Archive for Alabama
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
NBC: Vice President Joe Biden speaks in Alabama at the annual commemoration of the Selma to Montgomery bridge march of 1965.
“We saw in stark relief the rank hatred, discrimination, violence that still existed in large swaths of the nation.”
“What all of you did that day, and the next, and the next, and the next, allowed America to… begin to see the potential that actually existed maybe, maybe for the first time.”
“What happened at the bridge generated a lesson that was absolutely clear… it was palpable… There’s courage to stand up to moral imperatives of the day… saying the right thing… But there’s a different kind of courage standing and looking at somebody who has a club in his hand, and you KNOW… The courage to look evil in the eye.“
“… Believing that although the cost had been high, victory was inevitable.”
“We owe Jesse Jackson… We owe John Lewis, and so many more. We owe all of you a debt that we can never be fully repaid.”
“I wonder how many people remember what the fight was about… But today you say… it was about the right to vote, nothing else. Just the right to vote. It wasn’t about the right to go to ‘somebody’s school’… Most everybody already thought by ’65 [the right to vote] was pretty settled.”
“You walked out of the doors of the… church… that’s why, in spite of the certain knowledge that you’d get beaten, you stepped your foot on that bridge and defied and ultimately defeated those voices of prejudice. That’s why you did it. Because you know and every American knows… that without the right to vote, there’s no right guaranteed, and you can’t count on anyone else voting your interests. YOU gotta vote your interests.“
“You broke the back of the forces of evil. …. That march didn’t end in Montgomery. You know it continues today.“
“Never did I think 40 years earlier that I’d be standing on that platform [with Pres. Obama]. Things have changed, they’ve gotten better, but folks, there’s still a lot more.”
“In 2011-12, we were preparing to run for re-election. 40-41 states passed 180 laws to restrict the right to vote. 180 laws. Some more pernicious than others. We saw it with state legislators working to end same day registration, cutting back early voting, requiring voter ID where no fraud was ever shown, restricting voters registration drives… Here we are, 48 years after all you did, and we’re still fighting? In 2011, ’12, and ’13? We were able to beat back most of those attempts, but that doesn’t mean it’s over.”
“Strom Thurmond voted for re-authorization, and yet it’s being challenged in the Supreme Court of the U.S. as we stand here today. Legislators in a number of states are looking for new ways to restrict and make more difficult for African Americans and other minorities to vote.“
“Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act… We can’t let our guard down.”
“Here’s what John said [at the National Democratic Convention]… He said, “They’re changing the rules. They’re cutting polling hours and imposing requirements intended to suppress the vote. Too many people struggled,” he went on to say, “And die to make it possible for every American to exercise their right to vote. We have come too far together to turn back.”
Please watch all the way to the end.
There goes that whole GOP personhood meme… unless, of course, Alabama state Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin thinks an organ should have the right to vote, own a gun, and carry misspelled signs calling President Obama a gay Marxist commie Kenyan. I can see the protests now: Organs’ rights! Organs’ rights! Or as Texans would scrawl, ograns’:
When asked why she would vote to limit the ability for women in Alabama to get abortions, McClurkin gave an answer that’s left more than a few people confused:
“When a physician removes a child from a woman, that is the largest organ in a body,” McClurkin said in an interview Thursday. “That’s a big thing. That’s a big surgery. You don’t have any other organs in your body that are bigger than that.“
One, it’s not a child, it’s a fetus.
And two, as BuzzFeed notes, not only is McClurkin physiologically confused (and sadly-yet-comically ignorant), she also failed to realize that the average human liver is larger than the average 20-week-old fetus. And that human skin is an organ, our largest organ, another organ that’s larger than a fetus… which is not an organ.
2 a : a differentiated structure (as a heart, kidney, leaf, or stem) consisting of cells and tissues and performing some specific function in an organism
b : bodily parts performing a function or cooperating in an activity <the eyes and related structures that make up the visual organs>
If a fetus were an organ (I just had a momentary mental image of Barbara Walters asking a celebrity, “If you were an organ, what kind of organ would you be?”), there should be no objection by pro-forced-birthers to removal, unless of course, they are also opposed to life-saving medical procedures.
Which many who are anti-abortion under any circumstances are.
It’s becoming clearer than ever that when the Republicans expressed a desire to reinvent themselves, they meant morphing into something even stupider than Bobby Jindal imagined.
H/t: @samuelpeepses
Bill Johnson, who ran for Alabama governor as a conservative, anti-gay marriage Christian, is fixated on babies he has biologically fathered. He donates sperm primarily to lesbian couples unable to have their own children.
So it’s okay for Teh Gay to raise kids– by him– as long as they don’t marry each other. Got it.
He and his wife cannot have children, and the desire to father a child was “a need that I have.”
Kathy Johnson said, “He is obsessed with this. He doesn’t want to stop… He wants me to move over there. He’s not coming back… He told me he is not going to stop… I said ‘what about your commitment to your wife.’ He walked out.”
Yes, that’s right. He left his wife and family “to be with babies he secretly conceived as a sperm donor in New Zealand.” His, erm, generosity extended to at least ten women.
Johnson began donating sperm after arriving in Christchurch in 2011 to work on earthquake recovery. He created an online persona “chchbill” on unofficial websites for those seeking sperm donors. Some women later claimed he misled them about his background and the number of partners that he impregnated, raising concerns among New Zealand fertility specialists.
“He doesn’t really know how many pregnancies there are out there. Some women were so angry they didn’t want to talk to him again,” she said.
This is taking that whole “pro-life” thing a little far, don’t you think?
H/t: Taegan
Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash at Truthout, via my pal Mark Karlin:
On the other hand, isn’t it of significance to discover that “new data from Public Policy Polling …shows that 52 percent of Mississippi Republican believe President Obama is a Muslim (a comparatively slight 45 percent of Alabama GOP voters agreed with them)”? In addition the poll shows some further disarming responses: 66 percent of likely Mississippi Republican voters don’t believe in evolution; 60 percent of Alabama GOP followers share that opinion. Oh, and 67 percent of likely Alabama Grand Old Party voters believe that the state’s xenophobic and harsh anti-Mexican “immigration law” is a “good thing.”
When you add these and other poll responses together, you realize that a large portion of the Southern Republican voting base that is living in the dark ages. The much-commented upon belief that Obama is a Muslim is just the most sensational of poll revelations, because it is so contrary to a verifiable fact.
What you have here is a profile of a segment of the US population that is somewhat akin to a religious cult with a deep fear of anyone who doesn’t look and talk like they do. [...]
[T]his “backwards in time” outlook currently has a stranglehold on the United States through Republican control of the House of Representatives. Furthermore, the US Senate Republican caucus frequently appeals to this base and stifles progress through the threat of filibusters. Not to mention that the GOP field of presidential candidates heavily leans in the direction of this minority of voters living in a bubble.
Please read the whole post here.
Commenters: We have guidelines for comments. Please read them here. Thanks!
The Political Carnival T-Shirt
Modeled by @suzannegypsy
Suzanne Kulperger
Please donate to The Political Carnival
using the Paypal 'Donate' button below.
Have you watched
a Blunt today?
Would you like to donate to The Political Carnival monthly? You can on our Support TPC page.
Laffy
Paddy
ThePoliticalCarnival
LWDGrfx
Lt. Col Barry Wingard is the lawyer for Gitmo detainee Fayiz Al-Kandari. For their ongoing story + related topics, please click on the link below:
Kuwaiti Citizen Detained at Guantanamo since 2002
Translate The Political Carnival via Google
TPC RSS Posts Feed
TPC Comments Feed
Subscribe to The Political Carnival Newsfeed via Wikio
The Political Carnival is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
Photographs on The Political Carnival site (please read):
Photographs from other sources sometimes appear on TPC for humorous or illustrative purposes. As it is not our intention to use these images in any inappropriate manner or to infringe upon any rights held by others, anyone holding legal rights in the use of these images who wishes to have them taken down please contact us immediately requesting such removal, with which we will comply promptly.
Copyright © 2008 - 2013 All Rights Reserved
