AKotW 2/25: Fighters of the Good Fight

Orrr maybe I'll just continue posting these very late!  Life is busy.  This is for posterity.  Posterity can wait a few days.

So, last week!  The nominees for Asshat of the Week were:

The Wisconsin Assembly, for forcing through a bill that will strip unions of their collective bargaining rights and sending troopers out after their Democratic members, who fled town to try to prevent a vote.  We the Western Blog are particularly upset about any story that involves forcing a bill through, but the Wisconsin Assembly is singled out for being particularly awful because (a) they've completely ignored legitimate attempts at negotiation on the points they are saying are the reason for the bill and (b) the cultural impact this is having on the rest of the country in terms of setting a precedent.  (The effects have certainly already been felt in Ohio.)  Point (b) put the Wisconsin Assembly over the top in our discussion.  Nice job, asshats.

Omar Gaddafi, for not only killing hundreds on hundreds of his own people but also having the tenacity to claim everyone loves him and to blame the protests against him on spiked Nescafe and Osama Bin Laden in a blatant attempt at trying to get America to come kill everybody for him that truly pushes him into Asshat territory. 

On the "micro" end of the spectrum we have Hersha Howard, who assaulted her roommate with scissors and a board because her roommate gave her Thin Mints to her (Howard's) children.  We the Blog are perfectly sympathetic to Thin Mint-inspired passions, but those are strong emotions that should be used always for good, never for asshattery.

But once again, we must remember that although there is quite a lot doom and gloom right now, there are also some reasons to keep muddling on.  Namely........the Asskickers of the Week.

The sometimes-asshats, sometimes-asskickers of Anonymous earned a nomination this week for crippling the Westboro BC's website during an interview.  Although they support free speech to the extent they don't really care about Westboro's various hatreds, they got really irritated when a Westboro representative kept interrupting an Anonymous member during a joint news interview, and just decided to kill their site for the heck of it.  Which is all for the better.

Closer to home, we have teacher of multiple Westerners Dr. Tom Peet (story unrelated but similar), who is busy protesting Senate Bill 5 (guy framed by sign guy's arm) with other state employees in Columbus.  Senate Bill 5 is a really terrible bill that's speeding through passage... but to keep on the positive side, we were inspired that Dr. Peet is still out there fighting the good fight.  Kickass.  Honorary Westerner.

Next, we have President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, who issued a memo (and sent a letter to John Boehner) stating that the Justice Department will no longer defend the constitutionality of Defense of Marriage Act if it's attacked in court.  Some of the best legal maneuvers in history seem to be done sideways... we'll see how this one works out, but at any rate, taking a stand on this one is enough to merit an Asskicker.  So they should probably just add that to the end of their titles now.

 

Another nomination goes to the Libyan jet pilots who, when ordered to fire on the crowds of protesters, straight up stole their jets and went to Malta, requesting asylum.  Two claimed to be high-ranking colonels; they left with such haste that only one had a passport with him.  Libya is such a mess of bad stuff right now, but it's not everyone! 

And with most support in discussion (and in the interest of parallelism), the coveted Asskicker of the Week award goes to the Wisconsin police, who managed the protesting crowds in the Madison courthouse but joined them when they were off-duty last week-- at one point, having been told to evacuate the building, one was quoted as saying "We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!"  Building alliances, taking responsibility for people who aren't you, keeping the future a priority... good job guys.  Keep on kickin' ass.