Last Call For Sovereign Stupidity

Another day, another reminder that America continues to have a right-wing domestic terrorist problem.

Authorities shot and killed a sovereign citizen Friday morning outside a Georgia courthouse after he brought weapons and explosives in an attempt to take over the building.

Investigators said Dennis Marx arrived at the Forsyth County Administration Building with an assault rifle, bulletproof vest, smoke grenades, and a gas mask.

Marx also brought water and other supplies, ammunition, zip-tie restraints, and buckets of homemade explosives to the courthouse, said Sheriff Duane Piper.

“He came here with the purpose of occupying the courthouse,” Piper said.

He deployed stop sticks at the courthouse entrance to prevent other vehicles from driving closer and opened fire from his vehicle.

Marx was met outside the courthouse by a deputy – who distracted and then fatally shot him through the windshield of the man’s SUV.

The deputy, a 30-year veteran, was shot in the knee during the confrontation but was expected to recover.

“It would be a guess to think how many lives he saved had he not engaged him right there,” Piper said. “Mr. Marx’s intention was to get inside that front door and to take hostages.”

You probably didn't hear about this because the suspect wasn't named Dennis Mohammed or Daunte Marx.  But a white guy armed to the teeth with the clear, premeditated intent of taking hostages in a courthouse?  We should probably ignore it.

Contractual Obligations

It's good to see this Cincinnati story about the Archdiocese forcing all Catholic school employees to sign a morality clause that censors their opinions finally going national, mainly because in Ohio, taxpayer vouchers can be used to pay for Catholic schools, and yet the Archdiocese remains exempt from basic workplace protections.

First-grade teacher Molly Shumate and high school English teacher Robert Hague are among the veteran teachers choosing to leave the diocese over a ‘morality clause’ included in the new contracts. The clause reportedly prohibits teachers, whether Catholic or not, from having sex or living with a partner outside of marriage, using in-vitro fertilization, leading a gay “lifestyle,” or publicly supporting any of the above.

Steve Benen sums this up:

That last part is of particular interest. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese wrote the “morality clause” in such a way as to apply not just to employees’ actions, but also their stated opinions.

In other words, if you work at a Catholic school in Cincinnati, you can’t be gay or try to have children through IVF treatments, and at the same time, you also can’t say you support gay rights or endorse IVF treatments in general.

And yet Ohio, like a number of other states, allows taxpayer money to go to private religious schools while they remain exempt from state employment laws.

One of those two things has to change.  Oh, and by the way, this is the real First Amendment issue with religious institutions.

Traders and Traitors

And my state's junior US senator manages once again to prove to the country and the world just how much of a jagoff he is.

Sen. Rand Paul on Friday likened Democrats to the recently released Taliban detainees at Guantánamo Bay in a speech here at the Texas GOP convention.

“Mr. President, you love to trade people,” the Kentucky Republican and likely 2016 contender said to laughs, a reference to the deal made for the return of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. 

“Why don’t we set up a trade? But this time, instead of five Taliban, how about five Democrats? I’m thinking John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, couldn’t we send them to Mexico?”

Hurr, because they're Democrats, not Americans, so it's okay.  Hell, they're not even human, am I right?

Paul’s suggestion came after he criticized the deal struck to bring back Bergdahl, who had been held captive by the Taliban for five years and was freed in exchange for the five prisoners.

“I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve been a little bit annoyed with the president,” Paul said. “Releasing five Taliban senior officials is not only against the law, it’s illegal and wrong and he should never have done it.”

So you must have really hated Bush when he released 500 plus Gitmo detainees.  What's that?  Not a peep?  Now why is that?

Asked about his comments in a news conference after the speech, Paul replied, “It was a joke. Except for Nancy Pelosi, I was serious about her.”

Misogyny is always funnier in Texas.

As far as I'm concerned, Rand Paul should stay there and not come back.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Another federal judge has struck down a state ban on same-sex marriage under equal protection grounds, this time in Wisconsin.
• The Texas state Republican convention this weekend apparently featured a Davy Crockett impersonator who called for the overthrow of President Obama and the federal government.
• European mobile phone giant Vodafone says six countries used its networks to wiretap and record customer calls, prompting anger across Europe and Asia.
• Transport company Uber has managed to set a record for start-up funding, hitting $17 billion on a new round of funding this week.
• The CIA is now on Twitter, officially, and its first tweet was "We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet."