Lawyers, Guns, and Money

There’s absolutely and utterly no reason for the senseless gun violence and deaths in our nation which have resulted from laxative gun laws.

Period.

Congress has the authority to act, and efforts to protect our people from such predators is hampered by the GOP, especially and particularly in the Senate.

Full stop.

Offers of “thoughts and prayers” will no longer cut it. Besides, “We the people” do NOT elect national prayer leaders, or religious folks for their alleged ability to call down from the heavens acts by the gods and/or goddesses they purport to represent and/or serve… instead of the people who elected them, who are their constituency.

There’s always truth in humor, and often, satirical illustrations serve to explain the problems sometimes much better than actual explanations of the problems at hand. Comedians such as Dave Chappelle – winner of the 2019 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, awarded annually by the Kennedy Center for the Arts, will be given to him October 27, 2019 – has become renown for his absurdist skits and comedy routines which have included one colloquially known as “The Black White Racist” in which a reporter for Frontline (an actual investigative journalism documentary news show on PBS – see here: https://www.pbs.org/show/frontline/) finds and interviews a blind racist who “has been the leading voice of the White Supremacist movement in America” sequestered in the remote hills of an unnamed rural Southern state.

The skit, recorded when Chappelle was then performing for The Comedy Channel, remains one of his most well-known skits, and may be viewed online here ( ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW):

So, along that line… what if Wal-Mart banned dildos?

Realistically, that idea is not too far-fetched.

Here’s why.

In Alabama, that state’s legislators some years ago – in 1998 – forbade “any person to knowingly distribute, possess with intent to distribute, or offer or agree to distribute any obscene material or any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for any thing of pecuniary value.” (Code of Alabama 13A-12-200.2)

It became known as the state’s “anti-dildo law,” and a challenge to it was defeated by a three-judge panel in Federal court by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2005, and was subsequently refused to be heard by the United States Supreme Court, which marked the legal end of the road for that effort.

In 2007, the law was openly mocked by several individuals in the state who challenged its legality on state constitutional grounds, and illustrated its absurdity and invasion of privacy. On September 11, 2009, the state’s Supreme Court ruled against a legal challenge from the owner of a chain of sex toy stores in the state, and the law became settled. And because almost every law has a legal loophole (exception), the Code of Alabama in Section 13A-12-200.4 Affirmative Defenses states that “It shall be an affirmative defense to a charge of violating Sections 13A-12-200.2 and 13A-12-200.3 that the act charged was done for a bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial, or law enforcement purpose.”

But regardless of the law, those items continue to be sold in the state because they’re marketed as novelty or educational items, while garments are sold as costumes. Because the state has refused to enforce the law, the state’s stance amounts to nothing more than hypocrisy. Politicians who run on the GOD ticket have to make themselves look good to their pastoral flock, you know.

Which again, brings us full-circle to absurdity.

What if Wal-Mart banned dildos?

The GOPers in the Congress have taken a passive aggressive stance by refusing to act, which effectively allows deaths from gun violence to proliferate. The mostly-GOP crowd says they’re not going to do anything but offer “thoughts and prayers,” while GOP Senate Majority Leader “Moscow Mitch” McConnell from Kentucky has said he won’t even consider legislation when he made the following remark on a far right-wing extremist talk radio show hosted by

#ALpolitics Remains FULL of… #Irony. Yeah… that’s it – irony. And #Hypocrisy.

Brinson and attorney Jerome Teel of Jackson, TN, wrote “Redeem the Vote, A Political Revolution,” which contains firsthand stories of Brinson’s behind-the-scenes work in Washington and Montgomery politics. He and wife Pam worked with contemporary Christian entertainers to motivate young evangelicals to register to vote and turn out for the 2004 presidential election. He says their work contributed to Republican George Bush’s re-election and prompted Democrats nationally and in Alabama to start seeking his advice. He helped defeat former Christian Coalition powerhouse Ralph Reed in Georgia’s 2006 Republican primary for Lieutenant Governor by portraying Reed as a pariah who “was using the evangelical community to further his own personal ambitions and fortune.”

Apparently, Randy Brinson, a Montgomery Gastroenterologist who also chairs the Christian Coalition of Alabama, will be another contender for evangelical votes for the U.S. Senate seat now occupied by corrupt Bentley appointee and former state Attorney General Luther Strange.

Which ironically also goes to show that Alabama politics is not only strange, but that the equally corrupt evangelical religious folks – much like the Taliban – still want to be all up in yo’ shit.

If they had their way, men and women would be