It's imperative that immigrants be told before arrival that this is a felony punishable by prison...

It's also imperative that it be added to the category of mandatory reporting by doctors, clergy, teachers, psychologists, and cops, just like other forms of child abuse. It doesn't matter if they send the girls back to the Old Country to have this done, causing it to be done should be a felony here.

Put teeth in those laws. Make being part of this country mean something.

It's not a religious act -- it's nowhere in the Koran. It's a tribal holdover that persists, and is deeply misogynistic. In the name of keeping women chaste it induces a lifetime of pain and dysfunction. It is not at all analogous to male circumcision.

Cultural practices connected to control of female sexuality and male fetishism are extremely hard to stamp out. Chinese foot-binding that broke bones and crippled little girls for life was one of those. It was becoming unpopular among one small class of people: those with a Western education; but ultimately the only means of actually stopping it across the whole society was the persistance of the Chinese Communist Army in visiting villages and forcing families to unbind their daughters' feet.

To bad FGM can't be undone that easily. But to me it points to a lesson: laws must change and laws must be enforced.

Please proceed, Mad King. I will laugh till my sides hurt.

My family moved to O'ahu in 1957 -- I didn't move away until 1979

My dad came on a Lockheed Aircraft contract, which ended after 8 years, the same year I graduated from Kailua High School. We returned to SoCal just in time for events like the Watts Riots. As the oldest kid, I was the only one who really could return, and after a few years of community college in California -- politically formative years-- I transferred to University of Hawai'i instead of UC Berkeley. I planned to stay forever, but, well, life has other plans.

Have not been able to return more than a few times, but despite everything, the 'aina is as beautiful as ever, and speaks to my soul.

When I read Obama's book during his first presidential campaign I could tell how much it had shaped him, irrevocably. He married into the African American community, but he is also a true keiki o ka 'aina. Any Hawai'ian would understand both parts of that.

Considering HRC won 3 million more votes than Red Don, despite Putin, vote rigging, and all...

Yeah, I'd call that pretty horrific too. Damn, that woman failed utterly to get the racist vote, the white nationalist vote, the vote of those who want a strongman (emphasis on man), and the low-information vote. Such a failure. Damn, and it's all on her, no question.

So tell me, all you prosecutors and juries out there: How do we swing the Democratic Party and our message in the coming elections so we can capture the racists, misogynists, white nationalists, and low-info voters? Is a strong leftward tilt going to get them? What, exactly? On edit: For gods' sake don't take this to mean I think the Party needs to swing rightward. I don't. But think about who The Mad King's base really is when you bemoan the fact that we lost them. We never had them.

Or are we going to stop blaming Hillary for our own party's members' failure (among other things) to show up at midterms -- the failure that allows statehouses to pick up representatives who then get to gerrymander the hell out of districts? Are we going to stop blaming her for problems that have been accumulating for 40 years, ever since Newt Gingrich started his Orwellian career, a far right wing billionaire-funded plan that is now bearing its most evil and poisonous fruit?

Oh sure, DefenseLawyer, defend that status quo.

Where were you when DU was hacked? I sure remember how cocky and condescending (your words) our members were. On Nov 7 one of our most respected members told how she woke up that morning thinking the election was over and Trump had won, at which point she vomited. She was not alone in that state of hyper-anxiety. Then the nightmare came true for all of us.

This country has systemic problems that are none of Hillary's fault. She's spent a lifetime trying to ameliorate them. And her reward has been to be hunted down like a dog by the VRWC until millions believed the lies.

Yet she still got 3 million more verifiable votes than Trojan Horse Don, the Mad King.

Yeah, sure we feel all condescending and cocky.

Actually, we just have had it up to our back teeth with the lies that will not die, and the blame that is going to sell a thousand books.

As CEO he never had to speak to press gaggles who peppered him with rude questions...

...and expected answers. If he ever spoke publicly at all (if shareholder meetings count as public) it would have been from well-prepared written remarks, no questions after. The employees in the Exxon building were all peons to one degree or another, in his eyes; if his behavior in State is any indication, he spent all his time in his office going over papers, meeting only with his near-equals, and never acknowledging the presence of other employees in the halls or elevators.

Tillerson knows one thing and he knows it well. Those skills and behaviors have not translated well to his new job.

The oft-repeated GOP mantra that government should be run like a business is entirely the wrong paradigm, but how many Americans will finally learn that lesson?

Not so. Children need to be taught what is right and how to act when they are young. ...

How else will they grow up to be decent people themselves? Soon enough they learn there are people who are not decent, or kind, or honest. Then we (parents, teachers) teach them how to respond, how to speak up, how to defend themselves and others. These are tools for life.

Trump serves as a horrible example of everything a human being should not be. He's rich and powerful -- that doesn't make him a "winner."

Resistance starts at home, and it starts young.

Assault. Slander. Hatred of strong women. Yeah, it's what the so-called potus does.

Well-spotted.

Susan Rice is being slandered, as is Obama. "It's her turn in the barrel," as they so charmingly...

...put it about Podesta. I think Trump and his minions just throw all the names of decent people who served this country in a bucket and pull them out at random. Or the Trumpites pull the names out of somewhere much darker on Red Don's person.

Slander, people. Slander.