“You know, in Europe, people are marrying animals!”
The people at the anti-gay, anti-marriage equality, bigoted Minnesota for Marriage, according to Carol A. Overland, who writes at Legalectric, say, “You know, in Europe, people are marrying animals!â€
Overland delivers a riveting account of her day at the Minnesota State Fair, named, “Our State Fair is a Great State Fair†— which is also the name of the opening song in the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical and 1962 movie, “State Fair” — during which she and her husband (?) Alan spent a few minutes at the “Minnesota for Marriage†booth, because, “some people really got to me with their hateful and absurd agenda.”
Overland says “all this flap about ‘gay marriage’ is what I regard as a political distraction from the harm the right is doing with their mutant and malignant capitalism.”
Yes!
She continues.
As Alan asked, “Why do you care about this?†What is it that drives someone to sit at a little wooden booth in the sun all day to argue that someone who is gay should not be able to marry their partner? I passed the “Minnesota for Marriage†booth in disgust, noting there was a video camera on a tripod at the southern end of the booth. And Alan, fresh from a visit to the Republican building, wanted to have a chat. He’s such a quiet and calm questioner, and is able to elicit the most amazing statement from people in any venue. He did it again. He went up to the booth and began to ask a woman there some questions. The first, “Why do you care about this?†And instead of responding, she said “Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions?†and he said, demeanor well depicted above, ‘Well, actually, I do, I asked you a question, why do you care about this?â€
Overland says the “Minnesota for Marriage†people told her she was not allowed to take photographs, “that I have to get permission and fill out a form.”
Then I ask whether their agenda includes outlawing D-I-V-O-R-C-E (!) and she gets pissed and hollers that I’m off point. EH? MOI? OFF POINT? I’m asking the question, and that’s my point.
The guy in the green comes over and gets very close into my space and in front of me and says “we’ve had about enough†and I’m just getting going, so I say, “OK, great, I’ll get your photo too†and got out the camera again, this time catching him with the camera and camera guy that was off to the left — what were they doing with that video camera:
So were they filming everyone who came up to the booth??? It was positioned to get the front of the booth… Hmmmmm… anyway, at this point I left to sit in the shade and catch up with Alan after he finished.
The punchline? The woman he was talking to had been scripted to ask questions, and to get you to a point where you agreed that there should be some limits on who could marry, and actually told him, “You know, in Europe, people are marrying animals!†He asked what country and what animals, and she didn’t know… uh-huh, right… so logically, we NEED this amendment in Minnesota so we won’t be marrying animals.
There’s more. Go take a look. I think this is my favorite story of the day.
One of the comments on the blog says, “Screw them and their hate. I know the majority of Minnesotans don’t side with them — it’s just a matter of getting them out to the polls in November 2012.”
Indeed.
Thank you, Carol Overland!
By the way, here are some of the hate Minnesota For Marriage is spreading:
Right now, attempts are being made in Minnesota’s courts and in the Legislature to redefine marriage or eliminate it altogether. If activist judges or politicians were to succeed in redefining marriage in Minnesota in the future, there would be profound consequences for religious organizations, individuals, and small businesses—and for society itself.
Contrary to what some people think, so-called same-sex ‘marriage’ would not exist in the law alongside traditional marriage, as if it were a different expression of the same marriage institution they have always known. Marriage will be redefined for everyone. Our historic understanding of marriage as the union of one man and one woman would be replaced by a new legal definition of marriage as the union of two adults regardless of gender.
This new, redefined version of marriage as a genderless institution would be the only legally recognized definition of marriage in Minnesota. Such a radical change in the definition of marriage will produce a host of societal conflicts that government, exercising its broad enforcement powers, will have to resolve. Citizens, small businesses and religious organizations whose own beliefs, traditions, morals or ethnic upbringing are at odds with the new definition of marriage will find themselves subjected to legal consequences if they do not act according to the new legal orthodoxy. .
Legal experts on both sides of the marriage debate agree that the issue has profound impacts on society. Scholars from some of the nation’s most respected law schools have written that the issue implicates a host of issues, ranging from religious liberty, to individual expression of faith, to education and the professions.
For example, these legal scholars predict “a sea change in American law,†and foretell an “immense†volume of litigation against individuals, small businesses and religious organizations.
Those who do not agree with this new definition of marriage as a genderless institution existing for the benefit of adults – not children — will be treated under the law just like racists and bigots, and will be punished for their beliefs.
Wow. And we wonder why, after 1870, they bothered to call it “voting” anymore.
(Hat tip to Zack Ford of Think Progress!)
Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.
NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.
Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.
 |
Republican Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a top potential Trump vice presidential running mate pick, revealed in a forthcoming book she “hated” her 14-month old puppy and shot it to death. Massive online outrage ensued, including accusations of “animal cruelty” and “cold-blooded murder,” but the pro-life former member of Congress is defending her actions and bragging she had the media “gasping.”
“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” Noem writes in her soon-to-be released book, according to The Guardian which reports “the dog, a female, had an ‘aggressive personality’ and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.”
“By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going ‘out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life’.”
“Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, ‘grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another’.”
READ MORE: President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off
“Cricket the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like ‘a trained assassin’.”
Except Cricket wasn’t trained. Online several people with experience training dogs have said Noem did everything wrong.
“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote, calling the young girl pup “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with,” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.”
“At that moment,” Noem wrote, “I realized I had to put her down.”
“It was not a pleasant job,” she added, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”
The Guardian reports Noem went on that day to slaughter a goat that “smelled ‘disgusting, musky, rancid’ and ‘loved to chase’ Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes.”
She dragged both animals separately into a gravel pit and shot them one at a time. The puppy died after one shell, but the goat took two.
On social media Noem expressed no regret, no sadness, no empathy for the animals others say did not need to die, and certainly did not need to die so cruelly.
READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’
But she did use the opportunity to promote her book.
We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm. Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.
If you want more real, honest, and politically INcorrect stories that’ll have the media gasping,… pic.twitter.com/bKhpUkchHV
— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) April 26, 2024
Attorney and legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold says Governor Noem’s actions might have violated state law.
“You slaughtered a 14-month-old puppy because it wasn’t good at the ‘job’ you chose for it?” he asked. “SD § 40-1-2.3. ‘No person owning or responsible for the care of an animal may neglect, abandon, or mistreat the animal.'”
The Democratic National Committee released a statement saying, “Kristi Noem’s extreme record goes beyond bizarre rants about killing her pets – she also previously said a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to carry out her pregnancy, does not support exceptions for rape or incest, and has threatened to throw pharmacists in jail for providing medication abortions.”
Former Trump White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah Griffin, now a co-host on “The View” wrote, “There are countless organizations that re-home dogs from owners who are incapable of properly training and caring for them.”
The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson blasted the South Dakota governor.
“Kristi Noem is trash,” he began. “Decades with hunting- and bird-dogs, and the number I’ve killed because they were chicken-sharp or had too much prey drive is ZERO. Puppies need slow exposure to birds, and bird-scent.”
“She killed a puppy because she was lazy at training bird dogs, not because it was a bad dog,” he added. “Not every dog is for the field, but 99.9% of them are trainable or re-homeable. We have one now who was never going in the field, but I didn’t kill her. She’s sleeping on the couch. You down old dogs, hurt dogs, and sick dogs humanely, not by shooting them and tossing them in a gravel pit. Unsporting and deliberately cruel…but she wrote this to prove the cruelty is the point.”
Melissa Jo Peltier, a writer and producer of the “Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan” series, also heaped strong criticism on Noem.
“After 10+ years working with Cesar Millan & other highly specialized trainers, I believe NO dog should be put down just because they can’t or won’t do what we decide WE want them to,” Peltier said in a lengthy statement. “Dogs MUST be who they are. Sadly, that’s often who WE teach them to be. And our species is a hot mess. I would have happily taken Kristi Noem’s puppy & rehomed it. What she did is animal cruelty & cold blooded murder in my book.”
READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting
President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person interview.
“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”
“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”
But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.
READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’
“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”
Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.
1. The media turned Robert Hur’s amateur assessment of Biden’s memory into a political crisis.
Collectively, the @washingtonpost, @nytimes, and @WSJ have run 66 articles quoting Hur: a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”
But when the transcript of the Biden interview… pic.twitter.com/cExzjuKeYz
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) March 14, 2024
Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”
Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.
READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act
“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.
Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.
Incidentally, when the NYT got a chance to interview Trump, they went belly up. https://t.co/fW5kx5868d pic.twitter.com/LbrhfYMtqf
— Dan Froomkin (PressWatchers.org) (@froomkin) April 25, 2024
Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.
Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critic who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.
This is the equivalent of putting a bag of dog poop on the New York Times’ doorstep and setting it on fire. https://t.co/RhGbHH9pU2
— Mark Jacob (@MarkJacob16) April 26, 2024
The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.
Watch the video and read the social media posts above or at this link.
READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks
Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.
“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.
“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.
READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’
Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.
On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”
On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”
After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:
“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.
“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”
READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’
Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’
President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off
CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial
‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’
Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’
News3 days ago‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’
OPINION2 days agoPresident Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off
OPINION2 days agoNoem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’
News2 days agoCNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial