If Campfield Didn’t Exist, I’d Have to Make Him Up

HB 768–Non-U.S. citizen pay a 25% tax on checks, money orders, and traveller’s checks.

HB 770–Raises taxes on sexually explicit businesses.

HB 772–Makes it a felony to expose someone to hepatitis B.

HB 783–Bars the state from doing business with any business or individual who discriminates against others based on race, ethnicity, color, national origin, or political beliefs.

HB 796–Prevents the county election commissions from releasing information they collect about the candidates.

HB 981–Prevents people who receive state aid from collecting lottery winnings.

HB  982–Requires the issuance of a death certificate for aborted fetuses.

HB 988–In cases of supervised visitation, the parent required to pay for the supervised visitation gets to pick the supervisor.

HB 990–A person who has an order of protection sworn out against him or her would have the right to depose his or her accuser.

HB 991–Unless there’s a preponderance of evidence otherwise, the best custody arrangement would be shared custody.

HB 992–Violations of restraining orders must be handled more quickly.

HB 993–A defendant may preemptively challenge the judge in his or her divorce case once.

HB 994–If a person is found to have lied about being sexually abused, he or she must pay the court costs of the defendant.

HB 995–If your request for an order of protection is dismissed, you have to pay the court costs of the defendant.

HB 1523–If you are not the biological father of your child, you don’t have to pay child support. 

 It may be wrong to judge a man based on the legislation he brings forth, but, if that’s wrong, I don’t wan to be right.

There are a few things I find extremely interesting.  One is that Campfield (a Republican) seems hell-bent on regulating the shit out of our lives.  Provide proof that you’re a U.S. citizen.  Provide information to the state about your medical history.  Provide information to your abuser when he or she wants it.  Provide DNA so that your father can feel sure that he’s yours.  Provide proof that you don’t discriminate.  Provide proof of your STD status.  Provide, provide, provide.

Your life is up for scrutiny and, if you fail to negotiate said scrutiny, you have to pay.

But check out  HB 796, which will surprise none of you.  While Campfield moves to make our lives more open to scrutiny, he’s moving to make his and his fellow legislators’ lives a little more opaque.

The other is how determined he seems to be to punish people who are sexually active–meaning 99% of adult human beings.  Pay more for sex toys or trips to the strip club or for trips to the Hollywood Hustler.  If you get pregnant and decide you don’t want to be, you have to make your medical information available to the state.  If you’ve made the mistake of fucking a person who turns out to be a controlling asshole, well, guess what?  Campfield wants to make sure it’s even easier for that person to remain a controlling asshole presence in your life.

And just in case you don’t get how much Campfield hates you, if you’re too poor and you win the lottery, he wants to bar you from being able to collect your winnings.  Yes, apparently money is only for the wealthy.

I’ve saved HB 783 for last because I want you to think long and hard about what this means.  You and I both know that, what he’s aiming for is to dismantle affirmative action, to try to force folks who use it in hiring to stop or lose the state’s business.

But how many of you go over to Vanderbilt for medical treatment?  You know they must use some system of preferences somewhere in the university.  Will people who need state assistance to pay for medical treatment no longer be able to go to Vanderbilt?

What about Lipscomb?  They obviously prefer that Christians attend their college.  Will students be forbidden from using state scholarships at Lipscomb or Fisk?

I can’t think of any pithy way to wrap this up, but I think it’s interesting.

I’m curious about Senator Bunch, who is the co-sponsor on a lot of these bills.  What, if anything, do we know about him? 

Mack Makes Me Laugh

I was recounting to Mack how I missed his phone call because I was busy sitting in someone else’s pee over to Noshville (and by god, what has happened to the service?!) and then having to clean myself up as best as possible considering that the stall is only a foot and a half across, at best, when he, I believe, referred to my recounting this adventure as “live-blogging.”

I cannot tell you how much that tickles me. 

When I’m old, I imagine explaining to my grand-whatevers that there was a time back before computers when we would get on the phone and just “blog” outloud to each other, one at a time.

I doubt they’ll be able to imagine such a world. 

Terry Frank, I Have two Questions

You’ve discovered uranium in Iraq.  You say,

In the first national report from the heart of one of the world’s
premier energy capitals, Frankly Speaking has obtained unclassified
documents showing that at just one site alone, Saddam Hussein possessed
and stored over 1 million pounds of uranium.

Is this different uranium than the uranium Newsmax wrote about in 2005, and the Tennessean reported was brought to Tennessee in 2004?

And, if it is the same uranium, then you don’t have an “exclusive” anything, do you? 

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

Ugh.  So depressing.  Good, but depressing.  And when Rumsfeld sits there on national TV and names a guy who’s been promised anonymity?

You feel like you’re seeing a kind of insidious evil in action.

Really, what has to happen for that man to be prosecuted?

Plus, Addiction–I’m with Coble.

—–

Soul Searching

Am I an asshole?

No, I guess I’m not worried about being an asshole.  I’m worried that my being an asshole is getting in the way of my points. 

In the comments to the thread about how Blogger Day on the Hill is really just Specially Screened Conservative Blogger Day on the Hill, Donna Locke says:

Let’s say — hypothetically, of course, and I can’t imagine where I got this idea — that a male conservative blogger was blogging sexual fantasies involving a female Democratic legislator. If this female Democratic legislator and the other female Democratic legislators did not care to be around this blogger — and who would blame them? — should that blogger be invited to blogger press days on the Hill? Hypothetically, of course. I’m sure you can think of other scenarios.

My point is more broad than that, but it is this: should such events be open to absolutely all bloggers or have some limitations? And who has the right to make the decisions?

So, here we are. 

Clearly that’s in reference to me.

And it makes a girl wonder.  Am I just an asshole or am I misunderstood?

See, there’s a couple of things going on.  

One, I believe that most folks are pretty firmly entrenched in their ways of thinking.  And so, if you want to make a point, it can be useful to unsettle people a little, just to be heard.

The other is that I find Campfield’s position morally repugnant.  It’s not that he’s anti-abortion.  That seems to me to be an honest enough position.  It’s that, in order to get his way, he’s prepared to infringe on my rights as a citizen.  He could support or put forth legislation that, though I find it annoying because it kind of assumes women are idiots, at least it assumes we’re idiots who have to be able to choose what happens to our bodies, even if other people would rather we make different decisions.  He could support or put forth legislation that would insure that teenagers were getting accurate information about sex and how to prevent pregnancies.  He could work to reduce birth defects.

Dude’s not king of the world, but he does have a platform to get stuff done.

Instead, he’s working on chipping away at my rights.  And doing so in a way–by trying to make public the names of women who have abortions–that he’s got to know puts women in danger.

I’m sorry.

He just seems like a bully, and in a way that chips away at my rights.

I find that vile.

So, yes, I’m vile to him in return.

I think that’s what he deserves, to be met with the respect he shows others.

And also, I think that women are expected to be nice, that, if there’s a conflict, we’re supposed to be the ones who smooth things over and put on the happy face in public, even as we seethe and become passive aggressive bitches behind the scenes.  I don’t think that’s what Donna Locke is saying directly, but doesn’t that seem to be the underlying message?

If only I’d behave myself, I could get an invitation to the genteel confines of the state legislature? 

No, you know, maybe I am an asshole.  Maybe I am vulgar and filthy.

But I don’t know.  I don’t see that sitting around nicely waiting for folks to come around to our point of view has worked.  It’s been when we’ve finally put forth our positions and been willing to explain them and defend them that folks have finally started to listen and be moved by what we have to say.

But I don’t know.

It may not be the best route to take, or the only route.

I think what I’m doing is right.  I see my sovereignty being threatened and I’m raising holy hell about it.

But maybe that does make me an asshole, too. 

What is Wrong with People?!

Jagosaurus brings us this story about assholes who desecrate war memorials and spit on veterans.  Seriously, no matter what side you’re are, if you see someone spit on a veteran, you need to beat the spitter down.