NaPo...Just kidding, April's person who should at least be locked up.

That's right!

It's not a poem!
It is
  Yet another
Political piece
To pick up the pieces
Of shattered news stories.

Fuck, sorry, I've been writing in short lines so much I'm starting to forget how to do prose.  Anyway, so I really wanted to do this fuckface today:

But then I realized I don't care about him.

I decided I'd go a bit more small-fry with this one.  Because I feel like this asshole hasn't gotten the spotlight of criticism shined on him enough.  He comes from the great state of Arizona, well known as a haven of tolerance and respect...so long as you are not brown.

Representative John Kavanagh from Arizona's 8th district.  Note, that's Arizona House of Representatives, not the Federal House.  The Representative in the Federal House is one Gabrielle Giffords.  Yes, it is strange that a left-leaning district elects this wackjob for state legislature.  But I guess every district has its white-washed suburbs.

Anyway, Rep Kavanagh is known for being one of the leaders in the anti-immigrant streak of legislation that's been washing over Arizona like a tidal wave of racism.  He is leading the charge on a bill that would require one parent of a child being given birthright citizenship to be a permanent citizen.  Of course, this requires an overhaul of the 14th Amendment, but people like Rep Kavanagh won't let something like the bill of rights get in the way of progress!

That's right, Kavanagh is tough on immigration.  He was one of the sponsors of SB 1070, better known as "it's okay to harass citizens so long as they're brown" law.  And let me tell you, SB 1070 has really helped Arizona's economy.  Not to mention struck the fear of god into those terrible, evil illegals, who contribute nothing to the country.  Except, you know $11.2 billion in taxes.

The thing that turned me on to Kavanagh is this whole fiasco.  Rep Kavanagh felt that more important that Arizona's 10% drop in tax revenue and 7.4% unemployment rate were not as important as scrubbing a Sikh man's name from the 9/11 memorial in Phoenix.

The man? Singh Sodi,who was gunned down four days after 9/11 by a man who said to police that he was lashing out at Arabs after watching the twin towers fall.  Apparently, the shooter's only knowledge of Arabs came from watching Aladdin, because he took Mr. Sodi's turban as an indication that he was Arab and not, you know, a completely unrelated ethnic group.  Not that this is surprising.  Islamophobes tend not to be the brightest crayons in the box.

Apparently, Kavanagh had used something called the "internet" for a few minutes and found that it was "unclear" that Mr. Sodi's death had anything to do with 9/11.  Based on these findings, he suggested taking Sodi's name off the memorial.  I'm just surprised Kavanagh didn't follow that up by saying "Also, I found out that 9/11 was an inside job.  Probably Mexicans."

Kavanagh did finally meet with Sodi's family and apologize for introducing the bill, saying he "misunderstood the case".  Just like Sodi's murderer misunderstood that Sodi wasn't Arab.  Not to mention misunderstood that his actions were anything but idiotic and violent.

Yet.  Sodi's murderer is in prison.  I think, for consistency's sake, it might be worth tossing Kavanagh in there for a few years.  Maybe scrub his name from a few political positions.

But that won't happen.  With the amount of money he's made for the correctional institutes, they'd probably build him a separate luxury penthouse to serve his sentence.

A pity.  In any case, Representative Kavanagh, you should (at least) be put in prison.

People that should be (at least) locked up for March

I was gonna do Ann Coulter.  Because she says stupid shit.  But that's not new.  It's come to a point with her where just seeing her face triggers this sort of Pavlovian reaction in me where I just want to punch a journalist.  Not because I have any anger towards journalism (I do), but because it would sort of be like striking back at the media for bringing a creature like her to my attention.

No, I think this guy deserves this more:

 No, not the guy holding the assault weapon.  The guy pressing his old man teats against him.  That's right, Representative Peter King.  He's become notorious not for doing anything helpful for his constituents, but for doing active harm to the general public.  Which makes him a damn good Republican.

Not only does he look like the villain from some Batman movie, he's also the biggest hypocrite we've had in the news for a long time.  He's dusted off the mantle of McCarthyism and decided to bring American Muslims to trial for un-American activities.  So it's not even an ORIGINAL bit of insanity.  His concern is that Muslims aren't doing enough to combat extremism and terrorism.

The rules he applies to Muslims, of course, do not apply to him.  Peter King has strong affiliations with the Irish Republican Army.  The same IRA that injured 212 innocent people the bombing of a city centre in 1996.  He has close ties to Sinn Féine, the political arm of the IRA that has been classified as a terrorist organization by the US.

But, you know, he's right.  The IRA never attacked America.  I mean, they may have killed an American, but he was out-of-country, which makes his loyalties suspect!

So, in conclusion, Peter King is saying that terrorism is okay, unless you're Muslim.

Representative Peter King, the fact that you can breathe with your head that far up your ass boggles my mind.  The creaminess of your Irish nationalism mixed with the hard sound of your outright racism dropped into a half pint of stout political power is an explosively terrible combination that will get us all wasted.

Man, that was some delicious metaphor.

Representative King you should, at least, be in jail.

People who should (at least) be locked up for February

So it's an exciting time for me.  I'm going to be featuring at Bloombars (my first) at the end of March.  And the Semi-Finals for the Beltway poetry slam are coming up at the end of April.

Probably most important, though, I'm waiting on my Yelp Elite badge.  That's right.  Soon my opinion will matter.

But amidst all this excitement and restaurant-reviewing, you'd think I might pass over an opportunity to foam at the mouth about the idiot du jour of February.  Not so.  I give you, the man who should be at the very least locked up for February:

Governor Scott Walker.

Oh man.  Where to begin with this guy.  Let's do the usual Wikipedia him and find out exactly how pathetic his life is.  Governor Walker, a straight-C drop-out at a college ranked 75th in the country, has always been political.  Back when he was a sophomore, he ran for President of the Student Council.  Not only has Governor Walker always been political, he's always been a scumbag.  He was berated by the school newspaper for campaign violations and mud-slinging.  That's right.  Mud-slinging.  In a fucking student government campaign.

And now he's continuing the proud tradition of conservative politicians by proposing blatant attacks on workers' rights under the guise of the mythical "balancing of the budget".  Nevermind the fact that our debt is mostly due to the actions of Republican presidents.  Or that Republican-backed tax cuts contribute a great deal more to our debt than any of our economic woes.  Or that the Republicans can't even manage their Committee budget effectively.


No.  Republicans are the champions of fiscal responsibility.  Just like Rush Limbaugh is the champion of moderation.  And vodka is the champion of sobriety.


So anyway, Governor Walker's plan is to have teachers, who make around 50k average, take pay cuts and have their unions give up collective bargaining rights.  Meanwhile, he signed a tax cut bill of over $1 million for businesses in Wisconsin.  So that makes sense.


Of course, what's the point of attacking businesses? It's much better we attack the real criminals: Underpaid educators and those evil unions taking advantage of things like free speech and rights to equality.  Or, "wasteful" in the words of Gov. Walker.


But even though Gov. Walker thinks unions are wasteful and should be cut down, this is really all about the budget.  Yep.  Unless you happen to call Walker's office pretending to be Republican industrialist David Koch.  Then he's pretty open (and explicit) on his feelings towards unions.  


Now, Gov. Walker squeezing workers and feeding the pulp to businesses is nothing special.  The unions are in a revolt and in all likelihood, this will blow over, Walker will have lost all support of the people and he'll sit in office the rest of his days collecting on the deals he's made with other, real industrialists.


But THIS is scary.  That there are actually people who DEFEND what Walker is doing.  That people actually think that 50k is TOO MUCH to pay a teacher and that unions really are a bunch of fat cats.  This whole accusing the opposition of PRECISELY what you are doing is sickening.  And it seems like it's actually gaining traction by disguising itself as fiscal responsibility.  I'm sorry, a fiscal conservative is still a conservative and is still responsible for travesties like this.


So anyway.  It won't work and people like Gov. Walker, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Ohio Gov. John Kaisch are tempting fate by pulling this kind of bullshit in the time of Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions.  Just because we're an ocean away doesn't mean we don't hear the call.


So, Governor Walker, stand firm all you want.  It just means you'll be that far behind when we move on.  Maybe if you finished your degree, you'd know history better.  But for now, you should be (at least) locked up.

People who should (at least) be locked up for January

This is early! I know! So exciting! But it's mainly because I realized there's very little chance there's going to be someone who's more of a waste of space this month.  She's always been a close contender, but the assassination attempt this weekend catapulted her to the absolute top of the should definitely be in prison list.

That's right.  It's your favorite:

Yeah.  I know it's a fake picture.  But goddamn, it's so appropriate.

Sarah Palin isn't new to doing things that make her deserve some amount of prison time.  During her run as a primary reason not to vote for McCain, there was an investigation into whether Palin dismissed a law enforcement official because he didn't fire her sister's husband.  The findings were that Palin had abused power, giving us a little taste of the respect for authority typical of Ms. Palin.

The real problem with Sarah Palin isn't what she says, it's just a weird slurry of patriotic exhortations, like if you put Reagan in a blender.  The problem is who she says it TO.  Case in point, this is a typical Palin supporter:

*shudder* Anyone who voluntarily wears a shirt like that doesn't deserve the vote.  But Palin's supporters also include people like this:

Yes, that's the guy that had a gun at the Obama rally back in 2008.  And another Palin supporter.  And another.  And Sarah Palin, knowing that she has a pretty strong appeal to people with lots of guns and itchy fingers, published this on her website:

(The arrow is my addition.  Better version of this here.)

Now, whether or not the shooter was a supporter of Palin is unclear.  But the fact is Palin had a map with CROSSHAIRS on it targeting someone who, a little while later, was shot.  Not to mention pretty soon after this map was put up, Giffords office had been vandalized.

Of course, Palin sent her condolences, took down the map and scrubbed mentions of Giffords from the site.  But that doesn't make up for how irresponsible Palin has been and how the media has let her get away with what is, at best, lies, at worst, inciting violence.  Now people are dead, and I have a hard time believing that the GOP's runaway rhetoric had nothing to do with it.

Even the GOP's recognized the issue.  Though, to be fair, the Senator calling for a toning down the rhetoric refused to be named.  I mean, after all, he has his career to think about.  Who knows whether he'll need the racist lunatic vote.

So in the end: Ms. Palin, you are a nobody.  You are a housewife beauty queen dimwit from Idaho.  Your stupidity only hurt the small town you quit when the going got tough, but now you are a national figure.  If you are incapable of taking some responsibility for what you say and do, maybe you should just shut up.  And if you don't have the sense to do that, hopefully we'll someday find you in prison.

Condolences to the families of the victims in Tucson and best wishes for Representative Giffords' recovery.  Hopefully there's a lesson about the human impact of rhetoric in all this.

UPDATE:

So Sarah Palin's idiot hole opened again.  A few choice bits from her statement (You don't have to read it, it's a lot of the same shit she always says mixed with a few outlandishly ridiculous and somewhat dangerous statements).

1. "But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn"

Blood libel, by the way, is the lie that some religious minority (usually Jews) murders children to use their blood in ceremonies.  Obviously, Palin has no idea what the word means.  I want someone to ask her if she knows what the Holocaust was.

2.  "Founding Fathers knew they weren't designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government."

You know what I love? When someone in the wrong uses human nature to defend their wrongness.  Yes, I cheated on my wife, ran over a priest and torched a busload of orphans, but, y'know, humans are flawed.  Screw you, Palin.  The only flaw in this situation is YOU.

3.  "Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not...with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle..."

What kind of idiot things that criminals spring out of no where for no reason? I'll give you a hint.  It's the same kind of idiot that thinks BOTH sides of the isle used a map with CROSSHAIRS ON IT to indicate people that should be taken out of power.  It's also the same kind of idiot that thinks her half-wit housewife opinions are worthwhile.