Thursday Rant - 12/17/15

Happy Thursday to my friends in sass. Sorry about the lack of post last week, but I had shit to do and didn't read the news. But have no fear, I watched the entire Republican debate just for you. That is how much I love you.

1) How are there still so many goddamn people running for president? And how, with 13 damn people, are none of them remotely qualified in the slightest? If you heard screaming in the distance on Tuesday night, it's because I watched every second of this shitshow, and I wasn't even drinking. The JV debate was adorable. It was Huckabee, Graham, Santorum, and that other guy who I look at and think "is that John Kasich? No... I don't know who that is..." and I don't even give enough fucks to look up what his name is. Does it matter? He's polling at negative a zillion. You probably didn't watch this part. Hell, I don't know why I watched it, but the best part was Lindsey Graham throwing more shade than a drunk drag queen. Girl is so sassy! Just go ahead and google "Lindsey Graham debate GIFs." I'll wait. Did you see that eye-roll, though? Daaaamn. He's channeling Joan Rivers if she was an old white dude without a neck who loved to talk about how much he misses George W. Bush. Yes, that was an actual thing that happened. Methinks someone has a crush! Mike Huckabee loves Jesus but hates Syrian refugees, Santorum is the dude in your bio class who you had to do a group project with and he talked down to you the whole time even though he was clearly wrong, the other guy said something probably, and then it was over. Then the rest of these bitches came out to yell at each other for 3 hours. Honestly, I barely know what they are talking about at this point. It was like a poorly-supervised daycare in there. Jeb! maybe had meth for dinner, because he finally grew a uterus and was somehow the only one who really went after the frontrunner. The split-screen with him yelling at Trump and Trump making his trademark "BITCH, PLEASE" face is the second-best GIF of the evening. Go ahead and Google that shit. This whole debate was about ISIS and combating terrorism, but if I am being honest, I'm not totally sure what any of them plan to do. We all know Trump's racist-as-fuck plan to keep all Muslim's out of the US, and that Cruz wants to carpet bomb ISIS "until the desert glows" (even though they are headquartered in Raqqa, where there are thousands of innocent civilians, so this dude either doesn't understand what carpet bombing means or he is an asshole or both), but other than that I didn't really get anything out of it, and if you managed to, can you explain it to me? Because I feel like "kill ISIS" isn't really a plan. Mostly the whole thing gave me a fucking headache. Sorry, guys.

2) In a story that surprises exactly zero American women, the UN sent a delegation of human rights experts to the US to assess how we are doing, lady-wise. They went to Oregon (OK), Texas (uh oh), and Alabama (noooo), and the assessment was essentially: HOLY SHIT, IT SUCKS HERE. We're lacking in a large number of human rights standards, including maternity leave - "The lack of accommodation in the workplace to women's pregnancy, birth and post-natal needs is shocking. Unthinkable in any society, and certainly one of the richest societies in the world," a 23 percent wage gap, affordable childcare, the treatment of female migrants in detention centers, and let's not forget our attack on reproductive rights. The three female delegates went to a women's healthcare clinic in Alabama, where they were yelled at by a group of men for "killing babies," though the three of them are far past childbearing age. Perhaps Eleonora Zielinska, the delegate from Poland, said it best:"It's a kind of terrorism. To us, it was shocking." And hey, speaking of that, did you know that the Ohio attorney general decided to tell everyone this week that Planned Parenthood throws fetal tissue into landfills? Just for funsies he decided to make this shit up, even though there is zero proof, and of course that shit is not fucking happening, and even if it was, it would be an issue with the third party medical waste disposal teams and not Planned Parenthood, but who cares about that when you can just drop your pants and take a giant shit on a health organization for low income women because you're embarrassed that a video you watched once turned out to be fake. A federal judge blocked Ohio from defunding PP, so of course now there is a new bill in Ohio that would require women to pick whether they want their aborted fetus or miscarriage buried or cremated, because they just can't get enough of harassing and traumatizing women who just want to get some goddamned medical care. Oh, there are already laws like this in Indiana and Arkansas, because screw you, ladies! Can I go live with Elenora Zielinska in Poland?

3) But maybe living overseas isn't a women's rights cure-all, because I need to tell you about Ehsan Abdulaziz. Who, you ask? He's a 46 year old Saudi millionaire, but that really isn't important. What's important is that he was just acquitted of raping an 18 year old woman. But maybe there wasn't evidence, you say. Maybe there was reasonable doubt or maybe the sex was consensual! Well, his DNA was found inside her. He denies raping or even having consensual sex with her, so how did that nasty semen get inside her? Don't worry, there is an explanation! You see, he had just had consensual sex with her friend, and when he went out to the living room, he fell down and may have accidentally penetrated her with his still-erect, apparently semen covered penis. A jury of his peers in Britain listened to this asshole and said "Yeah, that is probably true. He's probably innocent." What the shit, Britain?!?! It is literally a scene from Austin Powers (Oh, I fell over! Oh, I fell over again!) used as a rape defense, and these people believed it after deliberating for only 30 minutes. Which brings me to me telling people to go fuck themselves. Ahem. Hey! Ehsan Abdulaziz, go fuck yourself. I don't know how you did it (money?), but you did. Fuck you, you clearly guilty piece of garbage. You can't trip and fall your penis into someone's vagina, you disgusting fuck. Oh, and hey! Go fuck yourself, British jury! I don't know how you fell for this shit (money?), but you did. So you're either the crookedest bunch of assholes this side of Chris Christie or you're dumber than a bag of Donald Trump's used toupees. Either way, go fuck yourself.

4) And now for some good news. Remember Martin Shkreli? He's the dude that wanted to charge AIDS patients $750 a pill for their life-saving medication. Well that rat-faced little shit was just arrested on fraud charges. Score one for the good guys! While the fraud doesn't have anything to do with pharmaceuticals (he illegally used stock to pay off unrelated business debts, among other shitty things), I still rejoice in his downfall and hope against hope that he will spend a good amount of time in prison. So peace out, motherfucker. Enjoy everything that's coming to you.

Until next week, my little chickadees..

Thursday Rant - 12/3/15

How was your week, kids? Yeah, mine too. Happy Holidays from the NRA.

So I guess this is just normal now? It is difficult to even get angry anymore. It's easier to numb yourself, to feel an almost comfortable feeling of bland despair and helplessness at another madman with a gun, but I'm urging you to keep that inner fire alive, guys. Because anger keeps you productive, and what we need is action. I don't need to hear any proclamations of sympathy or prayers, though these things are both important for healing. I need our government to get off its ass and DO something, and I need you guys to shout loudly enough to make them. 

There is a lot of money keeping our lawmakers inactive. Weaponry is big business, and the gun manufacturers and the NRA are very powerful. Rich enough to keep lawmakers silent in the face of overwhelming public support for increased gun control. But we live in a country that values wealth and power above all else, so this shit is going to be hard I need you to write your representatives. Flood their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts and phone lines. I need you to sign every goddamned petition you see. Read up on actual gun facts. Read about the 356 (as of this afternoon) mass shootings that have occurred this year. Read up on the logical gun control policies of other countries around the world, particularly Australia, who practically eliminated mass shootings in 1996 after ONE incident. Read up on all of that, and then I need you to do something shitty. I need you to engage with pro-gun activists. That guy you went to high school with who thought the Paris attacks could have been prevented if Donald Trump was guarding the Eiffel Tower with an AK-47? You're going to have to talk to him. I know. I KNOW. It totally sucks. And when you talk to him, you're going to have to not scream/do the Facebook equivalent of screaming. 

I know. 

But I'm going to need for you to do it with facts. Here is a link to facts about gun violence for your convenience: http://www.bradycampaign.org/about-gun-violence

Use that link. Tell them all about the 31 people who die from gun violence every single damn day in this, the self-proclaimed greatest country in the world. 

And after that, ask them if the life of that human being is worth their (highly debatable, but don't say that) right to own and/or carry a firearm. 

Because this isn't really about an opinion on gun control anymore. If you are pro-gun at this point in the game, you straight up value your toys more than you value the safety of others. Maybe they aren't fully aware of that, maybe they say it is for protection or sport or whatever, and they might believe that on the surface. But it cannot be denied that easily accessible guns lead to gun violence. It's a fact. And isn't it worth giving up your rifle in exchange for a safer community? Isn't it worth losing the ability to take your handgun to a grocery store if it prevents just ONE incident of violence? 

Look, maybe it won't do anything. It probably won't, because people don't like to be wrong, and I'm including myself in that. But it might. Or maybe that might shame them enough to just think about it for a fucking second. Just one damn second of contemplation about the value of another human life.

Because I'm sick of this shit. 

To write to you representatives, use this link: http://www.people.com/article/preventing-gun-violence-people-call-to-action-jess-cagle

Stay safe.