Two More Strong Arguments for the Separation of Church and State:

Michigan, a Blue state that stupidly elected a Red government, is learning just how stupid its voting choices were. The Michigan House of “Representatives” has passed a religious oppression “freedom” bill that pretty much gives the finger to our Constitutional rights as guaranteed by the Establishment Clause:

The Michigan House of Representatives, led by Speaker Jase Bolger (photo, above, left, with Gov. Rick Snyder,) just passed a bill that would allow discrimination to become sanctioned by the state. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, akin to one that made nationwide headlines in Arizona but was vetoed, appears to merely force the government to step aside if a person’s “deeply-held religious beliefs” mandate they act, or not act, in a certain manner.

Supporters of these bills claim they allow people of faith to exercise their religion without government interference, but in reality, they are trojan horses, allowing rampant discrimination under the guise of religious observance.

For example, under the Religious Freedom law, a pharmacist could refuse to fill a doctor’s prescription for birth control, or HIV medication. An emergency room physician or EMT could refuse service to a gay person in need of immediate treatment. A school teacher could refuse to mentor the children of a same-sex couple, and a DMV clerk could refuse to give a driver’s license to a person who is divorced. 

Fundagelicals who support such “religious freedom” laws claim that the Founders were all about having a theocracy, but that argument would wash a lot of hogs. The author of the First Amendment himself (Thomas Jefferson) said it himself, time and again:

Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.

And, of course, he was not alone:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; 

That bit being written by one Mr. Ames, wih help from James Madison and others. Add in the Supremacy Clause, and you can see that what Michigan’s Teapublican government is attempting to do is not just unconstitutional, it’s extraconstitutional. Perhaps you could say “treasonous and seditious” instead. Or, how about “un-American and illegal as all Hell”?

This writer has occasional need to travel to the Thumb State, and would prefer not to be left to die by, say, a Nazarene physician from Michigan who doesn’t like Presbyterians and refused to work on me based on his religious objection. That would be allowed if the law in question were to be enacted.

People, here we have two reasons for the Separation of Church and State: the law itself, and what would happen if we did not have that law to protect us. It is time to run these Teapubbies out of office on an elctoral rail. And that soon.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The Ferguson protesters are a lot like our Founding Fathers:

They are upset about oppression, a non-responsive and discriminatory government, and taxation without representation. Yes, that is correct. The good people of Ferguson we see out there picketing and marching may not be dressed like, say, George Washington, John Adams or Thomas Jefferson; but their complaints are eerily like the ones identified in the Declaration of Independence.

Here is a good article on the matter. Ferguson is making up for revenue shortfalls by levying burdensome taxes and fees upon the populace; said charges not having the consent of the governed:

Traffic fines are the St. Louis suburb’s second-largest source of revenue and just about the only one that is growing appreciably. Municipal court fines, most of which arise from motor vehicle violations, accounted for 21 percent of general fund revenue and at $2.63 million last year, were the equivalent of more than 81 percent of police salaries before overtime.

And the fees are applied in a discriminatory manner, much like what King George did back in the 1770’s:

“If you’re black, they’re going to stop you,” the study quoted one traffic defendant as saying.

In 2013, 86 percent of all Ferguson police traffic stops involved black drivers, the largest share since the Missouri Attorney General’s Office began tracking the data in 2000. According to 2010 U.S. Census data, the city is 63 percent black and 34 percent white.

Got it? The local government is a minority oppressing the majority, and doing so via corrupt, discriminatory and violent means. Just like what sparked the American Revolution. The differences are minor when compared with the similarities.

And just like the American colonists, the people of Ferguson aren’t asking for anything unreasonable: to be treated fairly, have their rights respected, and to have a voice in how they are taxed by the government. Unfortunately, the local administration is likewise resembling its historical counterpart and therefore refusing to change its corrupt and mendacious ways. No way this is gonna end well.

If you repeat the mistakes of the past, you’ll repeat the consequences of those past mistakes. There may not be many powdered wigs to be seen on the streets of Ferguson: but then, when s*** was getting real back in 1776, not many of the American Revolutionaries were wearing them out in the streets, either.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky (whose ancestors were here before the revolution in 1776)

President Washington Warned Us. We Didn’t Listen. Now the Government has been Shut Down.

A pplitical party,  acting solely for its own selfish interests, is causing great and lasting harm to the people of the United States of America.  The “Republican” party, in order to raise campaign funds and dominate those interests that oppose it, chose to damage the entire country, just so it could gain even more power than it already had. This is bad, Gentle Reader, very bad indeed.

Here is what President Washington (remember him? War hero? Father of our country? Right, THAT George Washington) said about political parties, way back in 1769:

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

“It serves always to distract the public councils, and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection.”

“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual, and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.”

Sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it? What he predicted is exactly what Speaker Cruz Boehner  and their political party are doing right now. The “Republican” party, even though it has lost two straight Presidential elections, multiple Senate elections, lost the popular vote for the House, and got its collective nuts kicked in time and again by the Supreme Court, is still trying to take over the government. What they could not do via the will of the people, they are attempting to do via corrupt and extra-Constitutional means.

America, listen to your Father. It is past time that We the People settled things with those partisans who are trying to overthrow our very system of government. The “Republican” party needs its wings clipped. In truth, all parties might need this treatment, but the Repubs are a clear and present danger.

It’s time to honor our founders. The best way to do that is to listen to their wisdom, and act on it.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Lying Sacks of S***of The Week: Boeing

Remember when Boeing decided to move to the “Right to Work” states of the Southeast, because the eeeevil nasty unions of the Northwest were unwilling to work for half the pay they’d been getting? And remember how Boeing said these new workers would do the same jobs better and cheaper? They lied.

“Boeing’s South Carolina facility is running behind projections and won’t make its goal of producing three 787 Dreamliners a month by the end of 2013. In fact, the Everett plant will have to make up the difference in order for the company to reach its overall goal of 10 jetliners a month by year’s end.

In other words, the cheaper workers are providing less work than the more expensive workers. And the Carolina workers are producing such crap, the union workers often have to redo it to fix what the non-union yokels f***ed up.

Big lesson here: “Right to Work” does not mean “ability to work”. This has come as a shock to all of the Boeing MBAs who smugly assumed that anybody with ten digits could do a task as well as anybody else. These “managers” are a bunch of purblind fools who couldn’t manage their way out of a wet paper sack with electric carving knives.

This writer thinks that Boeing’s MBAs should be made to give back their degrees. The reason is simple: companies are supposed to return maximum value to their shareholders, yes?

And Boeing is failing to do so, and that miserably. Instead of taking care of business, they pursued a sociopolitical agenda: and that agenda was to a large extent based on theoretical notions and was characterized by short-term thinking.

When your planning horizon is “what time is it?”, you will fail. When you rely on unquantified assumptions and do not adapt when the data proves them false, you will fail spectacularly.

MBAs are taught not to do these things. Anyone who does them is not worthy to hold the title.

This will, in a future business school be a case study of everything NOT to do in a business situation. I hope the workers get the jobs they deserve from Boeing’s competitor.

And hopefully Airbus will never be crowned with a Crown O’ Polished Turds, as those lying sacks of s*** at Boeing have just been.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Jobs and Freedom. We need both.

The March on Washington was actually called the Great March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Lots of people forget this and go with the short name, and that is a mistake. A big mistake.

What the organizers understood (and that too many of us have forgotten) is that civil rights and economic rights are two halves of the same whole: you cannot have one without the other. If you have all sorts of civil rights, but are living in a box under a bridge, are you really free? Of course not. You are trapped.

If you are stuck working at a Wal-Mart and are still needing food stamps to feed your kids and cannot organize to get better wages, are you free? Of course not. You are in a trap.

Millions of Americans are chained in these traps of low-wage and no-wage lives. They are told that they are free, but often have few if any choices. And if you have no choices, you have no freedom.

When we think about the speeches, the images, and the stories of the marchers during the anniversary of the March, let us also remember that Jobs and Freedom were the purpose of the event. And that both are always at risk, and must always be defended against those who would take them away.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Texas Says: We Won’t Discriminate, We Just Want to Rig Elections

And they say it straight out, with no shame at all. The state of Texas is fighting the DOJ, hoping to keep the courts from blocking them from screwing tens of thousands of citizens out of the right to vote. Their “logic” works like this: “We aren’t discriminating against people of color, and never did, really, well, maybe we did a little bit but not all that much,and we willnevereverever do it again. Honest. Pinky swear. But we ARE trying to rig elections so Democrats can’t win”. From the article:

“Shortly after the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act decision, Texas moved to reinstate restrictive voting laws that had previously been blocked by the feds. As far as it’s 2011 redistricting plan goes, the state’s brief argues that’s all in the past, and it was a partisan issue rather than a racial one anyway.

“The redistricting decisions of which DOJ complains were motivated by partisan rather than racial considerations, and the plaintiffs and DOJ have zero evidence to prove the contrary,” the state writes in its brief. “It is perfectly constitutional for a Republican-controlled legislature to make partisan districting decisions, even if there are incidental effects on minority voters who support Democratic candidates.”

This is yet another example of why political parties suck, and why we should have listened to President Washington and never allowed the corrupting beasties to exist in the first place. Texas “Republicans” see absolutely nothing wrong with election-rigging, screwing voters from the other party out of the right to vote, and subverting the electoral process for partisan gain. In their minds, it is perfectly OK to steal elections. And that is truly frightening.

Criminals saying that their crimes are no big deal are always scary: murderers who say “God told me to kill that doctor”, child rapists who claim “it was her idea”, and so on. The creepiest crooks are those who simply fail to understand that the law of the land applies to everyone, or even think that their crimes are legal when they commit them because, well, just because. Texas is saying that they can completely destroy the democratic process, so long as their primary intent is not to discriminate on basis of skin color.

Here’s hoping the courts and the Department of Justice drag out some big ol’ cans of Whoop-Ass for this case, and open them upon the Texas “Republicans” who are trying to steal an entire state. Because THAT, dear reader, would be a big crime, and worthy of a commensurate punishment.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

To All Those Fools who Think we Need Another Revolution, Let’s Hit the Wayback Machine

Lots of people are bleating and shrieking their displeasure over the current state of our government: mostly loons on the Far Left and Far Right. But they do make a lot of noise, and sensible people might assume that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Just to make sure they don’t do anything stupid (like believe these nutjobs), here’s the list of grievances against King George (no, not Bush. The other one.) from the Declaration of Independence.

See if they sound like they’re happening now:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

A long read, yes, sorry. But guess what, Cranky Nation? Nary a single one of these offenses has been committed by the Obamabots. Not. One.

And if we can’t even come up with one grievance from this long list, maybe we’d best listen to these words from the second paragraph:

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;

People, calm down. Yes, we need to get up and vote a bunch of incompetent, corrupt, extremist buffoons out of office as soon as we can, but America is still beautiful, we are still free, and it’s OK to stop panicking and enjoy this national holiday.

From the Cranky Family to each and every one of you, Happy Independence Day.

Mr. Blunt andCranky

WV High School Uses Secret Funds to Hire Insane Fundagelical who Verbally Abuses Students

Sometimes you have to wonder if there is a single law-abiding public servant left standing, ya know? Here’s a strong argument saying there aren’t any: some school officials in West Virginia used a secret slush fund to pay a “Christian” speaker to intimidate, abuse, scare and shame students at an alleged “sex education” assembly.

So, Gentle Reader, we have:
Number A: financial shenanigans,
Letter 2: a potential Constitutional violation ,
Thirdly, a complete and utter betrayal of the trust put in the the school boards in the communities involved.

All in the course of a single high school assembly.

On the yardstick of corrupt, crooked, slimy “public servants”, this crew has got to be right up there at the top. Such criminality, raised to such a level is pure genius. Evil genius, yes, but genius nonetheless.

Here’s a link to the lunatic “Abstinence Prophet”: Pam Stenzel. This maniacal shrieker is truly bugf*** insane. She tells kids things like “If you take birth control, your mother probably hates you”, and that birth control makes girls “10 times more likely to contract a disease than if she were not taking that drug”, among other lies and distortions. We’re not exaggerating, here’s a link to one of her YouTube videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq1YJRsLsuE And yes, she has quite a few. And by the bye, she rakes in north of a quarter million bucks a year peddling this tripe.

But a single loony-tune screecher is only part of the problem. The larger issue is what we said at the outset: people who are entrusted with the health, well-being and education of our children are failing miserably at all three: their health is being compromised by the schools’ insistence on telling them lies about their bodies; their well-being is wrecked by screaming orators who belittle, shame and abuse them in school-approved activities; and they are not being educated at all. Not if this is any indicator of what they are being taught, at any rate.

Add to that the clumsy attempt to skate around the Constitutionally-mandated separation of Church and State, and the potentially illegal use of a slush fund to pay some jackalope to abuse their students, and it is safe to say that this school has one helluva big problem. And so must lots of other schools. Do the math: this one example of the breed makes $268,799.00 a year, and gets an average of 5 grand a speech, so she has to give an average of a speech a week to make that kind of cash. And since there are lots more of these “speakers” out there doing the same thing, the odds are pretty fair that a school district near you has had a similar experience/committed similar crimes.

This writer suggests you act to protect your community, your kids and your wallet. Get in the faces of your local school board and make sure they aren’t using secret slush funds in your town; make sure they aren’t teaching your kids a pack of bald-faced lies; and make sure, above all, that your kids are safe at their school.

Because at Washington High School in West-By-God-Virginia, the locals are f***ing up on all three counts.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Father Knows Best (President’s Day Edition)

All you kiddies, gather ’round, and Mr. Blunt and Cranky will hand the virtual microphone over to President George Washington on this Holiday. Perhaps you can listen to what he said all those years ago, and realize how prophetic he could be:

“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Put another way: poltical parties will, if you don’t watch out, steal the reins of power, and eventually destroy the country.

Which is exactly what happened. Anyone want to look at Dizzy City and tell the Father of our Country that he was wrong?

Mr. B & C

Finally, Something GOOD to Say About Congress

Mr. Blunt and Cranky has had a epiphany, and an enormous one if he does say so himself (and he does, yes he does): he has found something that Congress is actually good for. This might seem counter-intuitive, as our national legislators are aggressive, brainless, greedy, full of rage and bloodlust; indeed, they act purely out of rapacious instinct,with  no thought for anyone else’s welfare eave their own.

“So how,” we hear you ask, “is there anything good to be said about such wretched creatures?”. The answer is not so much in their being good: rather, it is the benefit we may gain from their manifold shortcomings:

Congresscritters and Senators would be the perfect defense against the Zombie Apocalypse. Think of it, people: zombies invade the Capitol and one of two things happen: they sense the absence of brains, and starve to death; or they sense a building full of a different sort of zombie, and  live peacefully among their own kind thereafter, two tribes of brainless sub-humans who are cut from the same rotten, moldy old cloth.

Yes, we just trick the zombies as they are apocalypsing, point them to Washington D.C., clear out the civilians in their path, and when all are present and accounted for build a huge honkin’ wall around Dizzy City. Then we in the rest of America can live happily ever after.

Hey, it’s not much, but at least we are starting the week on a somewhat positive note for a change.

Mr. B & C