Daily Kos

Summer leads to strange things happening. One of which is tonight, where we seem to have had a TC glitch. Follow me below the dingledoodle squigglie dKosagnocchi dividerthingie fold after a word from our sponsor...

Here at Top Comments we strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!  

We all are familiar with the myriad things the Clown Car of the Right says and does that come off as insulting, demeaning, racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/< insert -ist/-phobic here >. For the most part, I also believe they mean exactly what they say and that the only thing they feel bad for is that they were caught with their prejudices and bigotries showing. But what happens when the 'oopsie' moment clearly wasn't intentional? Grab your album of things you wish you hadn't said or done, and follow me below the giant orange croissant of shared experience after a word from our sponsor...

Here at Top Comments we strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!  

Sick of hearing about Kim Davis yet? Well, she returns to "work" (is it really work if you're not doing your job?) on Monday and appears poised to continue being a grandstanding asshole with a persecution complex, so I certainly don't think we've heard the last of her. Although, it looks like we at least won't see armed conflict between federal marshals and right-wing domestic terrorists, as the Liberty Counsel has apparently convinced the Oath Keepers not to come to Rowan County to "defend" Davis.

When Ms. Davis drives (or is she carpooling with Huckabee?) to the courthouse on Monday, she might notice something new in the county seat of Morehead, Kentucky. She can't miss it, in fact. It's a big message plastered across a billboard addressed to Davis specifically. From Planting Peace, the nonprofit organization that brought us Equality House (the rainbow house that continues to taunt the Westboro Baptist Church across the street), we have this:

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Top Comments recognizes the previous day's Top Mojo and strives to promote each day's outstanding comments through nominations made by Kossacks like you. Please send comments (before 9:30pm ET) by email to topcomments@gmail.com or by our KosMail message board. Just click on the Spinning Top™ to make a submission. Look for the Spinning Top™ to pop up in diaries posts around Daily Kos. Make sure that you include the direct link to the comment (the URL), which is available by clicking on that comment's date/time. Please let us know your Daily Kos user name if you use email so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we can include that as well. The diarist poster reserves the right to edit all content. Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home! Join us beneath the doodle...

A few days ago, I received my copy of the latest issue of Church & State, the publication of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.  (I donated to that organization last year.)  In it, there is an article with the same title as the diary (minus the "Top Comments" part).  It's an excerpt from a new book written by Barry W. Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United;  the book is entitled God and Government:  Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience.  Upon lighting on this article, the little TC topic light bulb immediately lit up above my head.  While I've stolen Lynn's ten reasons, any additional commentary is mine.

Please make the jump for more...

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Top Comments recognizes the previous day's Top Mojo and strives to promote each day's outstanding comments through nominations made by Kossacks like you. Please send comments (before 9:30pm ET) by email to topcomments@gmail.com or by our KosMail message board. Just click on the Spinning Top™ to make a submission. Look for the Spinning Top™ to pop up in diaries posts around Daily Kos. Make sure that you include the direct link to the comment (the URL), which is available by clicking on that comment's date/time. Please let us know your Daily Kos user name if you use email so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we can include that as well. The diarist poster reserves the right to edit all content. Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home! Join us beneath the doodle...

For the most part, implementing the Obergefell ruling by the SCOTUS has gone quite smoothly. However, there are still a few problems. The Kim Davis case is the most high profile example, but there are others (not many though). For example, An Oregon judge is under investigation for refusing to marry gay couples. Follow me below the fold for that story.

A diary was posted this morning having to do with Judge Day and a complaint against him. I've decided to go ahead and post this diary as well because my focus is a bit different than the other diarist.

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Top Comments recognizes the previous day's Top Mojo and strives to promote each day's outstanding comments through nominations made by Kossacks like you. Please send comments (before 9:30pm ET) by email to topcomments@gmail.com or by our KosMail message board. Just click on the Spinning Top™ to make a submission. Look for the Spinning Top™ to pop up in diaries posts around Daily Kos. Make sure that you include the direct link to the comment (the URL), which is available by clicking on that comment's date/time. Please let us know your Daily Kos user name if you use email so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we can include that as well. The diarist poster reserves the right to edit all content. Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home! Join us beneath the doodle...

Tonight's diary subtitle: How Brillig Takes A Funny Video And Turns It Into A Serious Thing.

Over the weekend I saw a new(ish) video by a very funny group of men who call themselves the The Try Guys. Yes, I know, Buzzfeed. Bear with me.  Top Comments cannot be held responsible for your computer monitor or keyboard if you do not put down all food and drink before viewing the video just below the fold. But first, a word from our sponsor...

Here at Top Comments we strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!  

Dear Mr. S, (link is to a profile of the man)

Like much of the country, I have been following your ridiculous case for some weeks now, and I wanted to write you and send my sympathies for your quite understandable embarrassment. I know most of us can’t even imagine what it must feel like to be the most irrelevant representation for the highest profile client you’ll ever have.

More below, but first, a word from our sponsor ...

Top Comments recognizes the previous day's Top Mojo and strives to promote each day's outstanding comments through nominations made by Kossacks like you. Please send comments (before 9:30pm ET) by email to topcomments@gmail.com or by our KosMail message board. Just click on the Spinning Top to make a submission. Look for the Spinning Top to pop up in diaries around Daily Kos. Make sure that you include the direct link to the comment (the URL), which is available by clicking on that comment's date/time. Please let us know your Daily Kos user name if you use email so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we can include that as well. The diarist reserves the right to edit all content. Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home! Join us beneath the fleur de kos...

Oh, you silly Americans. You thought you had a monopoly on anti-gay government workers refusing to do their jobs where they cross paths with teh gays. Well I'm here to tell you, we have them in Canada too.

Oh, and happy frozen Pride Day Calgary!

Tonight's title owes apologies and humility to Weird Al Yankovic, and by extension to Queen.

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Top Comments recognizes the previous day's Top Mojo and strives to promote each day's outstanding comments through nominations made by Kossacks like you. Please send comments (before 9:30pm ET) by email to topcomments@gmail.com or by our KosMail message board. Just click on the Spinning Top™ to make a submission. Look for the Spinning Top™ to pop up in diaries posts around Daily Kos. Make sure that you include the direct link to the comment (the URL), which is available by clicking on that comment's date/time. Please let us know your Daily Kos user name if you use email so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we can include that as well. The diarist reserves the right to edit all content.

Ah yes, the price of bigotry is rising. Once cheap and plentiful (see: 2004), bigotry can now be quite costly indeed. Ask Kim Davis, who continues to languish in jail in stubborn contempt of federal court orders. You might also ask a number of state governments, which post-Obergefell could be on the hook for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in plaintiff attorney fees and court costs. Republican (and some Democratic) attorneys general fought and appealed, fought and appealed, waging what they almost certainly knew was a losing legal battle. At some point, they had to know that the bill would eventually come due--at taxpayer expense. But then again, "fiscal conservatives" never have been too worried about wasting taxpayer money.

Now, we're seeing this play out in Texas. Remember this? Oh, I know you remember this:

As you may know, that grinning assclown in the center is Texas State Representative Cecil Bell, Jr. (R-Magnolia), who is arguably the most actively anti-gay legislator in the Lone Star State. That cake is being cut in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the state's constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage at a hastily assembled, awkwardly timed "Texas Faith and Family Day" in the Capitol. The February cake-cutting was obviously premature--the state's marriage ban did not survive, thanks to SCOTUS, to be able to reach its actual tenth anniversary (November 9).

The asshattery occurring in the picture above is not directly relevant to this diary. But looking at these fools smiling ear to ear, prematurely and completely unfoundedly jubilant in their bigotry, does make the latest news a little more delicious. Follow me below...

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Top Comments recognizes the previous day's Top Mojo and strives to promote each day's outstanding comments through nominations made by Kossacks like you. Please send comments (before 9:30pm ET) by email to topcomments@gmail.com or by our KosMail message board. Just click on the Spinning Top™ to make a submission. Look for the Spinning Top™ to pop up in diaries posts around Daily Kos. Make sure that you include the direct link to the comment (the URL), which is available by clicking on that comment's date/time. Please let us know your Daily Kos user name if you use email so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we can include that as well. The diarist poster reserves the right to edit all content. Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home! Join us beneath the doodle...

IRS officer Ken Davis argued:

Those f*ckers have more money than any 100 families could spend in a lifetime. Giving that money to them when so many infants and children are homeless and hungry is unconscionable, and I won't do it. My Lord wouldn't do it, either, and no one should. It is a testament to their moral bankruptcy as citizens that they want it back. I couldn’t in good conscience give them that money back.

What can I say? He’s absolutely right. But I am constrained by law to compel him to issue tax refunds to those f*ckers. ::shaking head::

Top Comments recognizes the previous day's Top Mojo and strives to promote each day's outstanding comments through nominations made by Kossacks like you. Please send comments (before 9:30pm ET) by email to topcomments@gmail.com or by our KosMail message board. Just click on the Spinning Top to make a submission. Look for the Spinning Top to pop up in diaries around Daily Kos. Make sure that you include the direct link to the comment (the URL), which is available by clicking on that comment's date/time. Please let us know your Daily Kos user name if you use email so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we can include that as well. The diarist reserves the right to edit all content. Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home! Join us beneath the fleur de kos...

A follow-up to an essay I wrote three years ago, about an internal dispute at the major conservative gathering, after the jump ......

Nothing makes me happier than seeing bigots from the Westboro ("God Hates F#gs") Baptist Church getting a strong dose of well-deserved ridicule. They recently got some when the Foo Fighters played a date in Kansas City which the Westboro bigots stupidly decided to protest.

There's nothing that the professional haters from Westboro like more than attention. Even negative attention is welcomed by them. Their protests of the funerals of fallen military members were designed to draw attention and eventually groups formed to show up to block those protesters and their nasty, hurtful signs from the eyes of grieving friends and families.

After our withdrawal from combat zones, they expanded their protest venues which included nearby concerts and events.

More on why this was a stupid decision below the cheese curl.

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