FOLIO
WAR OF THE ROSES
Charleston, South Carolina is the latest city in which a black minor was reportedly targeted by authorities over some B.S. (No, Permit Patty, we have not forgotten. #Shame.) Charleston City Paper reports that a 16-year-old was arrested on July 3 for the high crime of selling palmetto roses without a permit and, of course, resisting arrest.
Officers had reportedly seen the arrestee and others selling the roses for several weeks; each time police approached, the kids took off. When they finally got the chance to nab the floral offenders, a scuffle ensued in which several officers and one civilian restrained the teen as passersby snapped photos. Meanwhile, CCP adds, according to one witness, a “visibly upset woman” stood nearby “shaking palmetto roses at him,” and yelling, “You know that there’s rules!” The teen has since been released.
SOLDIERS IN THE WAR ON WOMEN
Pennsylvania, aka the best ’Sylvania in the Lower 48, is home to politicians who sorta resemble some of our homegrown, glad-handing backstabbers. The Erie Reader recently busted Congressman Mike Kelly for climbing aboard the Trump Train on its way to Anti-choice Town. Back in May, President Red Meat decreed a Title X Gag Rule “to attack funding for preventive family planning services,” writes Planned Parenthood Field Organizer Paige Bosnyak.
The rule prohibits facilities that offer or refer patients to abortion services from receiving Title X family planning funds. So if the clinic is one of the Title X recipients that provided more than 4 million STD tests (including HIV) and 700,000 Pap smears in 2016, so sad, too bad, no government cheese for them—UNLESS they stop telling (raped, abused, desperate, destitute) women and girls that they can choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term. Guess who else signed it? Our own Reps. John Rutherford and Ron DeSantis and Senator Marco Rubio. In better news, Florida Senator Bill Nelson signed a letter opposing the rule.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: NATIONALIST?
Sigh. Yes, the Benjamin Franklin, beloved Founding Father, penned these unfortunately immortal words in the 1750s: “Few of their children in the country learn English … The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages … Unless the stream of the importation could be turned, they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.” Franklin refers to German immigrants to Pennsylvania, Illinois Times’ Jim Hightower writes.
Hightower continues on a less depressing note, reporting of a “test fence” built by Reaganauts in the ’80s in Terlingua, Texas. Following a chili cook-off and plenty of beers in ’83, townsfolk decided to see who could climb the 17-foot-tall fence topped with razor wire the fastest, in what Hightower dubs “Terlingua Memorial Over, Under or Through the Mexican Fence Climbing Contest.” The winning time was 30 seconds.
Hightower then points out that, no matter how offensive, expensive, ineffective and ecologically damaging Trump’s fence/wall is, it’s being built. Not that it will have any effect on immigration, for those who come to the U.S. illegally are less pulled by a better life here, than pushed by a terrifying, violent, impoverished one there, he opines, adding, “Until our leaders address the real issues, it’s not possible to build a wall tall enough to stop them from coming.”
H
YPOCRISY MUCH?
Bueller? Bueller? Hawaiian Rep. Tulsi Gabbard earned some ire for ghosting a July 2 debate with her Democratic primary challenger Sherry Alu Campagna, reports Maui Time. Hawaii’s other congressional district candidates, as well as governor and lieutenant governor candidates, did show up to present their ideas and platforms. That would be bogus enough if Gabbard hadn’t gone on record in the past calling for … more debates.
MT reports that she made national news in 2016 when she urged more debates between presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, telling MSNBC, “More and more people on the ground from states across the country are calling for more debates, are wanting to have this transparency and this greater engagement in our democratic process. We’ve gotta have more opportunity for people to present their vision for our country, their plans and to be held accountable for the positions that they’re taking and the path they’d like to take our country on.” So, does that apply only to people who aren’t Tulsi Gabbard?
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