Ones and Zeros

State Senator Mike Bennett (R) of Florida was caught by a TV camera looking at pictures of women in bikinis. His explanation that it was email that was sent to him is a bit suspect - the window showing on his screen looks more like a browser window.

The bad news for Sen. Bennett is he’ll have to deal with this.  The good news for the rest of us is that we found a GOP politician who’s in trouble for straight, heterosexual things.  Not lesbian bondage, closeted gays, or bathroom encounters. It’s almost refreshing!

The old adage is that conservatives are caught in money scandals and liberals are caught in sex scandals.  Looks like the conservatives have widened their base.

The big word this year seems to be bipartisan.  Am I the only one who’s not concerned with this?  I want the right policies to do the right things to solve our country’s problems without creating new problems a couple years from now.  This isn’t bipartisan, this is thoughtful and realistic thinking with all the best knowledge and information we have on the subject.

Bipartisan is figuring out how to satisfy all the extremists, no matter how unfounded, illogical, crazy, and unscientific their opinions are.  I don’t care about that

I know we always won’t get it right, our information isn’t - can’t - be accurate enough for that.  There’s just too many variables.  But trying to please every nutjob in the country and on the radio and cable channels is not only a thankless job, but an impossible one.  Focus on “correct”, that’s hard enough.

Just a comment on Virginia.  We now have Bob McDonnell as governor who’s celebrating the Confederacy for the whole month of April (one day wouldn’t do!) while trying to avoid the messy issue that the Confederacy was formed to fight FOR slavery.  What strange worldview and mindset is this guy from when he thinks this sort of racist behavior is appropriate?

Either he’s very ignorant of a key part of our country’s and our state’s history, or he’s a racist and liar.  In either case he’s not fit to be govenor.

And then there’s the Virginia Attorney General.  He’s planning to sue the US government about health care reform.  Health care reform is supported by the majority of Americans in poll after poll.  The Virginia demographics are reasonably representative of the country and it’s reasonable to assume that the national polls on health care reform are mirrored in the state.  So Ken Cuccinelli is subverting the will of the people that he represents in suing the federal government.

Cuccinelli and McDonnell are also using the state government to rescind and rollback protections for gays.  That’s what they started with when they got into office.

So in a few short years Virginia has gone from an up and coming cosmopolitan state to a racist southern holdout fighting against it’s own best interests.

But then these sorts of things happen:

 A Wisconsin district attorney is urging schools to drop their sex-education programs, warning that the teachers involved could be arrested if they follow a new state law requiring them to instruct students on how to use condoms and other contraceptives….

So teachers who have a significant level of responsibility and who are often underpaid and dumped on, are now possibly subject to legal action of a type that could end their career.  And what for?  For following the state law that the Wisconsin DA is sworn to uphold.

The DA Scott Southworth considers the law a “sick and shameful piece of legislation” that encourages illegal sex among minors.  So he’s taking it out on the teachers instead of the legislature or governor. What is it with these far-right wing conservatives?  It’s clear that their support of the country and the constitution is selective to the laws they like and the legal process be damned.