In a post today on Mike Huckabee’s support for White Male Exceptionalism and Ethnic Cleansing, I opened with a reference to a bit of snark from my gracious host:
John noted the other day that after attacks on Rape Victims and Veterans he expected somebody to introduce the “Kick an Orphan and Beat a Puppy Act of 2011” any day now.
I don’t know yet about the “Kick an Orphan” part of the law, but it turns out that the “Beat a Puppy” part is real. Hearings have already been held and three Bills are working their way through the Republican controlled Missouri State House.
BJ commenter Michael Bersin passed along the tip that the “Beat a Puppy Act” is being field tested by the wingnuts of the Show-Me-State. I did some quick checking and it is true.
Last November the voters in Missouri approved the Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act by over 60,000 votes. So, naturally the wingnuts in charge of the Missouri House and Senate have put overturning the law as a top priority for their 2011 Legislative agenda. Three bills to help protect puppy kickers from oversight and anti-cruelty measures have already been introduced in the Missouri House. The Missouri Senate and House have already held hearings and the “Beat a Puppy Act” is on its way to becoming law. As for the voters, the message from their TeaBagger representatives is clear: piss off and shut up. One can imagine many other Republican Confederate controlled State Houses following the lead of their comrades in Jefferson City.
You can follow the amazing venality of these folks in the local papers as they write about Republicans and puppy mill operators arguing that they could not function if their ability to be cruel was restricted and that voters in Missouri were very, very wrong and mean-spirited to demand oversight and regulation of dog breeding factories.
It is yet another story of why these people are assholes.
Cheers
4jkb4ia
Oh, hell. I should have posted about this when it was on the radio, but I forgot.
Arclite
In other news, the wingnuts are opposing Obama’s bill to destroy the asteroid on collision course with Earth. Because spending hundreds of billions to destroy the asteroid would hurt American businesses, of course.
(The sidebar on the story is classic)
Fraud Guy
The problem with conservatives is that they steal all their best ideas from liberal worst case scenarios.
Dennis G.
@Arclite:
It is an instant classic…
dr. bloor
There’s a Michael Vick joke in here somewhere, but I just can’t quite find the
ponypuppy.Little Boots
somebody needs to kick these people in the shins. Not that I condone such things in this age of civility, but really, if ever given the chance, kick them in the shins.
The Dangerman
I know they are anti-regulation, but can we please begin regulating Republicans? This is crazy.
Genine
Have you read the comments to the article? Unreal! Feeding puppies, letting them get rest in between breeding and letting them move and go outside is cruel.
Oh, and the Humane Society is teh evil!
These state representatives didn’t pop out of thin air….
Rommie
Hey, since some Arizona lawmakers are yappin’ about creating some nullification legislation, do you think Uncle Billy would have minded some Desert Marching?
It’s like there is a contest to get the President to actually say “OH HELL NO” on tape.
Little Boots
these whores are unreal. But this seems to be the entire program of conservatives at the state level: stop all train travel, kill all immigrants, and torture puppies. there is nothing else. that is the whole program. shin kicking is the only reasonable answer.
jrg
I fail to see how not beating puppies is not political correctness run amok.
asiangrrlMN
@Little Boots: I suggest kicking a little further up the body with your little boots. We don’t want these people procreating. This shit makes me ill.
Little Boots
@asiangrrlMN:
I’m trying to be civil. Though I find that I’m trying a little less every day.
gnomedad
That would be the Job-Killing Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act.
asiangrrlMN
@Little Boots: It’s probably for the best that you be civil. I will just use my rusty pitchfork instead.
Tom Levenson
Beyond assholes.
But I must say that I am gratified that our GOPer friends are truly letting their freak flags fly.
Makes it pretty clear what they stand for in ways great oleaginous heaps of campaign bullshit obscured last time out. Next time, we have the material to produce different outcomes.
That isn’t to say it will happen that way, only that the GOPers are giving us more opportunity than sensible people would to make it so.
Arclite
@Dennis G.: That piece, plus this John Lasseter “commentary” had me cracking up today.
And this one here is just for you, Dennis.
Little Boots
@Tom Levenson:
I think you may be right. they will do a lot of damage in the next two years, but the repulsive conservative id is totally on display right now. it might help. might.
KG
@Little Boots:
FTFY
gnomedad
@KG:
Damn straight.
graves007
I get angry when I read about how shit people are. What we will do for the almighty dollar. You could have chronic BO and have motor oil leaking from your ass, a dog will stand by you unconditionally. Dogs are better people than people will ever be. It’s amazing that we can be both so full of potential and so filthy a plague. Fucking people.
My 2 not-from-a-puppy-mill pugs say hi!
Phoebe
I was going to tell you about this when I first read the phrase “beat a puppy act”, but I am too depressed about it. I collected over 1000 signatures to put that on the ballot. We collected way way more signatures than we needed, and made every county quota [they have quotas for each county. You have to collect signatures in each county for a statewide ballot initiative]. Then just before the election the teacunts decided to make this an issue of theirs, and Palin even said something about it, I forgot. We still won, but barely. People are rotten. I don’t know why.
KG
@gnomedad: actually, I was thinking more like this
Barb (formerly Gex)
@graves007: This. It sickens me to know that we basically bred them to need us, to want to need us, to be willing to die for us. And we use that to abuse them. I hate Vick for that. I hate Huckabee’s kid for that. Now I can just hate the entire Republican party because they’ll support puppy torture if it pisses off liberals.
Violet
So here’s an ad idea. It could come from one of those “citizens’ groups.” An elephant wearing a Republican hat and/or blanket holding a rolled up newspaper in its trunk beats a terrified puppy. Additional elephant actions could include trumpeting, charging, and rearing up on two legs to look extra frightening. Voiceover saying “This is how Republicans treat puppies. Imagine if they’re coming for you.” (No puppies or elephants would be hurt or even scared in the making of the ad, so it would have to be staged somehow.)
Okay, so it’s on par with the Demon Sheep ad. But it might be memorable. What the hell. I’m sick of Republicans getting away with stuff that any decent human being could not possibly support because they lie, lie, lie.
danimal
The GOP is now officially beyond parody.
Little Boots
Imagine a whole party built around puppy torture. imagine no longer. just vote.
kdaug
@Little Boots:
Roger that.
Little Boots
@kdaug:
Do you know conservatives? On a personal level? It really is harder and harder to deal with them, even in your own family. They really are such fucking assholes. It’s hard to take.
Chad N Freude
If you read the comments on the “local papers . . .” link, you will learn, among many other disturbing things, that the proposition they are trying/going to overturn was funded by out-of-state interests that wanted to destroy the Missouri dog breeding industry. I am not making this up.
Jeanne ringland
I am sick about this and just about everything else I’ve read in the last two days that the GOP has done.
And right now I’ve had to sign off FB because of the shitstorm a couple of us kicked up when we remarked about how outraged we are by the Redefinition of Rape bill. They’re out in force, full of misinformation and trying to tell us that we shouldn’t believe everything we read on Politico or TPM or etc.
General Stuck
It is getting more obvious by the day. The lizard brain is ever more focused to a single thought. If liberals are for it, or suspected of being for it, it must be destroyed, repealed, and washed clean from the public arena. And no mercy for man’s best friend.
Fax Paladin
@KG:
Watch closely, class. Boot to the head.
Jeanne ringland
@Little Boots: They really aren’t conservatives; it annoys me that they’ve taken that word and redefined it, bastardized it.
Genine
@Chad N Freude:
I know. I read it. Crazy!
Like I said, these state representatives didn’t pop outta thin air.
Jeanne ringland
@Chad N Freude: There was no such outrage in California regarding Prop 8, when Utah was dumping millions into the campaign for it.
Little Boots
@Jeanne ringland:
or the Congressional Record? again, assholes, every single fucking one of them. I WAS a conservative once upon a time. something has happened. the asshole gene has run rampant throughout the population.
Little Boots
@Fax Paladin:
well, maybe a little boot, or two.
Jeanne ringland
@Little Boots: I had to tell one idiot that I had read the bill and only used Politico’s link because it was handy. I’ve known him for years (online), he’s always been a Republican, and he’s gay. He’s generally not an asshole but he defends assholes.
I was a conservative, then I noticed that I was a moderate. Now I’m a raging liberal and pretty damned pissed off.
MikeJ
@Chad N Freude:
That’s a more rational argument than “teh bible gives us dominion over teh animuls and we’re gunna take it!” argument.
Still not good, but better.
asiangrrlMN
@Tom Levenson: But they’ve been this way for as long as I can remember. OK, the veneer is completely stripped off their ugly insides, but this is pretty consistent with what they’ve stood for over the last, say, ten years. I have argued with…not friends, but acquaintances over some of the shit Republicans have done to no avail.
@Genine: And, what you said. The Republicans are who they are. It’s the sizable percent of our population who agrees with them that worries/disgusts/repulses me.
More pitchforks need to be seasoned and rusted, methinks.
Little Boots
@Jeanne ringland:
my path too. I was a moderate, but the goalpost kept moving. so is this guy closeted, or just desperate. gay men have got to stop with this shit. believe me, I know.
kdaug
@Barb (formerly Gex):
This. There are people who can look in those trusting eyes and wagging tail, and reward it with a fist.
It’s a fundamental betrayal. An abuse of the highest order. And pure psychosis.
In my book…
kdaug
@Little Boots: Shit, Boots, I’m in Texas, from a family of Feds.
I work hard to not have contact with conservatives.
Little Boots
@kdaug:
heh, okay you win … or lose.
Loneoak
I don’t have curse words creative enough to express my feelings about this issue.
kdaug
@Little Boots: Gotta keep reminding myself it’s a collective struggle.
It’s why I keep coming here.
Xenos
@Jeanne ringland:
I am going the other way. I have always been a liberal, but over time I am finding that I am more and more conservative. The right wingers have gotten so nutty and radical that I am no longer trying to liberalize society, just trying to stand athwart whatever it is I am supposed to be athwart of, yelling ‘stop’ to all the radicals, nihilists, and lunatics.
Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Violet:
I’d be on board with that. I cruised on over to the Kansas City Star article, and looked at the comments after I read it, and, lo, and behold, if they don’t look to be running about 50-50. One asshole was even whining that he can’t drive around without wearing his seat belt–as if that’s a horrific violation of his rights. I mean, I don’t want to go off on a tangent, though I will here, but, shit, if you don’t want to wear your fucking seat belt, if it’s such an affront, such an indefensible violation, then don’t drive, asshole! It really is that easy: If you don’t want to wear your god-damned seat belt, then sell your car and walk everywhere. Stay out of cars. Problem solved.
Sorry. I just get so fucking pissed off at these fuckheads who don’t have it in them to think about anybody else’s rights at all, ever. Everything–every fucking thing–is about them and their rights. Every fucking minor inconvenience, no matter how small, no matter how forgettable, is an affront that stacks right up with the abuses of King George III.
But any outrage they feel like inflicting on somebody else, whether it’s dogs or Muslims or black Americans or women who’d like to have a happy sex life, well, hey, they’re going to do what they want to do, and you’d just better shut up and quit your un-American, politically correct whining, you weepy losers!
The seat belt guy wrote, among other drivel, this:
And all I can say is, what the fuck? Being against cruelty to animals is now un-American? Laws against abusing dogs is too intrusive? I know that the framers of the Constitution were assholes, some of them. I think a lot of them would have backed this law, the more humane ones, but a lot of them were real dicks; they owned slaves and had a lot of other moral failings. And I don’t doubt that more than a few of them would never have thought twice about putting a few dogs through hell their whole lives if they could make a nice chunk of money on it. So, in this particular case, who gives a fuck what Charles Pinckney of South Carolina might have thought? If he thought this is a bad law, then that would make me think it must be pretty good.
KG
@Loneoak: this is Balloon Juice, I’m sure you can come up with something
Chad N Freude
@Jeanne ringland: I’m not sure what you mean here by “such outrage”. There was significant public outcry about the Mormon funding of Prop 8. The hopelessly dysfunctional CA legislature didn’t do anything because Prop 8 was a Constitutional amendment. They couldn’t overturn it (even if they wanted to).
Chad N Freude
@MikeJ: Well yeah, if by “better” you mean doesn’t rely on an unknowable, being whose existence cannot be established/confirmed/known . . .
Little Boots
@Chad N Freude:
it’s a problem, for most of this country, that’s the clincher.
Hillary Rettig
@Little Boots: “the repulsive conservative id”
I will use that!
Chad N Freude
@Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Re the seat belt thing, if he doesn’t want to wear a seat belt, then he should make his statement by accepting the citations and protesting the fine. That would be a lot more meaningful (and martyrish) than just whining about intrusion on his personal life.
Loneoak
@KG:
Okay, I’ll do my best:
These friggin butt nuggler, elbow licking, fungus infected, cheeto dusted, kitten balled, rectum eaters need to be slowly marinated in fermented parvo-infected puppy shit until open sores develop on their scrotums and cockroaches enter their brains via their deviated septum-having nostrils.
Little Boots
@Loneoak:
an excellent start.
Chad N Freude
@Loneoak: A REAL BJer would have managed to work in “fuck” or one or more words containing it.
ETA: “frig” just doesn’t cut it.
someguy
People who support rapists over their victims are SOBs.
Go Stillers!
Loneoak
@Chad N Freude:
Well, I started with “fuck those fucking fuckers” but that didn’t have enough medical suffering.
Chad N Freude
@Loneoak: OK, just as long as you’re sensitive to the issue.
ETA: I liked the scrotum thing, but it’s kind of sexist dontcha know.
asiangrrlMN
@Chad N Freude: I think she means the conservatives were not outraged when the Mormons dumped a wad of money into the issue. Conservatives only whine about out-of-state funds when it’s convenient to them.
@Chad N Freude: I agree with you on this. Don’t wear the damn seatbelt and get fined for it. If he’s so convinced it’s oppressive for him to be ordered to wear a seatbelt, then don’t fucking wear it!
Chad N Freude
@asiangrrlMN: You betcha. If he really means it, he’d stand up for his principles.
ETA: Nathan Hale and all that. Wait … Nathan who?
asiangrrlMN
@Chad N Freude: Exactly. But, no. Even that tiny bit of rebellion is apparently too much for this guy. He rather just whine about it on the internets.
ETA: Nathan Lane? JAZZ HANDS!
Chad N Freude
@asiangrrlMN: Whining is so much easier than Rebellion.
Chad N Freude
@asiangrrlMN: As much as I like Nathan Lane, as far as I know he hasn’t given his only life for his country.
And we mustn’t forget Good Old Reliable Nathan, Nathan, Nathan, Nathan Detroit. (It helps to have the music playing when you read this.)
Scamp Dog
@Violet: Animation is the way to go. Anybody have a good 3D model of a dog and an elephant I could use?
Little Boots
@Chad N Freude:
Mr Hale … he dead. but only once.
KG
i can sympathize with the seat belt guy. honestly, I think it’s a dumb law, if people want to wear their seat belts, so be it, if they don’t so be it (we could use more organ donors anyway). i feel the same way about helmet laws (both on bikes and motorcycles). but that’s a battle that was lost long ago (and the fact that my car now bitches at me when i don’t wear my seat belt should be solid proof that it was lost).
burnspbesq
These clowns say they’re in favor of private sector solutions.
OK, I have a private sector solution.
Get the AKC involved in setting standards for breeding conditions. Any breeder that doesn’t comply can’t AKC register any pups. AKC registration is so important to people who buy dogs from breeders that it would effectively be comply or go out of business.
Little Boots
@burnspbesq:
that makes sense. That kind of thing really does work.
Chad N Freude
@KG: Sure, as long as the people who don’t wear seat belts or helmets don’t use any police or tax-supported emergency services if they ever have an accident.
asiangrrlMN
@Chad N Freude: I do not know this. Please link. I’m too lazy to YouTube it.
@Chad N Freude: This is true. I do far more of the former than of the latter.
@Little Boots: Winz!
freelancer
OT – DOUG! Blogfight at Balko’s!
We are all “leftists” now.
[FWIW, Radley is in my RSS Feed, and I love what he’s been able to illuminate regarding our broken justice system, but his employment by Reason and his Kochsucking have just been disappointing to read. As someone who, otherwise, has championed the cause of individual liberty against a culture that bends over backwards to worship the militarization of Police, it’s disappointing to see him, now repeatedly, pick a fight with a (relatively) sane group as BJ. I love reading Balko. (I also hate it too, but it’s not his fault that what he reports is depressing.) I think that if any one of us met him, we’d shake his hand and thank him for the work he has done. I also think, that, with regard to Reason and other libertarian hot buttons; valid criticism of one’s ideological position, especially when your funders are called into question, that molehill becomes a mountaintop that you are willing to die on. These are subtle criticisms about friends that have done fantastic things, not enemies that are disregarded without so much as a pregnant pause. Keep writing, Radley. We’ll keep reading. A smidgen of introspection is all we ask, and in return, I promise, we’ll reciprocate. We’re “leftists”, we’d be second-guessing our righteousness whether you piped up or not.
Can I get a high five from all my straight-edge, non-gun owning, extras from Network, Code Pink and Moveon-loving Lefties who are all in the employ of Sockalist Billionaire George Soros? (Wait, how did a Sockalist become a Billionaire? Cause shut up, that’s why! Ow! Okay, jeez. Oh, I forgot to sign my check? It’s made out to “The Peoples’ Front of Judea”, who is that? I’m in the Judean Peoples’ Front.)
asiangrrlMN
@freelancer: I love your last paragraph. That is all. High-five!
Suffern ACE
@KG: In Wisconsin where I grew up, it was lost in 1986, about the same time the drinking age went up to 21 and breathalizers went into use and Rush appeared on Designing Women so that he wouldn’t be so scary. I think “Conservative” simply means “unable to get over it.”
Chad N Freude
@asiangrrlMN: Just for you, Nathan Detroit links:
The most amateurish (but high school cute) one I could find. Skip to about 2:25.
The most professional one I could find. (Sinatra played Nathan Detroit in the film version of Guys and Dolls).
Barb (formerly Gex)
@asiangrrlMN: I’m thinking whiny seatbelt hater has some kind of hands. Sort of like jazz hands. But grosser.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@KG: This is mistakenly thought of as government impinging on individual liberty, but it is actually a government subsidy to the insurance agencies who want to keep costs down. We just pay for the enforcement of their cost savings policies.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@burnspbesq: This isn’t about registered/pedigreed dogs. This is puppy mill, mass produce pups that look pedigreed for pet store sale. I think you are snarking your response, right? In that case you channeled the free-market religious fanatic perfectly. A glib answer with an obvious flaw.
burnspbesq
@freelancer:
Oddly, the very polite comment that I left at Balko’s place went into moderation. He seems to be rather thin-skinned. As is Greenwald. What is it about Self-Anointed Guardians of Our Civil Liberties?
Chad N Freude
@Barb (formerly Gex): In this case, not really a bad thing. See my comment at @Chad N Freude.
ETA: Of course, you may disagree, in which case I go all Republican/Tea Party and shout STFU.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Chad N Freude: Oh agreed. I think KG is a self identified libertarian though, so I thought I would point this out. As has been thoroughly discussed on this blog, that kind of difference usually makes a difference in whether or not an individual liberty impingement matters to libertarians. (Not saying I am right that KG is a libertarian or that he is that kind of libertarian.)
burnspbesq
One last thing before I call it a night.
Fear the Turtle?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA.
freelancer
@burnspbesq:
I don’t know if it’s thin-skinned or not. That designation is like being called racist or what constitutes porn. I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it. I just think it’s kind of goofy that he objects to the direct power of an over-hormonal SWAT unit, and we see video of things that upset EVERYONE, but then he turns a blind eye to the empirically proven link between the super-rich Randian Kochs, their political activism, and what they desire, and their need to force the country’s elections to be entirely lopsided in favor of who can afford the most media buys.
If money equals speech, and the Rich champion the party in their pocket, then there can never be a two-party system, much less, a functioning democracy.
asiangrrlMN
@Barb (formerly Gex): SNORT!
@Chad N Freude: You killed my internets and my desktop. I am reporting now from my laptop. This is JUST like protesting for my freedom…from having to wear seatbelts.
Darkrose
@Jeanne ringland:
All of these things cannot be true.
Triassic Sands
A job kicking a puppy is still a job. So far, this is just about the only job legislation I’ve heard of coming from Wingers. I guess they figured they had to do something.
You should be careful about separating Republicans from puppy mill operators — I’m sure they’re the same. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the Missouri legislators don’t run puppy mills — it’s the kind of sleazy, creepy work one expects from Republican state legislators.
Jeanne ringland
@Little Boots: His partner is a liberal, the two of them sounded like Mark and his SO in the Doonesbury strip. He’s a funny guy when he’s not defending the assholery.
I’m pretty sure he’s out and I do not understand his blindness.
Jeanne ringland
@Chad N Freude: From the right. From the type of people who are screaming about out-of-state funding in Missouri, but in California.
I know that there was an outcry, I was among the noisemakers.
Jeanne ringland
@Loneoak: Elbow licking? Sir, you go too far.
Jeanne ringland
@asiangrrlMN: Thank you. Amen.
Ruckus
You’d think after a while we’d run out of reasons to think of them as assholes. But then they open their mouths and give us another. It’s the gift we could all surly do without.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Ruckus: I find it is those gifts that make me surly. ;-)
Dennis G.
@Jeanne ringland:
True dat!
JasonF
Thought experiment: imagine a proposition passes by referendum and then the Democrats in the state legislature attempt to overturn that referendum. What’s the over-under on the number of hours that Limbaugh, Fox News, and the like devote to railing against the Democratic assault on democracy? I say 100 hours.
satby
The AKC thing won’t work for another reason; puppy mills are where all the not a breed “puggles”, “labradoodles”, etc are coming from. “Designer dogs” Mutts that sound like some sort of pedigree, and sold for a very hefty price.
WereBear
There’s a book that describes exactly that, Republican Gomorrah.
If only they would all get therapy. Honestly.
@Barb (formerly Gex): Sadly, no. Those pet store mutants get papers, too.
The AKC should be far more proactive. But they just keep processing the paperwork, and taking the fees.
Oh, and ruining the German Shepherd breed. But I suspect that’s just a hobby.
WereBear
@satby: I do have to say that New Breeds are not necessarily a bad thing; for hundreds of years, we had dogs to bring down poachers and hunt elk and guard the moat.
We don’t need that anymore; and these dogs have a hard time finding good homes.
Karen S.
@Chad N Freude:
I agree wholeheartedly. Back when I worked as a reporter for a weekly community paper in suburban Chicago, the town I covered passed an ordinance mandating seat-belt use. One guy (probably in his mid- to late-50s then) showed up at every village board and committee meeting to rant about how this was an intrusion on his individual civil rights, etc. He wrote angry screeds about it in letters to the editor of our paper and other local papers. So when the village board finally approved the ordinance, I and the other reporters covering the town asked him if he was going to not wear his seat belt as a sort of protest of something he so strongly disagreed with. He seemed flustered at first, then hemmed and hawed until he at last he puffed out his chest and said that no, he wouldn’t because he was a law-abiding citizen. He seemed smug about what he considered his virtuousness.
We all quoted him in our stories. He never wrote another word to any of the papers about the ordinance. Jackass.
Nicole
The AKC thing also wouldn’t work because they opposed Prop B.
Jay C
I was going to bring up a point here, as to what, exactly, the objections at stake are/were in fighting the Missouri Prop. B regulations – other than the obvious: general right-wing bitching about “regulations”; or that puppy-mill mass-breeders were just generally pissed off that something, anything, might restrict their possible profits; and of course, getting Republicans to back them up…
But then I saw this bit at the bottom:
Am I reading this correctly: are they trying not just to change these regs, but to paint themselves as some sort of “victims”??
WTF is the matter with this country?
Paul in KY
@Loneoak: Those smegma encrusted, dirty sanchez lovin, inbred, not-worth-killin, loser fuckwad dillhole cretins. Also.
Does that meet Ballon Juice standards?
KG
@Barb (formerly Gex): yes, I am self identified as a libertarian, though more Hamiltonian than Jeffersonian. seat belt laws aren’t exactly high on my list of priorities, or even on my list of priorities at all, like I said, I just think it’s a dumb law (something you should do, but shouldn’t be a law)
ruemara
@Scamp Dog:
Poser 7 or 8 should have them standard. In fact, version 4 on up has them. Plus. Content Paradise or Renderosity.