This Space for Rent

The B*sh junta has outdone itself

Since they had to withdraw bagman #2's nomination to the Supreme Court because it turned out that she has a vagina, and that's the one compromise the American Taliban will not accept, the new bagman (#3 in a series! collect them all!) was, apparently, chosen for the extraordinary repugnance of his (yes! he's got a penis! Leon Kass would be proud) views.

Sure, you can take the "will vote to repeal Roe v. Wade" as a given, but bagman #3 brings many many more charming qualifications to the table:

  1. There is no categorical 'harassment exception' to the First Amendment's free speech clause. (This in response to a case where a police officer was being regularly harrassed and assaulted by a superior, so not only is harrassment okay, but harrassment by the government is particularly approved of.)

    This decision is reinforced by another one where, in regards to a case where female students where physically and sexually assaulted in class, he stated that the students could not sue because the state has no responsibility to "care for them".

  2. A complete and utter ignorance of human biology. (In a case about the Family and Medical Leave Act, he claimed that a state's refusal to provide family leave has no greater impact on women than on men, seemingly ignoring the teeny detail that humans are mammals, and there are a couple of things that a woman does during and after childbirth that are fairly difficult to work around. [breastfeeding can be worked imperfectly around, at, possibly, some risk to the newborn, but the physical act of giving birth, either via the traditional routine of passing a seven pound human being through your vagina or the modern American routine of being cut open and having the baby removed surgically, is likely to put a crimp in a woman's everyday routine for a few days or weeks.])
  3. And, don't forget, since women don't have penises, they need to get the permission of someone with a penis before they can have abortions. If you're a kid, daddy's penis must say okay, but if you're married, your new owner has to sign off on the proceedings before you can get an abortion.
  4. And, to one-up bagman #1's argument that, gosh, it might be horrible that the (Washington, DC) Metro police can handcuff and drag off a 12-year old for eating french fries in a subway station, but the law is the law, bagman #3 is willing to defend strip-searching a 10 year old girl because she was found in the house of someone who had a search warrant against them.

But, to look on the bright side, he's not just a fascist, he's a fascist who has figured out that guns are useless against the state, and so he's happy to give cover to the NRA by arguing that everyone should be able to possess machine guns. You know, to defend themselves. Against the federal government. The same Federal government that the NRA continued to support after the Patriot Act was enacted.

Yes, this one is a true winner. He's the sort of fascist that bagman #1 can only dream of being.