A Tale of Two South Carolina's

Boy, there are days when South Carolina surprises me, and days when South Carolina acts like, well, I think it has always acted, and so now I’ll present to you A Tale of Two South Carolina’s.

In the first one, we have Republican — you read that right — State Senator Larry Martin, the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who is pushing new legislation bringing sweeping reform to the state’s domestic violence laws by creating a tiered system of offenses, increasing penalties and barring batterers from possessing guns.

Yes, people, gun control, of a sort, in South Carolina.

The bill, if adopted, would change the state's domestic violence laws for the first time in a decade, and, among other things, it would:

Restructure criminal domestic violence laws into a tiered system of degrees based on the severity of the crime, with escalating penalties ranging from 30 days in jail to 10 years in prison.

Bar those convicted of domestic violence offenses or facing protective orders from possessing firearms or holding a concealed-weapons permit. Batterers would face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $1,000 if caught with a gun.

Require those charged with criminal domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature to attend intervention programs and bar them from having firearms or ammunition as a condition of bail.

Allow courts to grant permanent no-contact orders to prevent abusers from harassing victims. Police could arrest violators without a warrant and the offender would face a felony carrying up to five years in prison.

This bill is in response to state statistics that show over 300 women have been killed in the last decade from domestic violence — one murder every twelve days. South Carolina currently ranks Number Two in the nation for the rate of women killed by men, and has topped the list three times in the past decade, most recently in 2013.

Now, because it’s South Carolina, the gun provision will likely face the stiffest opposition in our GOP-dominated Legislature, with many Republicans saying the issue is already addressed by federal law and a state measure is an unnecessary duplication that could infringe on gun rights.

Or is it just the rights of men who batter women to carry guns? See, while federal law bans those convicted of domestic violence from buying or possessing guns, South Carolina has no legislation to enforce that prohibition, meaning, yes, batterers can keep their guns, and conceal their guns. And let’s keep in mind that the overwhelming weapon of choice in domestic killings is a gun; guns have been used in 65% of all domestic homicides of women. But let’s worry about infringing on the batterers right to bear arms, and not on the rights of victims of domestic violence not to die.

Still, in South Carolina, of all places, it’s nice to see anyone, much less a Republican, put forth any kind of legislation that might be called gun control, even one that makes sense like this one.

On the flip side of Reasonable Republicans in South Carolina, we have Republican State Senator Lee Bright — the name does not suit him at all — who is on a mission to expand the right of South Carolinians to discriminate against LGBT people.

In keeping up his cred as a bigot and hater and, well, a moron, Bright filed a bill last week that would exempt any employee who works for the State of South Carolina … the State of South Carolina … from having to do their job by issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple.  If Not-So-Bright’s law passes, those state employees, aka Bigots Who I Pay With My Tax Dollars, merely need to say they have a sincerely-held religious belief against same-sex marriage and they can deny the license.

Now, to be fair, that gay couple can simply walk to another window, or wait for a more enlightened, educated, humane, truly Christian person to issue their license, but the point is that a state employee will be allowed to not do their job because they hate The Gays.

That gets me thinking that maybe I’ll get one of those jobs, then declare myself a Satanist and deny issuing licenses to religious couples because of my deeply held, sincere religious belief. Or, better yet, go in as an Atheist and deny licenses because there is no God y’all. Man, watching those Baptists heads explode might be worth it.

But here’s the deal, plain and simple: you people who work in a state licensing department work for the state, which means me, and so if you wanna deny me the right to legally do what I am entitled to do because, you say, your God don’t like no gay marriages, then step out of your office and head to unemployment and get on line looking for new work.

Same-sex marriage is legal, marriage is not a religious institution, and you cannot inflict your religious perversions on me just because you feel like.

Now sit down and keep quiet.

SC Senators Propose GunBan, Stiffer Domestic Violence Laws

SC Senator's Bill Would Legalize Religious Anti-Gay Discrimination

ISBL Asshat of the Week: It's A Tie!! Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Elisabeth Hasselbeck

So, a few months back, when it was announced that her arch nemesis Rosie O’Donnell would be returning to The View, Fox News Talking Air Head, Elisabeth Hasselbeck took time from her vacation to phone in to her pals on Fox & Friends to bemoan Rosie’s return, whine about the comeback, and complain about the new job. It reeked of petty jealousy.

And so how does an insecure wannabe handle it when her new job, which is basically just a retread of every single other Fox News job for the blond set, is set to collide with her old enemy’s return to a more popular TV show?

Well, she decides to go full out crazy in the hopes that people will talk about her, and her little show, and not about Rosie and The View. I mean, how else do we explain that just yesterday on her little TV show Elisabeth Hasselbeck said she would require people take a “citizenship test” before they would be allowed to vote; she says it would make voting “more meaningful.”

It apparently all started when two Republican … naturally … Utah legislators announced a bill that would require students to pass a citizenship test before graduating. And so Hasselbeck decided to up the ante and require a citizenship test to vote:

“Should you have to answer, I mean, the majority of these questions? If not by graduation of high school, but by the time you vote? … It’s a more meaningful measure when you vote perhaps too.”

Hasselbeck should heed her own advice and look back into American history when, as recently as the 1960s, these so-called “literacy” tests were used to disenfranchise black voters during segregation. 

Failing that, I think Hasselbeck should take a test to prove she has at least two active brain cells to rub together before she accepts her ISBL Asshat of the Week Award.

Along with her co-winner … Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

Shortly before announcing her campaign for citizenship tests, Elisabeth Hasselbeck used her perch on Twitter to … wait for it … remember she’s a Republican … wait for it … remember she works for Fox News … wait for it … tie the NFL’s domestic abuse scandals to the Obama administration's handling of the 2012 Benghazi attack on the American Consulate in Libya.

Oh, but she did, Tweeting this:

“Imagine if everyone that asked for transparency in the #nfl @nfl Demanded that same #transparency in our #government #Benghazi #IRS”

#STFU.

But is it really such a stretch to compare the bombing of an American Embassy with a man who punched his girlfriend in the face on an elevator, or the man who took a switch and beat his son across the testicles?

Not such a stretch since the people who sign her paycheck, and possibly pay to keep her blond and stupid, Fox News, has devoted hundreds upon hundreds of hours and “journalists — it’s hard to type that without laughing … Fox News journalist — to the alleged cover-up by the White House. And not such a stretch since her husband made quite the lovely living in the NFL.

The only thing that is truly transparent is Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s desperate need for attention, to make herself feel relevant, or even intelligent, because it’s not working.

And that is why she gets the Second ISBL Asshat of the Week Award for the week!

Elisabeth Hasselbeck Voter's Test

Elisabeth Hasselbeck NFL-Benghazi

Fox News: To Avoid Getting Beaten In An Elevator, "Take The Stairs"

I’m going to shock you … I.Don’t.Watch.Fox.News. … There; I said it. Whoosh. Now, y’all can calm down for a minute; no need to gather the pitchforks and the angry townspeople and come after me. It’s just that, well, we all know that Fox News wouldn’t know the truth if it was tattooed on Megyn Kelly’s breasts or painted onto the Mama Grizzly Bore’s™ five-head, but this week, even Fox News has gone too far.

The hosts of Fox & Friends — Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade and Anna Kooiman — aired the video of fired professional football player Ray Rice beating his then-girlfriend, now wife, Janay Palmer, into unconsciousness in an elevator and, well, they appeared to find it all quite amusing.

In the video, which I’m sure most people have seen once, because seeing it more than once is sickening, Rice punches Janay, and her head hits the elevator wall before she falls to the floor unconscious. Rice then stands over her, seemingly admiring his handiwork, and then casually drags her body off the elevator. This is funny, y’all, to Fox News; and not a big deal, at all.

One host, Steve Doocy acted as though the whole episode is nothing to get worked up about because, after the beating, Janay Palmer became Janay Rice, marrying the man who beat her unconscious, so let’s not make a big deal about it. If a woman gets beaten that severely and then marries her abuser, well, it must be fine so let’s move along to more important issues. 

Say? Is that Obama playing golf?

But, fellow host Brian Kilmeade had to throw in his two-cents — proving he is highly overpaid because his commentary isn’t worth a penny— adding that the same thing happened after Chris Brown beat the crap out of Rihanna. Again, it must be okay, because Chris Brown did it, so, yeah, Ray Rice should be able to do it, too.

Neither one of these men apparently has a sister, mother, wife, girlfriend, because if they did, if they weren’t a couple of goose-stepping asshatted, batshit crazy, FoxNews wingnuts, maybe they’d take a moment and realize that they are making light of the physical beating or a woman by her professional athlete boyfriend.

Kilmeade then says, the lesson to be learned is to “take the stairs” while Doocy adds that the “message is, when you’re in an elevator, there’s a camera.”

Avoid the beat down. Take the stairs; and if you’re gonna beat your wife or girlfriend in an elevator, remember there’s a camera; learn to take the beating into your private room because then no one would see it and it would be okay. The actual message here, that that Doocy and Kilmeade, and fellow host Anna Kooiman — and I’ll get to that moron in a moment — fail to acknowledge is that domestic violence is wrong; always. And with their lighthearted reporting of the beating, they missed the opportunity to help other women who are in abusive, or potentially abusive, relationships, by turning this into some kind of a joke.

I cannot fathom how these so-called news people — and, yes, I know it’s Fox News so they’re not real new people — think that domestic violence, physical abuse, of any kind, is something to make light of; take the stairs? Really? Think about the camera filming you before you throw that first punch. Really?

When men — and I use the term loosely when referring to Doocy and Kilmeade — make light of domestic abuse, they’re basically siding with the abusers; they’re saying it’s not such a big deal. And when Doocy and Kilmeade, representing Fox News, and therefore representing the GOP and the conservative movement in this country, it’s not much of a stretch to say that others of their ilk feel the same way about abuse. Especially when you hear so little from the GOP and its kin demanding an apology from Doocy, Kilmeade and Kooiman

Take the stairs, honey.

And now let’s talk about co-host Anna Kooiman, who basically sat there while these men made light of the beating, and then had the nerve to say that this incident is “unfortunate for football [and] gives a black eye} to the sport. Where’s her compassion for the black eye and bruises given to Janay [Palmer] Rice? Better yet, where’s her compassion period?

After this little bit of ridiculousness went live and viral, a sliver of what they call compassion was shown by the powers that be at Fox News when they gave a thirteen-second disclaimer about how they don’t condone physical violence. Thirteen seconds; that’s all it’s worth.

Proving its okay to laugh at physical violence and keep your job at Fox News.