I Didn't Say It ...

Dan Reynolds, Imagine Dragons frontman, accepting the award for Top Rock Artist at the Billboard Music Awards and using the time to call for an end to gay conversion therapy:

“I just want to take this moment to say that there are still 34 states that have no laws banning conversion therapy. 34. And on top of that, 58% of our LGBTQ population live in those states. This can change but it’s going to take all of us talking to our state legislation, pushing forward laws to protect our LGBTQ youth. And lastly, I just want to say we have seen with conversion therapy that our LGBTQ youth have doubled the rate of depression, tripled the rate of suicide after conversion therapy. It’s not working. It needs to change.”

And speaking out at events like this gets that message out there.

Thanks Dan.

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Matt Easton, a political science student and practicing Mormon at Brigham Young University, came out as gay during his commencement speech:

“I stand before my family, friends, and graduating class today to say that I am proud to be a gay son of God. I am not broken. I am loved and important in the plan of our Great Creator. Each of us are. Four years ago, it would have been impossible for me to imagine that I would come out to my entire college. It is a phenomenal feeling. And it is a victory for me in and of itself.”

When Easton came out to that crowd, that predominantly Mormon crowd, they cheered him.

I wonder how the actual Church felt?

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Roseanne Barr, trying to stay relevant by being irrelevant:

“Uh, the word ‘fag’ is a really hateful word, isn’t it? Especially when it’s like one gay calling another gay guy that? Whoo! Have you ever been in the middle of one of them hate marriages? Whoof! It’s like, (mimicking an argument) ‘wait a minute, we’re not supposed to say that word.’ ‘How come you’re saying that word?’ ‘What?’ Oh, I just can’t say the word. Well, I can when I’m in the house, but I can’t say it outside of the house. Okay, I get your rules. But it is a hateful word and we should get rid of it,” added Barr. “Get rid of it being spoken. All that LGBTQ stuff, okay let me just be real, I put the Q in LGBTQ. Okay? Cause I am queer as two motherf**kers. I’m queer, I’m alien, I don’t belong here with all these people. They makes no sense. They are very queer. And that makes me a queer, I guess. But I did put the Q in it. Bye!”

I think she put the Q in “She Quit taking her meds.”

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Bernie Sanders, presidential hopeful, saying everyone should have the right to vote … even the Boston Marathon bomber:

“This is a democracy and we have got to expand that democracy, and I believe every single person does have the right to vote. Yes, even for terrible people, because once you start chipping away and you say, 'Well, that guy committed a terrible crime, not going to let him vote. Well, that person did that. Not going to let that person vote,' you're running down a slippery slope ... terrorists and murderers should have voting rights. So I believe people commit crimes and they paid the price and they have the right to vote. I believe even if they're in jail they're paying their price to society but that should not take away their inherent American right to participate in our democracy."

Um, Bernie, there’s a crime, like I stole a car, or I sold some weed, and then there’s a crime like I set off a bomb to murder and maim Americans.

One deserves the right to vote, one does not.

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Andy McKean, Iowa’s longest-serving Republican state lawmaker, on his defection to the Democratic Party because _____:

“With the 2020 presidential election looming on the horizon, I feel, as a Republican, that I need to be able to support the standard bearer of our party. Unfortunately, that’s something I’m unable to do. He sets, in my opinion, a poor example for the nation and particularly for our children by personally insulting—often in a crude and juvenile fashion—those who disagree with him, being a bully at a time when we are attempting to discourage bullying, his frequent disregard for the truth and his willingness to ridicule or marginalize people for their appearance, ethnicity or disability. I believe that it is just a matter of time before our party pays a heavy price for President _____’s reckless spending and shortsighted financial policies, his erratic, destabilizing foreign policy and his disregard for environmental concerns. If this is the new normal, I want no part of it.”

I say, ‘What took you so long,’ but I also say, ‘Welcome.’

The move puts Iowa Democrats four seats away from taking control of the Iowa House.

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Joe Scarborough, going off on religious hypocrite Franklin Graham, who called on Pete Buttigieg to repent for being gay.

“Just shut up Franklin Graham! You are a disgrace! You are a disgrace for normalizing Donald _____’s behavior … Here’s a man, who along with so many people in my community, the evangelical community, attacked Bill Clinton for his personal failings [yet] they are now using their … positions to gain political power and apologize for Donald _____. Now suddenly Franklin Graham’s talking about lifestyles and sinning, and a guy who has gone through a very difficult personal journey to figure out who he really is, he’s criticizing them for that? It’s not a lifestyle choice. Anyone who’s heard Pete Buttigieg talk knows that.”

Graham is exactly what’s wrong with so-called men of faith these days; their faith is less about god, and more about money and power; those are their real gods.

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Sam Donaldson, veteran journalist, on Lying Bag of Flesh, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and others in the White House for their transparent lying:

“Look, I’ve had the pleasure of working with almost every press secretary beginning with Pierre Salinger of John F. Kennedy’s administration and, except for Ron Ziegler who lied for Richard Nixon, I’ve never seen anything like this with Sarah Sanders … Sarah Sanders simply lies about everything taking a cue from her boss. Not just one thing. I think she’s had an Oscar, a lifetime achievement Oscar for lying. I feel a little sorry for her because it’s the boss who does it. She takes the cue from him. Leadership begins at the top. And so it is all the bad things that happen in the administration.”

We all know that _____ passed off his 10,000^th lie earlier this week, and Kellyanne and Huck aren’t far behind.

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James Clyburn, Democratic Congressman from South Carolina, on _____ talking idiotically again about Charlottesville and celebrating Robert E. Lee:

"Robert E. Lee was a slave owner and a brutal slave master. Thankfully, he lost that war. And I find it kind of interesting that the president is now glorifying a loser, he always said that he hated losers."

The president is a racist liar, so, yeah, there’s that.

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The United States of Guns: Background Checks and Three-Day Waiting Periods Don't Work

Those of us who fall on the side of sensible gun control should be worried; very worried.

Background checks and waiting periods don’t work; we found that out here in South Carolina last year when a murderer was “mistakenly” sold a gun that he then sued to murder nine people at a Charleston church. The 21-year-old charged — and, just so you know, his name will never appear on this blog — in those nine murders, was allowed to purchase a .45-caliber handgun at a Columbia store because federal authorities could not locate the arrest records within the three-day period; the murderer had a drug charge on his record that would have disqualified him from purchasing a gun.

In 2015, over a quarter of a million background checks were left incomplete after the federal government’s three-day waiting period, meaning that 271,359 guns were sold before the purchasers background check was even finished.

Bad? What’s worse is that when the background checks were completed it was discovered that 9,063 guns had been sold, in South Carolina, to people whom the FBI had determined after-the-fact should never have had a gun. But those nine thousand folks got their guns because the FBI could not complete a background check in time.

Now, to be fair, the FBI doesn’t know how many background checks actually resulted in a gun purchase, so there’s no way of actually knowing how many of those 9,063 people who weren’t checked before purchase actually left the store with a gun. But even if one person who should not be allowed to own a firearm was allowed to purchase one because it just takes too darn long to finish the background check, then maybe the background check and waiting period needs to be longer, huh? Maybe we should oh, I don’t know, make people WAIT until the background check is done, however long that takes, before selling a weapon.

And we do know how many people who do buy guns when they should not have been allowed because of the FBI's retrieval requests; the FBI sends a list of those folks to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms [ATF] and they go out and confiscate those weapons. In 2015, the FBI sent 2,892 such requests to the ATF, up from 2,511 requests in 2014.

Looks like more and more people, who shouldn’t have guns, are getting them.

Luckily South Carolina’s Congressman, James Clyburn, a Democrat because, of course, has proposed the Background Check Completion Act, which would prevent a gun from being transferred by a licensed dealer until the background check is finished no matter how long it takes.

“The latest numbers show the problem is not going away, but getting worse. Congress must pass my bill, the Background Check Completion Act, to close the Charleston Loophole and keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of people the law already says should not own them. The policy should be very simple: no check, no sale.” — Rep. James Clyburn

Doesn’t that seem right? You know, better safe than sorry; better safe, than dead.

Take a minute to get your Congressional representatives a shout out — find them HERE — and tell them that this loophole that allows people who should not have guns to purchase guns, needs to be closed.

One life saved would be enough.

The State