Woman Calls Cops On Black Guy Because His Dog Humped Her Dog Horrors!

"Dog Park Debbie" calls the police to a dog park
because a black man's dog humped her dog

In a ridiculous video, one that might have racial issues like "Barbecue Becky," "Permit Patty" and "Cornerstone Caroline"  we have a white woman calling the cops on a black man at a dog park.

This time, it's because the guy's dog started trying to hump the woman's dog, as dogs tend to do. They don't always behave, do they?

The man got the dog off the woman's dog, and neither animal appears to have been harmed. The man, named Franklin Baxley, did have to get his dog off the woman's a couple other times. Later, the woman's dog did the same to Baxley's but I guess that's OK.

But in a classic overreaction, the woman called the Attleboro, Massachusetts police.

I don't know if the woman was being racist, because I don't have a lot of context from the video. But it appears to fit a pattern of white people calling the police on black people for just doing things that normal people do, like having a barbecue in the park, entering their own apartment building, or allowing their kid to sell bottled water on the sidewalk during a hot afternoon.

To Baxley, this did seem racial, and I can see why he thinks this way: He told Yahoo News: "The woman wanted to impress upon me that she was superior...Her first instinct was to call the police when in conflict with a black person."

This kind of thing just doesn't stop, does it?  I mean, the woman could have kept her dog away from Baxley's dog if she was that upset, but nope! First reaction is to call the police. I'm sure she's going to enjoy her 15 minutes of fame.

I'm sure the cops were a bit annoyed by the waste of time they had to endure sorting this out. Can we please not call the cops unless we have an actual emergency? Here's the video:

President Trump Just Proposed An Original, Awesome Idea For The Fourth Of July

President Trump proposes making the Fourth of July
all about him because of course. 

How's this for an idea to celebrate our nation's birth.

On July 4, have a nice, big parade, with bands, floats and cheering crowds. Throw in a great afternoon of picnicking and partying, then top it all off with a big fireworks display.

Nobody thought of this great idea until our fearless leader, President Donald Trump announced the idea today. 

Well, OK, there have been juuuusst vaguely similiar events on the Fourth of July for many years.

Such as what happens on July 4 every year: A nice, big parade, with bands, floats and cheering crowds. Throw in a great afternoon of picknicking and partying, then top it all off with a big fireworks display.

But Trump announced the idea today. So it's new! And his idea has an added bonus: "An address, by your favorite president, me!"

Of course, if Trump isn't your favorite president, I guess you're not invited.

Never mind that Washington DC has been home to a Fourth of July celebration for decades at least. Now, it's going to be all about Trump. Because everything has to be all about Trump. I mean this blog post is all about Trump. See?

Trump's Fourth of July idea seems to have garnered a few skeptical responses on Twitter and elsewhere.

Most of the comments are along the lines of, you idiot, we do that kind of thing every year.

U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-CA wrote on Twitter:

"If this goes well, I think we should follow it with a big party in Times Square the night before New Year's Day."

Wow! All these great ideas emerging! What will they think of next?

Supreme Court Nails Local Cops For Stealing Stuff

The Notorious RBG wrote Wednesday's U.S. Supreme Court
decision restricting civil forfeiture. 

I've complained before in this here blog thingy about something called "civil forfeiture."

It's been increasingly popular among some local law enforcement agencies across the country. It's basically "legal" theft.

Though as of Wednesday, it wasn't so legal anymore. The U.S. Supreme Court decided unanimiously that the Constitution's ban on excessive fines applies to individual states as well. That makes total sense to me and should be obvious.

Nonetheless, if you can get the most conservative and the most liberal Supreme Court justices to agree on something, that probably means they want to get rid of something that's terribly wrong.

There's no doubt about it. Civil forfeiture is indeed wrong.

Civil forfeiture essentially occurs outside the court system. It started as a pretty good idea: Civil forfeiture targeted large criminal enterprises by siphoning their money and supplies and resources away. No money supply and the cartel or whatever shrivels.

But then, many police departments discovered forfeiture was a way to boost their budgets. They would seize money and goods from people they arrested, which might be OK if the people involved were actually convicted of a crime and the amount of stuff taken was in line what the fines and such would have been anyway.

However, local law enforcement in some jurisdictions got into the habit of seizing cash, cars, real estate and other property from people who were not convicted of a crime, or in many cases, not even charged with a criminal offense. Then, these law enforcement agencies would make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for people to get their property and cash back.

It's gotten so bad that some police departments have taken to randomly pulling over people with out of state license plates over for trumped up traffic violations. The police would then take any cash that was in the vehicle and that's it. To me, that's theft. To these corrupt police department, they called it "law enforcement."

Yeah, right.

A lot of people besides the nine members of the Supreme Court are saying good riddance to civil forfeiture, although I'm sure it wil continue in some form as crafty law enforcement agencies find loopholes around the ruling.

Again, forfeiture opposition makes strange bedfellows. I mean, the ACLU and the conservative Cato Institute are against civil forfeiture. If you can get those two groups to agree, that's something.

There are countless horror stories out there about civil forfeiture. One of them was the case the Supreme Court decided on Wednesday, Timbs v. Indiana. Police confiscated Tyson Timbs' $40,000 Land Rover after he was caught selling $400 worth of heroin.

Nobody questioned the fact that Timbs needed to bear consequences for his crime.  But Timbs had purchased the Land Rover legally: He used a life insurance settlement from his father's estate.

As the Huffington Post describes the case, Indiana law says people convicted of crimes like Timbs' should pay no more than $10,000 in fines. The Land Rover the cops seized was worth four times that.

One Indiana judge said the seizing the car was disproportionate to the crime. But Indiana's highest court overruled that lower court judge, saying the U.S. Supreme Court has never said that the Eighth Amendment's ban on excessive fines applies to states as well as the federal government.

So, the U.S. Supreme Court had to state the obvious today, in a ruling written by the Notorious RBG, Ruth Bader Ginsburg: That the Constitution - not just parts of it, but all of it, applies to the states.

The Supremes also based their decision in large part on the 14th Amendment, which says "no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

Well, again, duh!

I guess Supreme Court watchers could see this decision coming since November, when the Supremes had oral arguments in the case. Justic Neil Gorsuch scoffed at Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher, who was arguing that it how the 8th and 14th amendment had supposedly never been tested this way. "Here we are in 2018 still litigating incorporation of the Bill of Rights... Come on, General," Gorsuch said.

Indeed!

Even before Wednesday's Supreme Court decision, states had been feeling the heat and beginning to at least consider cracking down on civil forfeiture.  Frankly, I think the only people who liked this grifting was corrupt so-called law enforcement agencies.

In South Carolina, the Greenville News recently published the results of a two-year investigation it conducted with other news organizations regarding civil forfeiture in that state. The Greenville News reported that South Carolina police collected $17 million in forfeiture money and property between 2014 and 2016.

In almost a fifth of those South Carolina seizures, people whose property was taken by police were never even charged with a crime, never mind convicted. One South Carolina example that Reason cited was of an elderly woman whose house was nearly taken away by the cops because a few small-time drug deals were conducted on her property.

The woman had nothing to do with the drug deals, and any time she became aware of somebody dealing drugs on or near her property, she tried to shoo them away. (Which is brave of an old lady. You never know what these drug dealers can do.)

The Greenville news investigation results were so odious that the conservate law-and-order South Carolina legislature began considering a bill that would require a criminal conviction before any property could be seized from someone.

That legislative effort might have something to do with something that Jarrod Bruder realizes now that he shouldn't have said out loud, but it is what everybody assumes.

Bruder is the Executive Director of the South Carolina Sheriff's Association.  As the Greenville News reported: 

"(Bruder) said without the incentive of profit from civil forfeiture, officers probably wouldn't pursue drug dealers and their cash as hard as they do now. If police don't get to keep the money from forfeiture, 'what is the incentive to go out and make a special effort?' Bruder said. 'What is the incentive for interdiction.'"

Um, maybe police incentive to enforce laws is because it's their job? Wild suggestion, I know.

Reason said three states had already passed similar laws and 29 states had passed some sort of civil forfeiture reform, so you know this was getting pretty unpopular.  Still law enforcement is still  resisting the trend, and many of them will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to comply.

New Mexico passed a law last year in which civil forfeiture could only take place if there is a criminal conviction. Incredibly, some New Mexico cities ignored the law, saying the municipalites could opt in to the law if they wished, but didn't have to.

Nope. New Mexico courts said, again, being a version of Captain Obvious, that a law was a law and everybody had to obey it.

In Oakland, California, the FBI cracked down on a crooked landlord who was illegally trying to evict residents so he could make a lot more money on rent. So far, so good. But then, says KQUED, U.S. Marshalls seized the property.

They now want to evict the residents so they can have an empty building that would sell for a huge profit in the Bay Area's tight housing market. Who cares if they make people homeless if there's profit to be made, right?

The residents, and Oakland, and California officials are fighting this.

All this means that the Supreme Court ruling was a victory, but local, state and federal jurisdictions better keep an eye on rogue law enforcement agencies out there.  They're supposed to enforce the law, but some of them are stealing just as boldly as a guy with a gun holding up a liquor store.

Scary Alabama Racist Newspaper Editorial Takes Us Back To The Jim Crow Days

Goodie Sutton, my nominee for the most racist newspaper
editor in the United States. 

UPDATE: Saturday, 2/23/19

So, a little karma happened with this story.

Under pressure, this racist loser has resigned. He's still not sorry for the editorial, but I love the deliciousness of this update.

The new publisher, owner and editor of the Democrat-Reporter is a woman named Elecia Dexter.

Oh, Dexter happens to be a black African-American woman.

Dexter says her understanding is that Sutton is actually still the owner of the paper. But regardless, this is definitely an improvement. It couldn't get any worse.

As for Sutton, he says he now has time to, as he says "drink beer and chase women."

Good luck with that, bubba.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Racism is, of course, always bad.

There are different degrees of it, or at least different degrees of what is said out loud by racists.

A small town newspaper editor in Alabama, though, has gone full throated racist, and his words are jaw-droppingly horrifying. The editorial's headline: "Klan Needs To Ride Again"

This piece of, um, literature was recently published by a creep named Goodloe Sutton, who is the publisher of the Democrat-Reporter in Linden, Alabama.

As the Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser reports, Sutton is unrepentant and stands by his editorial.

Sutton begins with the source of his ire: "Democrats in the Republican Party and Democrats are plotting to raise taxes in Alabama."

Um, OK, if you say so.  Then this all turns very dark, very quickly. He blames the "socialist-communist ideology" for all this, and then pretty much applauds the KKK who once "rode through the night to frighten some evil doer. Sometimes they had to kill one or two of them but so what."

Sutton then dreams of the day in which the Klan heads north to "raid the gated communities. They call them compounds now."

Montgomery Advertiser reporter Melissa Brown went over to Linden to interview him about the editorial. During the interview, Sutton said, "If we could get the Klan to go up there and clean out D.C., we'd all be better off."

Brown asked what Sutton meant by that. He suggested lynching.

It gets even more off the rails. Here's another excerpt from the Montgomery Advertiser article:

"'We'll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them,' Sutton said.

When asked if he felt it was appropriate for the publisher of a newspaper to call for the lynching of Americans, Sutton doubled down on his position. 

'....It's not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communist we're talking about. Do you know what socialism and communism is?' Sutton asked."

Apparently, it's anybody who disagrees with him. And, to state the obvious, yes he is calling for the lynching of Americans.

Sutton goes on to say that the Klan is not racist and violent, hilariously comparing it to the NAACP.

As an aside, Sutton's newspaper used to be good. In the 1990s, the Democrat-Reporter got national acclaim for reporting on a corrupt sheriff in the area.

However, the Democrat-Reporter gained a reputation for racism and ugliness well before Sutton's recent editorial.  In recent years, readers were treated to headlines like "Homosexuals take black spotlight" and "Slavery was a good lesson for Jews."

I've been complaining that the boorish Trump administration has given racists, bigots, misogynists and the like "permission" to blurt out their awfulness in public rather than keep in hidden.

Sometimes I've been told I've been overstating the Trump influence on the worst of American society. I counter that this editorial bolsters my case. I have always thought there are people as odious as Sutton out there.   However, it seemed that they had largely gone silent, or crawled back into the woodwork.

They're back out. But maybe Trump has done us a favor. Through example, he has encouraged these lowlifes to come back out into the sunshine. Now we know they're there, and I hope we can deal with them more easily.

Point at them at object and perhaps, just maybe, they'll think twice about hurting other people. You can only hope.

Randy Rainbow Update: This Week He's Channeling Madonna In "Border Lies"

In his latest video, Randy Rainbow channels Madonna with
his new song "Border Lies."

One of my most favorite Madonna tunes is "Borderline."

But I have to say Randy Rainbow, in his latest video that was dropped today, has improved upon the song greatly with his new version, called "Border Lies."

It was inevitable that Rainbow would take on the so-called national emergency Trump declared over the border.

He didn't get his money for his stupid wall, and his predictable tantrum took the form of declaring a fake emergency for his border wall, or fence or whatever.

You have to admit, Trump gave Rainbow a nice assist with his sing-song speech about how his "emergency" will wend its way through the courst. "I love this song," Rainbow gushingly stage whispers to his journalistic colleagues in the video.

Then the performance of "Border Lies" gets underway.

Sample lyric:

"Border lies
Great for distracting from Russian ties 
More insulting than your skin tone 
Talkin' 'bout border lies."

The video has everything, even a Nancy Pelosi style clap back.

My only quibble is I don't think Randy Rainbow can pull off a 1980s style hairdo as well as Madonna could back in the day, but oh, well.

Here's the video, so enjoy!

Anti-Vaxxers Proving Stupidity, Gullibility Are Great Targets For Evil Liars

This is one of those posts that will get a lot of blowback against me. But I don't care.

As far as I'm concerned, the blowback will come mostly from selfish idiots, but I have to take this bullet, I've decided.

This is about the hot button topic of vaccinations, and why the anti-vaxxers are putting us in so much danger.

It could be because they're stubborn, want to be trendy, believe whatever is on the internet, or think there are all these grand conspiracies among hordes of people just craving to ruin their kids.  In large part, the anti-vaxxers have been manipulated by people and organizations with evil intent, both domestic and foreign.

I've long been fed up with anti-vaxxers who believe against all serious evidence that pretty much all vaccinations will give kids autism or worse.  The parents who don't vaccinate their kids also don't appear to give a crap about whether their willful ignorance kills other kids. For some, it turns into a cult-like belief.  They've swallowed bad propoganda hook, line and sinker.

In the Pacific Northwest, there's a nasty measles epidemic going on now because many parents there are anti-vaxxers.

I'm going against some advice here as I attack the anti-vaxxers. NPR recently interviewed medical anthropologist Elisa Sobo, who suggested we deal with the anti-vaccination types with less vehemence.

Sobo said most of the anti-vaxxers she talked with are not crazy people who wear tinfoil hats and spend their days reading wacko conspiracy theories on the internet. Instead, they're smart and highly educated.

OK, maybe, but why are they going against so much factual information here?

It turns out the anti-vaxxers are being "fashionable" in a way. They're trying to fit it. Sobo says think about it. For instance, your workplace might not have a formal dress code, but people at work always dress a certain way. So you do, too. That way, you fit in.

For the anti-vaxxers, this might come, for instance, as they're enrolling their kid in preschool in which there's a certain political vibe. There might already be a fair number of anti-vaxxers there, and they might convince the newcomer through their "facts" and "information" that they shouldn't get vaccines for their kids.

Then, Sobo says, if you attack the anti-vaxxer as being stupid or what have you, they'll dig in.  If you take a different tack, she says, you might change thier minds. "If you listen to them, and you allow them to say what they think without being judged, without feeling judged, without pushing them into a corner, they're absolutely ready."

Maybe she's right. For many of them, anyway. But what of the anti-vax activists that are pushing other parents to deny science, deny safety for their children?

The real "activists," the ones trying to convince parents to not vaccinate their kids are the real villains. Some of them manage to get pretty high up on search engines like Google, and people believe the top three or four hits on Google, and believe whatever it says. There's a mistaken belief that the stuff that appears first on Google is the most reliable. It isn't.

The bad stuff also seems to be coming from every dark corner, too.  The bad aspects of social media, like sponsored ads on Facebook, are a big source of the misinformation.

It also appears we can blame Russia. Again. As Oregolive.com recently reported:

"Russian President Vladimir Putin isn't trying to mess only with America's elections. He has set loose his undercover opinion manipulators to promote fear of vaccines and set pro- and anti-vaccination Americans against one another, a recent study concluded."

Why? It's part of a much broader effort to divide and instill fear in Americans. OregonLive and many others describe it as a second Cold War.

The vaccine lies often take the form of scary ads on platforms like Facebook that fall apart within a quick pass of scrutiny.

According to Business Insider:

"A sponsored ad found by Quartz journalist Jeremy Merrill shows the anti-vaccination organization Stop Mandatory Vaccination targeted women ages 20 to 60 who have expressed interest in pregnancy living in the State of Washington, where the governor recently declared a state of emergency over the measles outbreak."

One of these fear-mongering ads stated a woman's daughter died "12 hours after being injected by eight vaccines in 2008."

Notice the statement plays on emotion. It doesn't source this information, so who knows if it's true? Even if true, why did the kid die?  If she was run over by a bus or something, that has nothing to do with vaccines.

The ad says that medical experts determined the vaccines were the cause of the kid's death. What medical experts?  Were they just some random people off the street who said they were experts?

But never mind. The ads play to emotion, not fact. Parents are scared into not vaccinating kids, then scared when measles breaks out. The situation then gets really ridiculous.

These parents then get caught between conflicting fears when a measles outbreak does arrive. It gets silly.

One anti-vax parent is the Northwest is suddenly alarmed that the measles epidemic will harm her three year old kid, and asked for advice on line as to what to do. Of course, to this parent, vaccination was still off the table.

The photo in this post shows what the parent wrote.  The parent, of course, got an earful of cutting responses. Which include:

"Build a wall around her and make the vaccinated people pay for it Sending my thoughts and prayers."

Another person sarcastically wrote: "She could try acupuncture or essential oils. If that doesn't work, how about vaccinatingt your kid."

Yet another person posted a meme that pictured a tearful little girl asking her dad, "Why do I have polio?" The dad answers: "When you were little, the internet and your mom's yoga instructor said that vaccines cause autism."

With the Northwest measles epidemic raging, one aspect of this that's getting attention is teenagers who are wiser than their anti-vax parents. They're going to health clinics, hoping to be secretly vaccinated. Or they do so as soon as they turn 18, when their parents can't do anything about it.

The kids get their vaccinations, but this causes more strife, just what the Russians and domestic social media trolls want.

One of the teenagers getting a lot of attention here is Ethan Lindenberger, an Ohio 18-year-old. He's not particularly rebellious and even though he's an adult, tries not to disobey his mother. When it comes to vaccinations, though, he did.

Ethan's mother, in the classic style of this type, made her son's wise decision all about her. She said his decision to get vaccinations was "a slap in the face."  Yeah, she feels attacked somehow, by her own son, and she's having a meltdown.

"It was like spitting on me.... saying 'You do't know anything. I don't trust you with anything. You don't know what you're talking about."

What does the mom expect? That her intelligent son is going with facts and science, or with kook conspiracy theories?

Does she think there's some massive plot  involving thousands of CDC workers, pediatricians worldwide and scientists? That all these thousands of doctors and experts and such are "trying to make millions" from vaccinations?

If all these people in the health care industry really did want to make millions, they'd be anti-vax, too. After all, there's more money to be made from people who suffer from serious complications of diseases that could have been prevented via relatively inexpensive vaccines.

Apparently, people who are anti-vax think they are smarter than doctors and other medical professionals, I guess because of what they read on the internet.

The anti-vax cult is largely rooted in the mistaken idea, or the lie that vaccines cause autism.  It's true that nobody is quite sure why autism has gotten more prevalent, but scientists are sure it's not vaccines that are causing the problem.

However, too many people think these experts are "wrong."  I guess that misinformation campaign by the Russians and others is unfortunately working.

A survey found that 34 percent of U.S. adults think they know as much or more about autism than scientists. (Remember, these scientists study autism for a living.)

Also, 71 percent of people who endorse misinformation about the link between vaccines and autism think they know as much or more than scientists.

I guess everybody is an expert. Or something.

I'm healthy. And vaccinated. Plus, I have no kids. So I'm in no danger. But this affects me like it does everyone else. One friend is undergoing cancer treatment and chemotherapy, so her immune system is compromised for now.  Another friend is HIV positive. My mother turns 90 next month, and elderly people are at risk from these people, too.

Illnesses like measles aren't always the minor ailment that some people suggest. It's often serious, sometimes fatal. There's other diseases we get vaccinations for, too. Do we really want to bring back polio?

The people I just described above have other health problems that put them at risk for even more trouble from those un-vaccinated people who are spreading unnecessary, preventable diseases.

It's certainly more than OK to question science, question authority, to make sure they're not pulling the wool over our eyes. But once the dust settles and the facts are clear, why not go with those facts instead the wackadoodle ideas that the Russians or whoever want us to believe?

Not every contrarian is trying to help us, you know.

Dale Hansen Explains Why We Love Our Dogs, And Each Other

Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen with Miss Hailey.

My favorite local sportscaster in the nation is Dale Hansen at television station WFAA in Dallas-Fort Worth.

I've featured him a few times in this blog post because the man always makes more sense than just about anybody I've seen on television.  A couple examples of where I featured Hansen are here and here. 

Hansen is a gruff, no-nonsense type of guy that seems stereotypical of sportscasters. But he often goes off-script, commenting on things that might offend some not-so-thoughtful sports fans. His somewhat liberal views sometimes clash with those of conservative sports fans in Texas. Almost everybody loves Hansen anyway.  

This week, he did a commentary on the newscast that had nothing to do with sports, but one that I think everyone can agree with, that is a must-see, especially if you own a dog. Or, more accurately, as Hansen puts it, if a dog owns you.

On the day of his commentary, his bassett hound Miss Hailey passed away. So he devoted his segment on WFAA to Miss Hailey, and why dogs make us more human. By the way, Hansen's comments also fully apply to anyone who has a cat, or any other favorite pet.

While discussing Miss Hailey's passing,  Hansen tells us, "Anyone and anything you love will eventually end in tears, but it is the deal we make......You can avoid the pain and tears of losing a loved one. All you have to do is never love. I choose the pain and tears. But Dr. Seuss was right. Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."

Oddly, I think the world would be better off if we all chose the pain and tears. Here's the whole video. Worth the watch, for sure:

Wyoming State Senator Has Novel Argument In Favor Of Death Penalty

Wyoming State Senator Lynn Hutchings has some interesting views
on the death penalty, Jesus and sexual orientation.

The Wyoming legislature just debated whether to abolish the death penalty in that state. In the end, they decided to keep it. No surprise there, really. It's a pretty conservative state.

There are fairly reasonable, or at least understandable arguments on both sides of the death penalty debate, but one argument for the death penalty by a Wyoming State Senator was, um, novel.

As Patheos explains:

"Sen. Lynn Hutchings, R-Cheyenne argued that without the death penalty, Jesus Christ would not have been able to die to absolve the sins of mankind, and therefore capital punishment should be maintained.

'The greatest man who ever lived died via the death penalty for you and me,' she said. 'I'm grateful to him for our future hope because of this. Governments were instituted to execute justice. If it wasn't for Jesus dying via the death penalty, we would all have no hope.'"

I don't know where to begin to unpack this. I guess she's saying that since Jesus was given the death penalty, it's OK to impose the death penalty. Never mind that Jesus was innocent of any crime. So is it OK to impose the death penalty on innocent people, because that's what happened to Jesus?

For such a "Christian" she's not really up on how this works. Jesus is said to have risen from the dead, and that moment was atoning for the world's sins. In other words, Jesus could have died for any reason, so long as he rose from the dead.

The Romans wanted Jesus dead. Are we really going to design state law enforcement as Pontius Pilate would have?

And just how is death "hopeful"?

Hutchings has been on a roll this month anyway.  She met with a Gay-Straight Alliance group at Central High School in Cheyenne to discuss a state bill that would ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, notes the Huffington Post, among many other media outlets.

Hutchings, who doesn't like the legislation, was reported to have said, "If my sexual orientation was to have sex with all of the men in there and I had sex with all of the women in there and then they brought their children and I had sex with all of them, and then brought their dogs in and I had sex with them, should I be protected for my sexual orientation?"

Um, being a nutjob is not a sexual orientation, but nice try, Lynn!

That she said this weirdness to a group of 14 and 15 year olds makes this all the more yuckier, too.

Hutchings later tried to explain these were just rhetorical questions and that sexual orientation "can be defined in so many ways."

Uh-huh.

Anyone want to try explaining to Hutchings that pedophilia and bestiality aren't sexual orientations? Anyone?

Nah, Hutchings is a lost cause. But an entertaining one, in a sick sort of way.

A New Take On Old "El Paso." With Politics And Comedy!

Marty Robbins had a huge hit in 1959 with the song "El Paso."

You know the tune ...."Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl...."

As we know, Donald Trump visited El Paso this week to tout his silly border wall, falsely claiming that El Paso was a violent mess before they put up fence along the Mexican border there.

Which gave Stephen Colbert the chance to update the song a little bit. Colbert's version starts, "Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I saw a speech by a man Putin adores."

Yeah, it goes on from there. Have a listen and a look:

News In Review: Bad Lip Reading Of Trump's State Of The Union

Let's do another Bad Lip Reading to keep this month's absurdity going.

OK, I admit I just featured the "Bad Lip Reading" YouTube videos during the Super Bowl earlier this month, but I can't resist the same YouTube channel's take on Donald Trumps State of the Union address.

In this absurd lip reading world, we learn Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence don't get along (no surprise there).

We also learn how much animosity Bernie Sanders feels toward Trump. In the bad lip reading, Sanders tells a colleague, "I want to roast all of his fingers."

And that famous Pelosi clap back was actually approval when Trump told the Halls of Congress: "I like a pizza party very much."

Here's the rest of the craziness for your deep winter entertainment:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is At Least Good At Explaining Washington Corruption.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, pretending to be a "bad guy" at a
Congressional hearing, vividly illustrated how corrupt
campaign finance "laws" are 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is now both a celebrity and a newly minted member of Congress

She's attracting lots of buzz, that's for sure. She's new in Congress. So like every new member of Congress, I haven't decided yet if I like the job she's doing in Washington. Time will tell.

I have to hand it to her, though. She's very good at explaining what she think's is wrong with our government, our system, our rules.

She does it in a way that doesn't insult our intelligence but also doesn't talk down to us. Love her or hate her, she's pretty real. A viral video, which you can see at the bottom of this post, proves the point.

Ocasio-Cortez is making it plain that there's plenty of room for reform.  She did a great job the other day by turning a Congressional hearing into a bit of a game, a lightining round of questioning, as she put it.

She took the role of a "bad guy," figuring half the room has long since decided she's a "bad guy" anyway. She asked a panel of experts, if she were indeed a "bad guy,"  about whether she could legally get away with some bad stuff to get elected. "I want to get away with as much bad things as possible, ideally to enrich myself and advance my interests," she said.

So, if she wanted to run a campaign entirely fumded by corporate poltical action committees, could she do that?

The answer is yes.

If the "bad guy" candidate had skeletons in his or her closet that needed to be covered up, are hush funds to witnesses legal?

The answer is yes.

Say tbe bad guy is elected. Is there any limits on what legislation he or she can work on in behalf of industry?

The answer is no.

The whole exchange at this Congressional hearing is incredibly instructive and worth the watch. Here it is:

Happy Birthday, Jeff! Loving A Husband In A Year Of Transition

Jeff helping to pick out a Christmas tree a few years ago.

Today is my husband Jeff Modereger's birthday.

I'm not going to tell you which number birthday or in which year he was born, because that would be rude. But it's a significant number. And it's coming in a year that is bringing big changes to his life, our life.

Jeff will retire from the University of Vermont this coming May. He's been at UVM for a quarter century. His departure will be a big adjustment for him, for the university, and I would argue for the community at large.

As he retires, he doesn't want hoopla. He wants to ride off into the sunset, as he puts it.  As if his retirement is some sort of end. It's actually a beginning.

Some people, when they get to retirement age, do fade away.  Jeff won't. He doesn't have it in him to just fade. It's one of the things I love about him.

True, he'll be home more often when he retires, which is a definite plus. But he'll still continue his career as a scenic designer, which has always been his passion. He's so good at it that he'll always be demand. Probably even when he's 100 years old.

His mother worries that he pushes too hard, and it's true Jeff works too hard. (Note to Lois Modereger: I crack the whip when Jeff starts to push himself too much, and so he's fine!) The retirement this year is not a sign of him aging, but it is a sign that he's finally wising up enough to slow down, just a bit.

I'm not surprised, but always stunned by the number of his students and former students who come to Jeff and tell him what a great influence he was on them, how much he taught them. I know that will continue after he retires. Because he will meet more people, and teach more people, and just make things good. It's his habit, and he'll never be able to break it, thank goodness.

Jeff's magic is that he makes everyone he comes in contact with a better person. That certainly includes me. I'm far from perfect, but every day, Jeff, through example, shows me and everyone how it's done.  As of this August, we will have been married seven years. Time flies. And I can't wait to experience the many more years I have with Jeff.

It's funny. Jeff has an eye for fashion, at least in a superficial sense. We'll tune into some show like "Project Runway," and he'll exclaim: "What is she wearing! Did she look in the mirror before she left home?!?"

Yet Jeff is completely out of fashion in a much more fundamental sense. It's not fashionable these days to have a sense of morality. To be honest. To do the right thing.   Jeff does all of these things, fashion be damned. Thank Gawd. Another in a list of a billion reasons why I love him.

So Jeff: Here's to another birthday. I love you so very much, and look forward to being with you as the years tick by.

This post has been sappy, yes, but so what? I'll even make it worse with this song, which reminds me of you. Here's Carly Simon to help me out here:

Was Barbie's Boyfriend Ken's Black Sheep Brother Arrested In Tennessee?

Jullian Mitchell, arrested in Tennessee on identity theft
charges, looks like Ken's bad little brother.
I bet Barbie does NOT like him. 

The crime wasn't too spectacular.

A man named Julian R. Mitchell, 20, was recently arrested in Tennessee for identity theft.

Television station Fox 17 in Nashville says Mitchell tried to use somebody else's debit card at a bar, but the business system at the tavern said the card was lost or stolen. Mitchell was asked for his ID.

He handed over a Tennessee driver's license, but police said it was "plainly obvious" to the barkeep that this wasn't Mitchell's license.  

The real story here is the mug shot when Mitchell was booked. As you can see in this post, his photo is......stunning.

Stunning enough to cause a stir on social media.  When local media began tweeting about Mitchell's arrest, lots of people decided to add to the news story. You know, fill it out a bit.  I opinied that in an exclusive interview, Barbie's boyfriend Ken has no idea why his brother turned to a life of crime.

Other comments indicated Barbie might not be so squeaky clean: "Suspect was last seen in a red convertible with accomplice Barbie."

One person asked incredulously: "Identity theft? There are TWO people who look like that?"

Other people guessed at Mitchell's day job. I agree with one person who said he's Roger Stone's eyebrow consultant.

At least the guy isn't all match-matchy, given the blonde hair, red beard and very black, big eyebrows.

Anyway, enjoy my early nominee for Mug Shot Of The Year, 2019

Insurance Fraudster Won't Win An Oscar

Alexander Goldinsky seen here "falling" on spilled ice in a break room
is accused of insurance fraud. 

A gentleman in New Jersey put on an act to commit insurance fraud, authorities said. But judging from the surveillance video that caught him in the act, I doubt he's Oscar-winning material.

Numerous news outlets, like ABC News, said the following:

"Alexander Goldinsky, a 57-year-old independent contractor, was working for a company in Woodbridge, New Jersey, about 30 miles northwest of Newark, when he allegedly orchestrated the scam, according to the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Ofice.

The office released surveillance video Thursday from the company's empty break room, showing Goldinsky throwing the ice and strategically sprawling himself across the floor."

Thinking nobody was around and apparently not realizing there were security cameras, Goldinsky looks pretty obvious in the video as he sprinkles the ice cubes on the floor, and then almost gingerly falls to the floor to sustain his "injuries."

Authorities said Goldinsky filed a false insurance claim for ambulance services and the treatment he received for injuries he said got from the "fall."

Goldinsky is scheduled for an initial court appearance on Thursday.

I'm also guessing he won't be at the Oscars when they are presented on February 24.

Here's the video:

Of Course I Have To Bring You Bad Lip Reading For The Super Bowl

This year's NFL Bad Lip Reading is totally worth the watch and listen.

It's Super Bowl Sunday, and I suppose I have to celebrate the occasion somehow, though I'm not the most rabid NFL fan out there.

I'll do so by giving you "A Bad Lip Reading Of The NFL"  

There's a whole YouTube channel in which they "put words in people's mouths" by dubbing in silly statements into videos of people who are often out of earshot.

The schtick is these are revealing videos of what was really said, except the lip reading is so awful that they what they people "say" is hilariously absurd.

They've done NFL lip reading for each of the past several years. This year's NFL one is excellent.  For instance, we have a sideline coach exclaiming, "In my bag! Poetry and French art!

In those NFL clips in which NFL players say something about themselves, one says. "I sleep on the happiness tree." Another says, "I melted a lot of people." One more says, "Humans shouldn't go into the labyrinth."

Yeah, everything they say is out of left field, if I may interject a baseball cliche into a football story.

Out on the field, "spoiled" New England Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady barks remarks like, "I'm an icon!" "Poke his eye!" "I'm the star!" and, "He's a spy!"

Another exchange:
Reporter to player: "I hope you feel good."
Player replies: "Not you, I hope you fall on a machete later."

Well, football is a violent sport, right?

I only gave you a small taste. Here's the full eight minutes of NFL bad lip reading that will convince you that people are strange:

A Sinkhole Turns Into A Bank Robbery Investigation

This "sinkhole" in a Florida bank driveway turned out to be part
of a tunnel. Somebody was digging the tunnel in an attempt
to rob the bank. 

As will become obvious, given Florida's weirdness, the following incident took place in the Sunshine State.

A sinkhole recently opened up in the driveway of a Pembroke Pines, Florida bank. That's not unusual. The geology of Florida makes the area prone to sinkholes.

It turns out, though, that geology had nothing to do with this sinkhole. It turns out somebody was digging a tunnel from an embankment toward the bank in an attempt to rob it.

But: Curses! Foiled again! The tunnel was too close to the surface. The dirt and the pavement in the driveway collapsed, which was the "sinkhole."

They haven't figured out who dug the tunnel yet. The tunnel extends 50 feet from an embankment to near the bank. It looks like whoever it was was trying to access an ATM.

The person who dug the tunnel wasn't claustrophobic, apparently. The tunnel was only two feet across or so, so you really had to shimmy and squeeze your way through it.

The FBI is investigating.

And thus, Florida continues to uphold its reputation for weirdness.