Political Animals

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I was going to blame this on RES but, even though that’s usually appropriate for, well… everything, it is probably unfair. It was more that last night I had a British Mystery on, and was sitting by my laptop and … well… something happened.

So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for…

patriarchalopossum

And because we like to be balanced here at ATH, let’s remember that:
FEMINISTBEAVER

Yes. I do actually know that this is not a beaver (do you know how hard it is to find pictures of a beaver up close and released to creative commons? WITHOUT getting… er… other things.) but SHE self-identifies as a beaver.  So get back you h8ter. She doesn’t give a dam.

However in all these politics it’s important to remember to turn up the heat on the pot slowly, else you get:

GILLETJAUNE

And then, you know, it might be you who are served.

Speaking of which, some creatures have heard of that “get rid of cows” thing, and they have something to say:

HOT AIR

And yep, this is my excuse for a post.  I have a novel to write!

176 thoughts on “Political Animals”

        1. Didn’t say anything about you joining the Party inflected with the Wallaby symbol. :twisted:

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          1. Ah, well, in that case … I do not sense any American party with half enough wit to be expressed as wallaby, although the Get Off My Lawn Party comes close. The Greens aren’t a party, they’re a wake, and the Libertarians shoot too many own goals to merit the honor of wallabydom.

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            1. Perhaps we could start one. Inspired by the Canadian Rhino party who’s candidates all pledge to resign immediately if elected and who once had the strongest platform of any party – they made it out of reinforced concrete.

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                1. Naw. We would call it the Wallaby party. Imagine how many Democrat votes we could pick up considering what their front runners are doing to themselves right now.

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  6. I must register a protest. It is decidedly not appropriate to blame the wallaby for everything, it is merely appropriate to blame the wallaby for anything.

    As you are a professional wordsmith, I trust I do NOT have to explain the distinction.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Regrettably, that is not a valid defense. While A may be responsible for everything it does not follow that A is solely responsible; B may be instigator, provocateur, or even co-conspirator, to name just a few of the ways responsibly may be broader than just one party.

        The confusion is understandable, immersed as we are in a political culture in which it is always assumed that “you”, never “We,” are responsible. Thus the Gaslight Media and Dems (BIRM) assert the recent government shutdown was President Trump’s fault, alone, or an abusive partner invariably begins/ends abuse with the declaration, “See what you made me do!”

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  7. One minor correction: that is not Insufficiently Boiled Frog, that is Insufficiently Boiled Frog On A Stick!

    I swear, I’m cutting me own throat here.

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    1. The key is the public domain problem. It’s getting harder to find images with clear trails to prove that they are public domain and so can be used, abused, and GIMPed without fear of retaliation.

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      1. Photoshopping animal pictures requires a concealed carry license? That actually makes sense in these censorious times. :-(

        I neither photoshop nor caricature, but if I did a depiction of the buck-toothed wonder from Queens as a socialist squirrel would be the result.

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    3. Given that most contemporary Feminists (of whatever wave they’re currently up to) advocate policies which are objectively harmful to the social interests of women, it seems entirely apropos to represent them with this Rachel Dolezeal of the political bestiary.

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        1. Anything after the 1st Wave is made up of increasing amounts of misandry and lunacy. Generally designated by hair color, personal pronouns, and volume.

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          1. Aha, so 1st was the Equal Opportunity* and Women ARE People (too) which made perfect and obvious sense… and after that, lunacy at levels increasing to those even the most dedicated selenographers never suffer?

            * Meaning “You get to take the test.” NOT “We modify the test for you.” and so on.

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            1. As I understand it, and I may be woefully behind the times…

              First Wave was the Suffragettes. Basically sane, though they bought into Prohibition and the White Slavery Panics to some extent. Some outliers fell for and early iteration of Free Love, but not that many.

              Second Wave was at the forefront of the ‘60’s feminism. Fell for Betty Freidan hook, line, and sinker. Mind, she had some points, but she also was far more privileged than her writings might lead one to believe, and at least flirted with Communism.

              Third Wave is what we suffer under now. These are the women who discoverd that ‘having it all’ was a recipe for a nervous breakdown and decided to share.

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              1. As a formally teen-aged male, I appreciate that feminist embraced free love. As has been said by man, the sexual revolution appears to have been designed for 15 year old boys.

                As a 52 year old man on his second marriage with no kids, even though I technically benefit from “free love”, I will admit I think almost everyone would be better off without it. The handful that are better off with it could easily be handled by a “that’s just the Dickensons, dear, they’re a tad eccentric when it comes to some things.”

                Actually, damn near everything good thing “liberation” has brought could have been done much better by redefining a handful of things to “a tad eccentric” from worthy of general ostracism. This “mainstream everything and talk about it incessantly” has done more bad than good and will, before long, bring back general ostracism in ways the left claims used to exist.

                tl;dr: you can agree that the Stonewall riots were justified without thinking failure to fly a rainbow flag makes you a hater.

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            2. The latest I believe is the 3rd Wave of Victorian Feminists.
              Women are NEVER responsible for what happens, NEVER. It is always some MAN that is responsible.

              1. Woman and Man get drunk. Woman drags Man to bed and has her way with Him. Women cries rape. Man was responsible because the Woman was drunk so she could not consent.

              2. Man gets drunk and is asleep in his bed in the dorm. Woman (sober) comes in has her way with him. He is responsible because reasons.

              They really don’t think things through. Adults have responsibility, CHILDREN don’t. Women are now to be classed as children with their designated Man responsible for them.

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              1. 3. Men are to give up all privileges, but still wait for life boats.

                I wanted to get every man who pushed a woman aside getting into a life boat on the Costa Concordia a “this is what a feminist looks like” tee shirt. Because if it is just about equality then it isn’t “women and children first”.

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                2. Happened in the Estonia sinking, btw. Most, almost all of the survivors were young or young-ish men. Part of it was because the circumstances for those who got out of the ferry in the first place were harsh enough long enough that mostly only the strong and healthy survived them, but part of it was because they were also the ones who got out and into the life rafts in the first place. By not stopping to help anyone much if at all, presumably by pushing the slower and weaker out of the way but of course nobody ever talks about that. But from what did come out in the interviews it seems pretty certain that happened. A few have talked about seeing old people and women and children they ran past, and even fewer about feeling guilty about it but then justifying it by the, pretty much fact, that if they had tried to help they would not have gotten out. That ferry went down fast once it started to go down, and it took way too long for the crew to realize they were sinking and sound the alarm, and it seems to have been total chaos after that.

                  But there seems most certainly not have been much of any “women and children first” mentality there. Some of the survivors seem to have really, really tried very hard to keep the one younger teenager or child or old person or woman who got into their raft alive, but of course at that point it no longer meant risking their own life.

                  Yep. Equality.

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              2. I think it was via Small Dead Animals : I found a series of essays by women who had via testosterone injections and surgery become able to successfully pass as male barring medical exam. They were all complaining how mean everyone was to them now, and how unfairly they were treated vs. when they lived as women. One writer was a radical lesbian feminist. “I used to get praised for talking about my concerns, now I am told to shut up and stop mansplaining…on the same exact topic” (OWTTE)

                Actual schadenfreude overdose: it’s impossible not to pity those poor souls, and yet… hilarious

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                1. i wonder if its from the same study where they talked about how they felt angry and well… a highly accelerated sex drive ALL THE TIME compared to before…

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                  2. A female friend of mine experiences the same thing whenever she gets migraines. She mentioned it and asked if that was what it was like for guys all the time.
                    I asked her to describe how she felt, and it fit perfectly, so I told her yes.
                    Her response was: “This explains so much. I feel bad for you.”

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                2. Actually, I have pointed people to several writings by transmen (and one by a woman who had to go through strong testosterone therapy for other medical issues) to understand what it is like to be a 13 year old boy.

                  Several of the transmen write they had no idea that attractive women could lead to graphically sexual imagines showing up unbidden (the woman had them about attractive men). At least one had the insight to say something along the lines of “I can’t imagine doing this at 13 given how rough it is at 30” (on the This American Life testosterone episode if anyone wants to seek it out).

                  Liked by 1 person

                3. The modern SF fictional treatment of low-tech (non-medical) transgenderism, Terry Pratchett’s “Monstrous Regiment,” covers a lot of the bases in these kinds of discussions.

                  Liked by 1 person

    4. Apropos of this … my daughter and I always get the giggles when we pass through the wee South Texas town of Falls City – as they are enormously proud of their HS football team – which has been dubbed “The Beavers”. And there are several signs along the road which traverses Falls City which proclaims, “Welcome to Beaver Country!”
      Yeah, the Daughter Unit and I are military veterans – and our minds go straight into the gutter. Every. Damn. Time.

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        1. Beavercreek Beavers. At a certain point in high school, they started referring to ‘Creek Pride instead of Beaver Pride on our t-shirts, which kinda went over my head. Still does. I mean, that is pretty far down on the slang list in our region — sort of old-fashioned.

          Of course, when you have beavers making dams in the vicinity, and that is the name of your town and landscape features, and you have giant anthropomorphic Castor canadensis statues all over town, your mind is less likely to think of the synonyms.

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          1. Ah, yes, Beavercreek. Having friends in Kettering and Fairborn, I seem to drive through it often enough.

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          2. I’ve often wondered why none of the beaver statues wasn’t decorated to look like the infamous beer-can beaver float from a homecoming celebration back in the early 80’s.

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      4. Oh, I have a better one than that. Back in 2013-2014, I was working a project in Portland OR. They weren’t TOTALLY batguano loony Left, but they were still pretty bad. I can’t fully describe my amusement when an advertising campaign for hiring Oregon State U, mascot a beaver, graduates popped up in the Portland airport.

        Around a picture of a pretty, fresh-faced, shapely OSU coed, in big bold red letters: Need someone for a hard job? Put A BEAVER On It!

        8-) 8-) 8-)

        The first time I saw that, I was howling like a loon for at least 5 minutes….. They stayed up for around six months.

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        2. Groan. Sigh. Beaver grad here (Forestry ’79). Also Duck grad (Computer Science ’89). Guess that makes me a Platypus.

          FYI. All the talk about the Beaver mascot in Texas been avoiding making the OSU Beaver comment …

          Like I care about sports; uh no. Only reason to watch a sport is if my kid is playing. Since that was golf & cross country during HS, got a pass; well we did watch the student built electrical car races at the Portland Raceway. Before that. Yes. Soccer, Basketball, Baseball, then flag Football.

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          3. I’m sorry, d, but of all the places you would think would have figured out that one was….. “problematic”…..

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    5. Jumping off of that, I am reminded of when The Son wanted to find some nice pictures of Jaina from Warcraft a couple of years ago, and… well… was quite confused at why a number of them were naked… and just as horrified realization set in…

      His Dad comes into his room to ask him a question, and asks him a completely different one instead.

      The boyo didn’t get into trouble for that, though he did have some chuckles at his expense, and to his intense relief, the Housemate fixed his safe search settings, which had gotten turned off the last time the computer got a fresh OS install (At the time, it needed to be swapped over to Windows for something. School reasons I think.)

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        1. Actually, turned out Rhys had been standing there, paused, because he saw the look of ‘What the hell am I looking at?’ face Vincent was making, and then described how it went from ‘???’ then *squint…???* to “OH CRAP I AM NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SEEING THIS!!!!!!”

          So we knew he hadn’t gone deliberately looking for it. Poor kiddo, he was actually rather disturbed by how much of the fanart he came across was smut.

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      2. Yeah, Princess is on a computer ban because she decided to ignore my instruction that you can only look up pictures on the TV computer. (where mom or dad can keep an eye on exactly what is being typed, before anything nasty shows up; I do not need to explain pictures of My Little Pony being horrifically murdered.)

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  11. WP is being tetchy again. I am not amused. Imagine a very Victorian vulture grimly awaiting the death of the object in its sight. WP delenda est.

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        1. Seeing as the frog traditionally changes back into the enchanted Prince, that’s probably not a * bad* thing. Unless it’s one of those frogs with psychoactive skin . . .

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          2. But that’s not the means. Something you have to throw it against the wall, sometimes you have to cut its head off with a sword, — but it’s not a kiss.

            Liked by 1 person

  14. Also, with those frogs you might get these frogs too if they become sufficiently pissed off (if we assume the hand belongs to a politician), at least they have done that in their history

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    2. This one is actually Wikipedia’s fault, not WordPress’s fault. When you paste an image link, WordPress converts it to a proper HTML <img> tag. But when you click on that particular link, WordPress serves up an *HTML* picture-viewing page, not the picture itself. So when there’s an <img> tag, but the stuff inside the <img> tag is actually HTML rather than an image, the browser says “Nope, not allowed, this is probably someone trying some kind of hack attempt”.

      Try this link instead, which actually serves up *just* the image:

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        1. its only a nono if you call a rabbit a smeerp. Everuone lknows smeerps look like a capybeaver from Zenicus 6, but the name was already taken.

          Liked by 1 person

  17. Feminist Beaver is quite appropriate, actually, for she is as much of a beaver as she is for advocating for women.

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  19. Uh oh. Is Orvan going to have the hots for that lady in the last picture?

    (And if memory serves, I think your faux beaver is a nutria.)

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    2. I was thinking the faux beaver was a Capybara, but I could be wrong, one rodent of unusual size looks much like another.

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  20. The problem isn’t political hotair from the congress cows, its the political BS from them. Unlike natural BS, political BS only grows weeds.

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    1. Agree. Regardless of the source of the steak – Beef, Venison, Elk, Ham, Buffalo, Beefalo, etc.

      Besides what are they going to do about all the odors & fumes coming out of Yellowstone, Crater Lake, off Sisters, Hood, St Helens, … oops, wait, forgot, those go off, we’ve got bigger problems; locally, at least, at first. Yellowstone dances then N. American hemisphere is going to have a LOT of bad days, from Mexico north. Central & South America will wish the HAD paid for the wall …

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        2. Corey “Spartacus” Booker is vegan. Alexandria Occasional-Cortex, avid to eliminate the danger of flatulent cows from America, is a vegetable.

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  25. Indeed. Anthropogenic global warming may or may not be a real thing: As nearly as I can tell, the science of atmospheric composition and its effects on climate is not nearly as settled as some would have everyone think. However, the hot air generated by attempts to create hysteria over it and leverage that into political power is quite real.

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    1. Anthropogenic global warming caused Mars to lose it’s polar ice caps.
      Remember those.
      MAN is a POWER in the Solar System, he can do ANYTHING!

      Liked by 1 person

  26. The pink-hatted rodent is indeed a nutria (aka coypu). Like SJWs nutria are considered a nuisance alien species. Unlike SJWs they did originally have value – they were imported to be raised for their fur. (Probably why this one is NOT AMUSED.) Contrasted with SJWs, you could say that nutria were in fact more skinned against than skinning.

    ;-)

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    1. The local jackrabbits could compete with nutria for no redeeming social value. Like many of the New Greenies, they are adept at digging large and inconvenient holes. (The great horned owls are being derelict in their hunting duties. Harumph!)

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      1. Jackrabbits crossed with Nutria is kind of a horrifying idea; the entire landmass of the world would be covered with furries in about 10 years, leaving only 2 more years for AGW to kill them off.
        We need a picture of a Jackalope instead.

        That’s an incorrect portmanteau spelling, BTW; jackrabbit plus antelope should be jackelope, but it’s the only version I can find on the internet, because that’s how the “discoverer” spelled it. Which has some inherent problems, to wit:
        this –“The word “jackalope” is a portmanteau of “jackrabbit” and “antalope”, …” — was printed by Pinterest with apparently no comprehension of the error in the final word, which leads one to the conclusion that back-forming was done, a clear danger when words are misspelled to start with.

        This description of the warped spelling is more precise, and there are pictures and a history: “The jackalope — the name is a head-on collision between the words “jackrabbit” and “antelope” — is the stuff of American legend.”
        https://yeoldecuriosityshop.com/blogs/news/17793604-are-jackalopes-real

        * * *
        BTW, speaking of portmanteaus, which are kind of like contractions between two words, I also keep seeing “y’all” incorrectly spelled as “ya’ll” by most of the world. “You” plus “all” elides the “ou” with an apostrophe; the other makes no grammatical sense at all.

        Today’s episode has been brought to you by the letters “E” and “A” …

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      1. First, Occasional-Cortex opens her yap, and lets the stupid out.
        Then, Omar opens her yap, and tops AOC with the sounds of stupid.
        Booker ask someone to hold his vegan microbrew, and tops both.

        And you know AOC & Omar aren’t going to let themselves be topped in the stupid statement department.

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  33. The Frog pictures … they burn…..

    Hot Frogs on the Loose – by Fred Small

    By the light of the Tennessee Moon
    Billions of bubbles of a Black Lagoon
    Make a Hound Dog howl and a SWAT team swoon
    “Hot Frogs on the Loose”

    They multiplied since ‘53
    Slurping nuclear debris
    Amphibians, fabulous fancy free
    “Hot Frogs on the Loose”

    Chorus
    Hippity Hoppity, here they come
    Radioactive, looking for fun
    If you kiss ’em, look out for the tongue
    “Hot Frogs on the Loose”

    They got little skinny legs and big bug eyes
    Fraternizings not advised
    They like you like they like flies
    “Hot Frogs on the Loose”
    They got a chicken-nugget body and a whopper leap
    In your bedroom while you sleep
    They’ll make your Geiger counter beep

    Chorus

    You can put the pedal to the metal
    ‘til the rubber squeals
    Squish them with your tires, you got hot wheels
    Now you know how it feels
    “Hot Frogs on the Loose”

    Please do not keep them as pets
    Sauteeing them may bring regrets
    Make a citizen’s arrest
    There’s a hot frog on the loose

    Frogs for peace, frogs for defense
    Don’t be nervous, don’t be tense
    We’ve got a sure-fire 3 foot fence
    To keep the hot frogs from getting loose.

    Chorus

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  34. Tried to reply to the comments above on transgendering but it didn’t go through there, so:
    The modern SF fictional treatment of low-tech (non-medical) transgenderismvTerry Pratchett’s “Monstrous Regiment, covers a lot of the bases in these kinds of discussions.

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  35. Hope Sarah doesn’t mind, but I don’t really have anywhere else I can ask about this.

    I ran across a comment, which I will paste here:

    Obama signed an executive order in December ’09. EO #12425, that effectively gives INTERPOL jurisdiction over US Courts, Judicial systems and Law Enforcement. It was done late at night with very minimal exposure in the press. Democrats have been feeding the American People to the Globalists for a long time. It just seems that Republicans and even American citizens and our government Representatives just don’t care.

    So yes, someday Americans may be subject to arrest and conviction by a world court thanks to a Democrat devil.

    I vaguely remember that, but I wasn’t aware it was done.

    My question is now: is it true that basically, the US no longer has jurisdiction over it’s own courts and law enforcement?

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    1. that isn’t what that EO does at all. It gives INTERPOL the priveledges and immunities of an international organization…

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    2. k, wall of text warning.

      Original EO:
      Alternate Title: EO 12425: International Criminal Police Organizations

      “By virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and statutes of the United States, including Section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (59 Stat. 669, 22 U.S.C. 288), it is hereby ordered that the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), in which the United States participates pursuant to 22 U.S.C. 263a, is hereby designated as a public international organization entitled to enjoy the privileges, exemptions and immunities conferred by the International Organizations Immunities Act; except those provided by Section 2(c), the portions of Section 2(d) and Section 3 relating to customs duties and federal internal-revenue importation taxes, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act. This designation is not intended to abridge in any respect the privileges, exemptions or immunities which such organization may have acquired or may acquire by international agreement or by Congressional action.”

      Was changed before, here’s Clinton’s:
      Amendment to Executive Order No. 12425
      By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the
      laws of the United States of America, and in order to extend the appropriate
      privileges, exemptions, and immunities upon the International Criminal Police Organization (‘‘INTERPOL’’) it is hereby ordered that Executive Order
      No. 12425 be amended by deleting, in the first sentence, the words ‘‘the
      portions of Section 2(d) and’’ and the words ‘‘relating to customs duties and federal internal-revenue importation taxes’’.

      Here’s Obama’s:

      By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the
      laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International
      Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and in order to extend the
      appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International
      Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12425 of June 16, 1983, as amended, is further amended by deleting from the first sentence the words ‘‘except those provided by Section 2(c), Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act’’ and the semicolon that immediately precedes them.

      To see all these linked, go to
      https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/1983.html
      and then ctrl-F down to
      Executive Order 12425
      International Criminal Police Organizations

      So the new EO says:
      “By virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and statutes of the United States, including Section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (59 Stat. 669, 22 U.S.C. 288), it is hereby ordered that the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), in which the United States participates pursuant to 22 U.S.C. 263a, is hereby designated as a public international organization entitled to enjoy the privileges, exemptions and immunities conferred by the International Organizations Immunities Act. This designation is not intended to abridge in any respect the privileges, exemptions or immunities which such organization may have acquired or may acquire by international agreement or by Congressional action.”

      Can’t look up what that MEANS because it’s bedtime I need to hug the monsters.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. I can do nay more than skim the wall of text put up by Foxfier as I’ve run short on sleep the last three days ad my eyes glazed over after the first sentence, but here is what strikes me as the key phrase:

          “By virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and statutes of the United States …”

          I just do not think any president has the authority to cede jurisdiction over our courts and law enforcement. That sovereignty is not the president’s to give away.

          Which isn’t to say a cabal of corrupt legislators and five of nine Justices members of the Supreme Court wouldn’t ratify such an act, but the People of the United States would own no duty to honour such an unlawful transfer of power.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. I actually spent more time trying to find what those modified than finding the EOs, and ran out of time with the kids.

            But the take-away is that Interpol only got slightly more authority than they previously had, which was a limited version of what any other recognized agency already had.

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                  1. Thank you ^_^

                    (And I did send pics when she was born but I think the spam filter ate ’em coz of my non-common email address.)

                    Every night’s a terror, and the raspy, noisy stridor she has (not so bad these days but sounds like a bad asthma attack to others) is an odd comfort, but when she grins… #worthitall

                    Liked by 1 person

                    1. Beautiful, Adorable, & all the blessings. Those smiles are great.

                      Yes. They grow way too fast. We try to tell parents to cherish every eye weary sleep deprived minute. Before you know it, she’s asking your help to pack for college.

                      Liked by 1 person

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