Was there ever a day when my head wasn’t about to explode from all the injustice and lunacy that we live with on a continual basis?  Was there ever a day when people just treated others right, when our government wasn’t being ripped apart by radicals?  Sigh.  I do remember a day when things were better than today in many ways, but let’s face it … there has never been a time that people were completely kind and compassionate toward all, never been a time when there weren’t arguments within the government – and among people – about how things ought to be done.  So, I suppose it’s what keeps me going, gives me the will to fight injustice and ignorance yet another day.

Selling children …

The headline that made my jaw drop read:

New York becomes sixth state in U.S. to ban child marriages

You mean to tell me that 44 states in this union still allow and/or support child marriages???

Last month, Rhode Island’s Democratic governor signed legislation barring minors from being married. Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware have enacted similar laws, as have the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa.  It stands out like a sore thumb that not a single one of these states are south of the Mason-Dixon line.

The legality of child marriages varies widely across the other 44 states. In Wyoming, the minimum age of consent for marriage is 16, but a child of any age can be married with parental and judicial consent. In Virginia, the minimum age is 18 — but there is an exception for minors who have been legally emancipated.

Nearly 5,000 children were married in New York between 2000 and 2018, according to a study published in April by Unchained at Last, a nonprofit that advocates against child marriage in the United States.

Nationally over that period, nearly 300,000 children were legally married, the study found. Of that figure, 86 percent were girls, and most were married to adult men.  I’m sorry, but this isn’t marriage, this is child abuse, it is sex trafficking, it is … it is just WRONG!  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Overstepping their bounds — the House Freedom Caucus

The House “Freedom Caucus” is a group of Republican representatives who claim to be representing We the People, but in truth they are a bigoted, homophobic lot.  It was formed in 2015 by members of the ‘Tea Party’ movement and its members are those conservatives who take conservativism so far to the right that it strains the definition of democratic principles.  The utterly despicable Jim Jordan is one of the founding members, which tells you just about all you need to know about the group.  The group was largely to blame for the resignation from Congress of then-House Speaker John Boehner in October 2015, a fellow Republican, though you’d never know it from the treatment he received from the radical right in his own party.

Today, the House Freedom Caucus is urging Kevin McCarthy to ‘do something’ to remove Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.  Mind you, the Speaker of the House is selected by the majority party, which as of today happens to be the Democratic, not the Republican Party, and thus it is not the Republican’s place nor their responsibility to determine the leadership role.  But, when has the Republican Party in the past ten years ever played by the rules?

In a letter Friday, the far-right group asked McCarthy to file and bring up a privileged motion by July 31 “to vacate the chair and end Nancy Pelosi’s authoritarian reign as Speaker of the House.”

“Speaker Pelosi’s tenure is destroying the House of Representatives and our ability to faithfully represent the people we are here to serve. Republicans, under your leadership, must show the American people that we will act to protect our ability to represent their interests.”

Bullshit!  They are annoyed that Pelosi rejected Jim Jordan and Jim Banks for seats on the select committee to investigate the January 6^th insurrection, plain and simple.  McCarthy knew damn well that those two buffoons wouldn’t pass muster … he likely selected them for that very reason, setting the stage for his little temper tantrum saying he wouldn’t put any Republicans on the committee if he couldn’t have the two Jims on the committee for the purpose of turning it into a circus act.

It is a near certainty that their request will fail, but what it serves to do is further divide not only the House of Representatives, but the nation.  Remember Abraham Lincoln’s speech in 1858 where he spoke the now famous words … “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”  It’s a fact, and when I hear Republicans utter such inanities as “our ability to faithfully represent the people we are here to serve,” I want to punch somebody or something.  The current representatives in the Republican Party, with very few exceptions, don’t give a damn about the people they are supposed to represent!

Cut the bullshit, Republicans!  We’re not stupid and we can see right through you, especially since you are unburdened by such things as a heart, a conscience, and a functional brain!  You’re as transparent as a glass bottle.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.