Shit that Pissed Me Off – 9/19

Canadian Judge Asked Rape Victim why She Didn’t Just Keep her Knees Together

If your plans in the event of a Donald Trump Presidency include moving to Canada, let me just remind you that there are a few assholes north of the border and at least one of them is a judge.  For now.

Federal Judge Robin Camp is currently in a hearing to determine if he should keep his job.  When you learn a little more about how he has been executing his job, you might wonder why the review is needed.

In addition to asking a nineteen year old rape victim why she didn’t just keep her knees together, he also mused that “Young women want to have sex, particularly if they are drunk.”  He also suggested that sex and pain go together so maybe it isn’t so bad that her rape was painful.  Because, I guess, that’s how sex is supposed to be.  Consensual or not.

In the end, he let the accused walk free and told the rapist he needs to be “more careful.”

The ruling was overturned on appeal.

I wish that these kinds of judicial appeals were heard by Judge Judy.

Which is the only thing about this that makes sense.

I’ll tell you another thing that doesn’t make sense.  This happened two years ago.

Judge Camp is originally from South Africa and his basic argument seems to be “I was really new at criminal law so I blew it because I didn’t really understand how to be a caring human being and a judge.”

I hope the first question they ask him in the hearing is “when you first thought about asking the victim why she had been such a victim, why couldn’t you just hold your lips together?”

Rudy Giuliani Shows a Complete Failure of Understanding International Law

Reason #175 (of 2472 and counting) that Donald Trump would make a terrible President: Look who is speaking on his behalf.

Giuliani is a mouthpiece for Trump almost entirely based on the fact he was mayor of New York when 9/11 happened.  I give him credit for not making a terrible situation worse but I still wonder how many people would have managed to fuck that up.

Aside from Trump.  Trump would have fucked it up.

This week, Trump has been saying that he doesn’t think we should have gone to Iraq but since we did, we totally should have taken their oil.  Giuliani says it would have been perfectly legal to do so.

Except, of course, it wouldn’t have been legal. It would also have been really stupid.  Want to make sure everyone in Iraq hates you?  Invade their country and then take away their chief export.

It’d be like some other country invading America and taking all of our bullshit.  Or our football players.  What exactly do we produce now?

Federal Employee Would Rather Lose His Job Than Watch a LGBT Friendly Training Video

Originally, I figured he was just objecting to watching another shitty workplace video.  If that were the case, I wouldn’t have blamed him.  Have you watched those things?  They are painful.

It’s worse when you know some of the actors.  You just feel sorry for them.  Until you find out how much they got paid.

The quote from David Hall, however, was that he would choose almighty god over his workplace requirements any day.

Be careful what you wish for.

But I really need to ask – what part of the holy scripture specifically says “god demands you never listen to any opinions other than the ones you currently ascribe to?”

It seems to me this guy is concerned about becoming more tolerant so he isn’t willing to sit in a room and ignore a training video like the rest of his workmates.  Seriously, this becomes a workplace unity issue.  They had to sit through the shitty thing and he gets a pass because he doesn’t like gay people?

I call foul.  You need to sit though this video, David Hall, not because it will make you less of a homophobe (it won’t) but because you really need to watch an actor who has done fine stage work deliver lines like “I know how you feel about homosexuals, Bob, but what you just said was insensitive.  And maybe illegal.”

The rest of us had to, David.  And now you do too.

Iowa Representative Steve King Says Colin Kaepernick is Sympathetic to ISIS

In a congress that once included Michele Bachmann, Steve King might be the worst of them all.  It isn’t so much that he is a partisan hack as much as it is he is completely delusional.

Take Colin Kaepernick.  King believe that since Kaepernick has a Muslim girlfriend, his decision to kneel during the national anthem is, in fact supporting ISIS.

Because as we all know – every Muslim supports ISIS.  Excepting, I’ll guess, the Mulsims they are killing in Iraq.

But American Muslims, they support ISIS.

Oh.

But certainly the non-Muslim boyfriends of Muslims support ISIS.  Right?  Make perfect sense, right?

And Speaking of Kaepernick, Here’s this Week’s Meme that Pissed me Off

Oh my dear friends who are Christians, I’m not speaking to you right now.  Because I know that you understand Christianity is not under attack in this country.  You know that you have no difficulty finding a church that allows you to worship.  You know that you can express your belief in god openly pretty much anywhere you like.  You know that every political speech ends with the phrase “God bless America” and the God they are referring to is yours.

So when I say that meme like this reinforces the completely false narrative that Christians in America are being persecuted, I’m not talking to you, my dear friends who are Christians.  I’m talking to the right wing Christians who create these memes.  They don’t get it.

Or rather, they do get it.  The get that if they make this all about Tim Tebow, they don’t have to listen when Colin Kaepernick and Brandon Marshall use their public platform to call attention to racial inequality in this country.

They get that when Bill O’Reilly points out that Marshall grew up poor but became rich because his is one of a tiny percentage of people who are good enough at football to make a lot of money doing so, he is distracting people from the fact that most poor black kids will never have his life because they can’t play football.

They get that if you just keep bitching about how everyone was upset at Tebow for wearing his Christian privilege in his eye black (even though most everyone didn’t give a shit or applauded him for it), we just don’t have to care about the fact Philando Castile and Trayvon Martin are still dead.

Donald Trump Makes Another Veiled Threat Against Hillary Clinton

So this weekend, Donald said Hillary’s bodyguards should disarm to “see what happens to her.”

I’ve seen people defend Trump by saying he wasn’t threatening violence against her, he was just making a second amendment argument.

No.  If he was making a second amendment argument, he would have said “if Hillary Clinton hates guns so much, why doesn’t she get rid of her armed bodyguards?”  It would have been a  spurious argument since no-one but the most extreme gun control advocates (and Hillary is definitely not an extreme gun control advocate) would suggest that armed bodyguards should never be used by anyone.*

But it would, at least, not be suggesting someone should be murdered.

You see, what Trump is doing when he says we should “see what happens” to Hillary is he is feeding the racist, bloodthirsty mob that supports him by suggesting something violent could happen to his opponent.  He is entertaining them by providing them with a fantasy where she gets gunned down.  Because – and this is important – a lot of them want to see that happen.

They would like to see that more than they would like to see her lose.  And Trump is too smart not to know that.

He may not have said “boy, wouldn’t we all love to watch someone kill Hillary Clinton” but he was unquestionably aware that his statements could be interpreted that way.

*And yes – there are gun control advocates who are that extreme.  There are also pro-life advocates who blow up abortion clinics.  Do not judge the arguments of a movement by the most extreme members.