Birthers Now Hate America, Apparently

Federal judge David O. Carter just threw out the latest birther claim that our current president wasn't born in the United States, therefore, is not eligible to be president. The judge's ruling included a statement declaring that the "plaintiffs were trying to persuade him to 'disregard the constitutional procedures in place for the removal of a sitting president.'"

"'The process for removal of a sitting president - removal for any reason - is within the province of Congress, not the courts,' the ruling said."

The judge laid it out in very clear language; if you have a problem with the current president, take it up with Congress. If you insist on going through the legal system, you are not working within our legal system, as established by the Constitution. It has been nearly a year since the election, and the birthers have spent the last twelve months trying every plea imaginable to get us all to believe his election wasn't valid. The system has thwarted every attempt thus far, and with every defeat, they come back with stronger and stronger rhetoric.

Now, I have a pre-emptive argument against what is sure to be their next volley of insanity. They're going to come out and tell us that the judge is part of this left-wing conspiracy to keep his identity a secret. They're going to say they can't get justice in the courts.

I say, "If they have no interest in following the guidelines of the Constitution, they simply hate America."

I know that accusation gets thrown around a lot, but if birthers can't get behind following the Constitution, what exactly is it they think they're defending? The president doesn't even take an oath to the country, he takes an oath of allegiance to the Constitution. If they truly think Barack Obama was born in Kenya, they need to work within the system. They need to start supporting Republican candidates, and pray a Republican majority will go along with their insane scheme to get rid of the president. If they insist on playing the victims and complaining about the inequities in the legal system, maybe they should start investigating what it really is they're defending.

This is all part of living in the Republic they say they love so much. Sometimes the other guy wins, and if they don't like it, they should wait four years and vote for someone else, like the rest of us.

The Men Who Would Be King (even Leslie King)

Part 10 of 12: JFK to Ford

Old school Vice Presidents, like Tyler, Fillmore, Johnson, and Arthur, were, let’s be honest, shitty presidents. In the 1800’s, no one cared. Presidents didn’t do much back then, and VP’s were just put on the ballot by the party to balance the ticket. After WWII, we had this nagging Cold War, so suddenly the people demanded a VP who was actually competent.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Senator, Democrat) 1961-1963 (assassinated) VP: Lyndon Johnson; FL: wife Jaqueline

Historians have started downgrading this old fornicator’s god-like status to something a lot more average. His appeal had a lot more to do with his image than his actions. In his short time, he handled the crises before him deftly, but he didn’t accomplish anything overly groundbreaking, and based on his record, he wasn’t on his way to accomplishing much more. He did, however, start a grand modern tradition of the young, inexperienced candidate raising the grandeur of his ticket by attaching himself to a long-time Washington insider.

Lyndon Baines Johnson (VP, Democrat) 1963-1969 (inherited then elected) VP: Hubert Humphrey; FL: wife Lynda “Lady” Bird

For all the flack he gets as flower children’s enemy #1, LBJ was the fucking man. He was the McKinley of his time. He knew every inch of Washington and as president, he furthered Kennedy’s agenda better than Kennedy ever could. He morphed the New Deal into the Great Society, highlighted by the Civil Rights Act. Then Vietnam happened, which was arguably Kennedy’s fault, and the honeymoon promptly ended.

Richard Milhouse Nixon (VP, Republican) 1969-1974 (re-elected, resigned) VP: Spiro Agnew, Gerald Ford; FL: wife Pat

Unfortunately, Johnson was so widely hated, the American people actually turned to Richard fucking Nixon to save them from him. Back when he was Eisenhower’s VP, he was a young buck, ready to take on Washington. By 1968, he had morphed into Tricky Dick, ready to take the presidency back for the Republican Party, who by the way turned on him when he lost to Kennedy 8 years earlier. His accomplishments don’t fucking matter because he destroyed the office of the president forever.

Leslie Lynch “Gerald Rudolph Ford” King, Jr. (VP, Republican) 1974-1977 (never elected) VP: Nelson Rockefeller; FL: wife Betty

In 1967, the 25th Amendment finally established clear guidelines for passing power to the VP. The Amendment covered presidential incapacitation and resignation, but also the procedure for filling a vacancy in the VP’s office. Just 6 years later, the Amendment was used 3 times in less than a year: replacing the resigned Spiro Agnew with Ford, replacing the resigned Nixon with Ford, and filling Ford’s empty VP office with Nelson Rockefeller. I’m only focusing on cool historical precedent because Ford himself didn’t do much worth giving a crap about.

Next Up – Carter to H.W. Bush: The Donkey Party is Over

Why Saw VI is Better Than District 9

HEAVY SPOILER ALERT

I hated District 9. That was just a mindless action movie. The message didn't grow organically from the characters, the filmmakers just slathered Apartheid onto a popcorn flick to trick us into thinking it had some meat to it. I've said it before and I'll say it again; District 9 is what stupid people think a smart movie is.

The Saw movies succeed where District 9 failed by making sure they earn the preaching. Jigsaw tortures people to get them to appreciate their lives. That's what the movies are about. This is by no means a practical method of problem solving. The real-life application, though, is making the audience wonder how much of life we'd take for granted if we ever actually had to face our own mortality. Being such an amoral person somehow makes Jigsaw's constant preaching digestible. He's no authority on right and wrong, and I think he judges most people too harshly. These movies won't change lives, but they get horror audiences thinking.

Saw VI takes on the health insurance industry. Jigsaw died of cancer, so naturally, on the top of the list of assholes that let him die is William, the health insurance corporation executive who denied his claim for treatment. Jigsaw's revenge is personal, and by extension, we can all feel the satisfaction of watching this guy get what's coming to him. I'm not, however, talking about cuts, gashes, crushings, and [not going to give away the ending], I'm talking about William having to learn what it really means to decide who lives and who dies. In his every day life, William decides, based on a simple formula, who's worthy of life-saving treatment, and who's not. Jigsaw puts William in situation after situation where he has to choose to save a life by ending another. It's no different than applying his formula, but in the same way Jigsaw's torture makes his victims appreciate life, this game makes William see that what he does every day he goes into work is sentence people to die horrible deaths. I left Saw VI hoping that it becomes mandatory viewing at health insurance companies. Maybe it wouldn't be so easy to deny someone coverage if they felt viscerally what that denial means.

The difference between Saw VI, which has already been critically panned, and District 9, which critics raved over, is that Saw VI earns the morality lesson. The filmmakers realize they're making a torture porn horror flick about our current health care debate, so they make the effort to make sure the movie supports the weight of the message, and they actually carry the message through to the end. District 9, however, globs on genocide like icing. They throw aliens into Apartheid without ever actually talking about Apartheid. For those of you that said District 9 would have been bogged down had they actually dealt with the societal issues it purported to be about, go watch Saw VI and learn how a dumb movie can deal with smart subject matter without betraying itself.

Thank God For Downtown Glendale

I had an hour to kill and decided to deposit my check. There was no one in line because it's Thursday, so I decided to ask if he had any dollar coins. They had a Quincy Adams.

I left the bank, only to find Downtown Glendale has like a thousand banks: Cal National, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, HSBC, and a bunch of credit unions.

Long story short, I'm now up to date on dollar coins, until Zachary Taylor comes out in November.