Regarding Jeff Sessions

Regarding Jeff Sessions

My letter to Senator Rob Portman- R. OH

Senator,

I’m deeply concerned about the conduct in your chamber.  I don’t care for Judge Sessions, but I expect that he will be confirmed.  That being said, the tactic employed by your colleagues to silence Senator Warren is unacceptable.

This process is intended to verify the character as well as the judiciary experience and credentials of a man who will spend the term defending the law of this land.

If we are to consider giving this man the power of membership in the highest department of legal defense authority in the land, whether a letter is condemning or praising cannot be considered as grounds to dismiss it.

It’s at once immaterial and highly pertinent that this letter was written thirty years ago.

On the one hand, you are, again, considering an appointment of great power.  If this man is to wield this power for possibly this entire presidency, then how he has wielded his power in the earlier part of his life must be considered.  It doesn’t matter if he persecuted the black community 5 years or 30 years or 50 years ago, it doesn’t matter if he was saying racially charged remarks in jest or in a court of law.  He’s being considered for a mighty appointment and the conduct of his entire lifetime should be open to scrutiny.

On the other hand, it is incredibly important that Mrs. King wrote this 30 years ago.  You and your colleagues by silencing Senator Warren have at once opened a discussion about the rights of women in the Senate compared with their male colleagues, but at the same time she has thrown into stark relief what it really is we are thinking about here.

Thirty years ago Mrs. King wrote these words and they evidently fell on deaf ears.  You and your colleagues are determining in these deliberations what progress has been made in that time.  

If you choose once again to turn a blind eye to these complaints, to indeed even forbid the suggestion that he behaved improperly, then you are not only failing to properly vet this man in the interests of the American people but you are also declaring that we have made no progress in these thirty years- that white people as a whole are still as rotten as ever, that if a white man obstructs the right of black people to vote it will go uninvestigated.

In the 80s he could still be nominated to a federal circuit with no serious questions asked about these matters.  Is that still true today?

I’m not telling you that you must reject this man, but I am telling you that you have no choice but to examine these allegations with the seriousness they call for.  It is absolutely unacceptable to once again sweep these charges under the rug.  This conversation needs to be had, and it is your duty to have it.  Indeed, even if you think that these matters were sufficiently addressed in 1986, it is time to re-examine them and see if he would pass muster under modern standards, to see if we really have become a better people.

Adam Locke

Merry X-Mas!

Don't Call It a Man

I’ve had a couple presidents in my adult life. Not a lot of them, really just the two. Today, I have an incompetent lower life form wearing the mantle of men. It’s clear that we have some kind of pond amphibian running the country, clear by its circus of an administration, its continued legislative failures and in its continuing efforts to dismantle the federal government from the inside out. Some of these things have been conservative wishlist items for a great many years, and yet now that they are being brought to fruition, conservatives still have very little to cheer about. Those who understand anything about how the economy or healthcare works at any rate. Well, today they can claim themselves a victory. An ugly, hateful victory the likes of which they’ve been excited about for years. Some of them might even be convinced that this’ll get the country moving in the right direction again. It will not. You will gain nothing from this. Today, the bulbous fool, this overgrown bullforg that finds itself, unaccountably, the commander in chief of our military, has announced, by a fucking tweet no less, that transgender blood is not worthy to be spilled for our nation. It’s an old refrain for the right, and a tactic that long predates them. It’s especially true in America, but everywhere there have been people in settlements, valor and honor have been there for the taking in the military profession. The Athenians limited it to citizens of the polis, the Romans limited it in the same fashion. There were times when only Catholics could serve in Crusade and times where you couldn’t be considered if you were not born noble. In this country, we forbade black people from service and of course every one of the cases above have until only very recently forbidden women from service. It has never been the case that a woman can’t swing a sword or a black man cannot aim a rifle or a gay man can’t do a pushup. Trust bitch, I can do pushups. This is not about the cost of paying for transition surgery or because of a “lack of good order and discipline” that these people would impose. I can think of no person with a greater degree of discipline than one who spends their entire day taking painstaking steps in dress and manner, a strict regimen of injections, and bearing the burden of society’s scorn in order to defy an unfortunate mistake of RNA transcription. And some of them do it in heels. If that absurd, pencil-dicked goblin had half the discipline and attention to detail of a trans person it wouldn’t look like a copy of the Bert muppet with too much stuffing pushed in. It can’t even present the male gender correctly by the 1980s standards it has chosen. All it offers up is some kind of misogynistic, NYC chauvinist pumpkin-creature crammed into a poorly fitting pair of slacks. Danny DeVito’s Penguin was more recognizably masculine. Again, this is not about discipline or tax dollars. This is about power and repression. This is about choosing who gets to claim the lionization of military service in this country where it is a pathway to economic and political power. It’s about saying that a round, pasty Hutt is fit to claim that more than someone who’s actually getting ready to volunteer for the job and be turned away because despite being able to max his PT test by the male standard and shoot the wings off a fly he’s “unfit” for service because he happens to have a vagina. That painted old whore has remarked “I always felt like I was in the military. More training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military.” It was discussing its time at military school, where it was sent for being a bad kid. Because that is what we do with bad kids, they get shipped off to military schools for intensive discipline because they are not capable of functioning with the rest of us. That is a far cry from a person who’s discovering themselves and has chosen along the way to commit years of their adult life, their wellbeing, and their freedoms to the ongoing enterprise of keeping us all safe. Remedial training in middle school prior to a career as a slumlord does not make a soldier out of a frog. “Oh but Obama didn’t serve either,” cry the little froglings. True indeed, he did not; but where this petulant, talking ass-boil restricts the rights of Americans to fight for their country, Obama expended them. He wasn’t presumptuous enough to declare who could and could not serve on the basis of who they are or who they are becoming. So drop your coy bullshit you pathetic little tadpoles. Oh, and if any of you find it offensive that I’ve deliberately misgendered the lard-ridden amphibian you’ve unduly elevated to the office of the presidency, good. I want you to feel a taste of what trans people feel when we fuck up. I want you to see why it matters. More importantly than anything else though, I want you to bear in mind that this spineless toad is not fit to be called man or woman, and certainly not President.

My letter to John Kasich

Governor,

I’m distressed by the new heartbeat legislation soon to be on your desk and expect your veto pen to spill ink on this matter.

Our government has no place in the private health decisions of citizens.  As for defining when a collection of reproductive materials coalesce into a person, it is unacceptable here too for the state to intervene.  The science is not settled, the discussion about this matter continues with strident debate on both sides.  As there is no overwhelming consensus on this matter, it is inappropriate at this time for the state to dictate to individuals contrary to their beliefs or the advice of their physicians.

As it is therefore appropriate to stay the hand of legislation at this time and await a more complete end to the ongoing discussion regarding abortion and the moment at which life begins, I urge you to veto this bill.  Until the medical community has given a well-reasoned consensus regarding when there is life, symbolic- perhaps even totemic- thinking about the importance of the heart should not and must not dictate policy in Ohio.

With Respect,

Adam Locke

in case you’re wondering, colin baker’s being wonderful on twitter