for getting caught carrying minute amounts of illegal drugs, while there doesn’t seem to have been much, if any, progress made on eradicating the drug trade itself or in even hindering the upper echelons of the drug traders. So who has that war been on? Poor people, trapped in empty cities after the great White Flight of the 70’s and 80’s. Empty cities with no jobs, where destitution, depression and desolation are the ingredients of a typical day and those three D’s make it almost surprising if everyone involved is NOT addicted to one illicit drug or another. So I don’t know who Georgia Right to Life is trying to kid. I’m sure they believe that what they are doing is good and just – but in the end, their efforts are, like most of the anti-choice crowd’s efforts, pointless and futile. Until the poverty issues are actively addressed, black women living in that poverty will continue to NEED to have abortions. Until that poverty-driven need is reduced, then the actual number of abortions obtained by black women cannot be reduced. Georgia Right to Life would better serve its community by providing fewer billboards and more pregnancy-prevention services to the people it claims it wants to help. But they don’t really want to do that either, do they? It all stinks of a “have my cake and eat it too” mentality, mixed with a little Marie Antoinette.
WTF?? #2. STFU, Olympia Snowe. Olympia Snowe has her feathers ruffled . Why? Evidently because President Obama didn’t personally send her an engraved invitation to the healthcare summit and then pick her up besuited in his best tux with the limo, a bottle of bubbly and a big old bouquet of roses waiting on the curb. Ok, drama queen, STFU already. If you want to go, f’ing go. If you don’t, f’ing dont. Why wait for an engraved invitation? And who gives a rats skinny behind if you have a standing invitation or not?
OY! On to Strikes My Fancy!
SMF #1. I Really Like This Weiner Guy. I’m sure most or all of you have already seen this video of Anthony Weiner giving the republicans What For last Wednesday. If you have, here it is if you want to see him call republicans Wholly Owned Subsidiaries of the Health Insurance Industry. If you have not seen it, take 5 minutes, and watch this skinny little New York scrapper give’em’hell on the chamber floor.
SMF #2. Did You Know Tires Have a Shelf Life? ABC News finally reported on something we all need to know. When buying tires, check the expiration date. Walmart was caught selling 12 year old tires as new, and that can have deadly consequences when you’re on the highway. Follow the link, read the short piece, and watch the video to learn how to tell how old the tires you are about to buy really are. Good stuff to know.
So, folks, check those tire codes before you buy them, and send Lil’Anthony Weiner a shout out for telling it like it is on the Chamber Floor.
Until we meet again…
Tags: african americans, Anthony Weiner, anti-choice, DOT, genocide, Georgia right to life, pro-choice, tires
Hi Bee,
Looks like I win the coveted First Commenter award, unless some weasel sneaks in before I finish.
WTF1 What a bunch of hypocritical bastards, are the Christian Right. And you’re so right about the War on Drugs.I can’t remember the percentage disparity between sentences for rock cocaine and powdered cocaine which is more of a White thing but there was hella disparity.
Olympia “Yellow” Snowe sucks. Weiner doesn’t suck at all. I’d seen him on TV before and he knows his stuff. Honest politician, a rarity.
Good to know about the tires!
I hope you and Mr Bee and Lil Bee have a great day today. I mentioned you and dead cats in a post at Mikes BTW.Can’t seem to let it go.
Republicans using Blacks to promote their sick agenda, WTF. At least Hitler’s brownshirts weren’t dumb enough to ask Jews to go around promoting the Nazi agenda.
You go Anthony Weiner. I remember last summer he introduced a bill to abolish Medicare, since Medicare is socialized medicine. He dared everyone who was yelping about “socialized medicine!” to back up their rhetoric by voting to abolish Medicare. There weren’t any takers.
Not surprised at anything Walmart does! I am sure nobody is taking this woman seriously about abortion is genocide on the black race.
On second thought maybe they should keep this woman around saying this garbage, because wouldn’t she make the case for the racist right wingers (who incidentally are pro-life) to reconsider their position?
You know what I personally find disturbing about this WTF#1. Since when are black kids EVER going to be an endangered species when we are all a part of the same species? I’m reading dog whistle into this, you can all flame me if you want, but I am seeing it. This would all be so unnecessary if birth control education was being talked about all over the place, instead of this abstinence works crap. This is about 4 maybe 5 things I have seen this week about abortion and making it a bad thing. For F8ck’s sake, it is a legal medical procedure and these ass boils wan to take us back to coat hangers in back alleys. Will it ever end?
Princess Maine can go and screw her own self. She was invited to this summit and turned it down so I don’t know what she is all tweaking about. Another things, I know they all have the bi partisan fetish going on our side, why were there so many reps there when they don’t have the majority? I need someone to explain to this LIBERAL why we are the only ones willing to compromise.
Ah, Anthony(Jess’ boyfriend-he just does not know it D, NY) I have actually gotten laughs out of him and his staff when I call his office to say good job on this or good job on that. He has a really infectious laugh by the way. He is one of the good guys, like Grayson in Florida. Now if we could only find more of them, we would be set for decades to come.
I did not know this about tires. I just replace them when the car people tell me too and have never thought about this. Figures that Walmart would be up front trying to sell crap to the public. THAT does NOT surprise me. Hey Oso, you got the 1st comment because this particular lovely weasel
had a late night last night and just got her butt up, a half hour ago or I would have beat you to it. 
Jess,
I have a thing for lovely weasels and if I wasn’t probably twice your age I’d be competing con tu novio Anthony! Well maybe not competing, I guess more like losing badly to the better man then sulking for weeks.
Bee I’m sorry I realize you aren’t running a dating service here. Old guys with old cars for some reason aren’t in demand these days. Probably global warming causing it.
Oso: LOL! Well, you picked a good one to hit on, Jess is a total fox. Seriously, if you ever get lucky enough to see a picture of her, you’ll drop your teeth. I saw the dead cats reference…made me chuckle!
Tom Harper: I remember that – think a bunch of us posted on it, because it was just too damned funny how he called out the repubes with his bill to abolish medicare.
No Nonsene: I’m not convinced anything would make those stubborn mules reconsider any crazy thing they’ve ever said. I wasn’t terribly surprised to find that Walmart was selling old tires, either. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of them passing off re-treads as new, either. I suppose that will come up at some point.
Jess: What I didn’t manage to say in my post, but what crossed my mind last night, was that the statement about black children being an endangered species sounds rather racist, doesn’t it? Blacks were considered another, lower species, by whites for hundreds of years (and still are thought of that way by too many honkeys, in my opinion). Sounds like Georgia Right to Life still thinks that way.
There are way too many right to life places thinking that way Bee. I just have been so very frustrated with all this abortion talk this week. Boehner tried it too in the meeting. Bringing up funding of abortion. It is a health care bill not an abortion bill. Thanks for the total fox compliment.
.
Oso, I thanks you for the ego boost. Anthony is further down the line of the boyfriends I have that just don’t know it, after hubby
Hi Bee, congrats on the Pick up, I love ‘em, and have one too.
I have always hated the Rockerfeller Drug Laws, which is a strong reason why so many blacks are in jails for small amounts of dope. It was a plan all along stifle blacks.
I could not believe little Weiner had such a big Wonker with equally big Cahones, dat’s a Brooklyn boy…tough love
Walmart? No surprise…they are trying to help the Chinese get rid of their overstock…
Anthony Weiner is a star, I shall be watching him like a hawk from now on, and more than just watching, but counting on him, he caught the mood of a lot of people and he didn’t need to be sponsored to do it, it was on CSPAN before it was anywhere else. Good for him.
WTF?? 1. Bee, what an excellent commentary. You hit the nail on the head again and again. I will add two points that also bear mentioning. First, pandering to the religious right, George W. Bush made it a point to suppress complete, factual sex education and low-cost/no-cost birth control for needy people, especially younger ones. Both those head-up-the-butt stupid measures invite more unwanted pregnancies, more kids having kids when they’re in no position to support and nurture their offspring.
I have a hunch Ms. Davis won’t have anything to say about either of those very unhelpful policies and the damage they’ve done. Nor will she be talking about how, whenever and wherever abortion has been made illegal, it has driven young and poor women to butchers, while well-off girls and women quietly repaired to discreet clinics and hospitals for a conveniently timed D&C.
Religious and social conservatives can change the face doing the talking from white to black, but they can’t change the sordid, counterproductive and hurtful facts of what their goals actually yield.
WTF?? #2. Is there just a chance that Sen. Snowe made a political calculation that images of her on C-SPAN reciting GOP talking points and stonewalling health care reform might not play well back in Maine? After its major health insurer jacked up rates awhile back, consumers took the company to court. Feelings against the gougers is running high there. Plus, New England has been swinging left in election after election, and Snowe and her Republican bookend, Sen. Collins, have reason to be nervous.
SMF #1. A few more like Weiner, Grayson, Franken and Sherrod Brown, and it would start to look like Democrats actually control Congress, wouldn’t it?
SMF #2. Depending on how they’re stored, even unused tires can be subject to dry rot. Imagine, a major retailer peddling 12-year-old anything.
WTF??? Tires expire? Food expires, hell animals and people expire, but tires. Well Mrs. Bee I thanky thee for this little tidbit. I will be checking my tires ASAP. Great post btw!
Bee, I tried to stop in a couple days ago to notify you PP had moved. Your site would not load. I’m glad you found me anyway.
On topic, Obama did end up inviting Olympia Snowe to the summit. She declined.
Tee – we’re peas in a pod aren’t we
Holte – I’ll be watching him too. I won’t be surprised to see him move ahead to the Senate at some point.
SW – oh, yeah, those Bush “abstinence only” programs worked really well. Turns out kids who get talked into that bullshit end up marrying the day they graduate high school, just so they can have sex. Which leads to no one going to college, too many kids too young, unhappy marriages that end up in divorce, and no wonder the right has a higher divorce rate than the left. That’s a post in and of itself. I hope Snowe has a reason to be nervous – she’s a ginormous PITA – I for one and sick of hearing about how frakking important she is.
MadMike – Don’t buy tires from WAlmart, just sayin…
TomCat – I saw you leaving everyone else messages, figured I’d beat you to the punch
I like wordpress, but I think sometimes all the crap in the programming slows down my own server.
Hmm, a major corporation puts revenue ahead of individuals’ safety.
Who’d have guessed.
Didn’t know tires had a shelf life… thx for passing that on.
Have fun in your pick-up!