It's the gift that keeps on giving: Michele Bachmann, Minnesota's own batshit-crazy Republican congresscritter, just can't A) keep out of the news, and B) keep her ignorant mouth shut.
First, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently started a website in honor of my favorite suburban nutbag of the north, Bachmann Watch - Michele Bachmann Versus The Truth. Bachmann seems to be working hard to maintain her image as America's Craziest Member of Congress®, and believe me, that takes some doing! Frankly, it's hard to keep up with all the nuttiness and fevered delusions she has, so I'm glad for the help.
Then recently, Bachmann turns up on Pajamas Media, a wingnut media outfit, and OMG, the insanity begins to roll:
Here's the quote...: "I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter," said Bachmann. "And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."
Then why did you bring it up? A quick look at the swine flu scare in the 1970s brings up some interesting facts Bachmann seems to have missed that discredits even this "interesting coincidence". The first cases that spurred the swine flu vaccinations actually happened in 1976 under Republican President Gerald Ford when some Fort Dix soldiers became ill. Carter continued the vaccinations when he took office.
Bitch, pleeeese! It's bad enough that she can't seem to find a local media outlet to spew her insanity on, bad enough that she insists on using the childish pejorative "Democrat" instead of "Democratic", and it's bad enough that she doesn't even bother to google it--but can't she even remember who was the president in 1976??
Today Pennsylvania's Sen. Arlen Specter switched from his longtime Republican affiliation to the Democratic party. Is he the 59th Democratic vote in the Senate, or will he be a Lieberman clone? And what about Al?
In a stunning turnabout in political loyalties that he acknowledged was driven by a desire for re-election, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania on Tuesday announced he was leaving the Republican Party to become a Democrat, handing President Obama a potential 60th Senate vote and further marginalizing Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Specter said he had concluded from his own polling and travels through his state that he could not survive a Republican primary against a conservative candidate and would instead align with a Democratic Party he said was more compatible to his political views.
Mr. Specter’s surprise decision shook the Capitol, opening the door for Democrats — if they can resolve the lingering Minnesota Senate race in their favor, as they seem likely to do — to have the 60 votes necessary to defeat Republican filibusters. Republicans acknowledged that Mr. Specter’s switch was a major problem, and it exposed their continuing vulnerabilities as the party loses its remaining moderates and finds itself up against a popular president.
Another rat jumps ship! John Cornyn is forced to admit that the Republican party as presently constituted isn't a national party anymore, Joe Biden shows why he's a valuable member of the team for his influence on Specter's decision, and maybe we can finally get Al Franken seated. But what are we getting out of this? Specter has been a center-right Republican, will he now find Jesus & FDR and become center-left, voting for things like the Employee Free Choice Act (that he once cosponsored, then said he wouldn't support)? Will this pressure Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to also defect to the Democrats?
Specter's one constant trait is that he will always look out for Arlen Specter first. Facing declining poll numbers for his 2010 primary fight, Specter chose to switch rather than fight. Rather than face a far-right challenger in the PA Republican primary, a state party that has shrunk dramatically thanks to FatAss Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" and the tidal wave of blue the covered the Northeast electoral map last fall, Specter saw the writing on the wall. After obtaining a promise from PA Gov. Ed Rendell that he wouldn't face any opposition in the primary, Specter switched his party identity to (D).
So what does this do for the Democratic party? Specter was originally a Democrat, switched to the Repugs in the early '70s, and now "comes home" again in the time of Barack Obama. He's been one of the more socially liberal Republicans--although I can never forgive him for giving us Clarence Thomas--but he's a warhawk, supporting both Vietnam and Iraq, and has flipflopped on EFCA. He's not going to be in the forefront of the fight for health care, and don't expect him to fall in lockstep with the rest of the party to help us overcome the inevitable Republican filibusters.
What this does do for us, though, is several things. First, with the seating of Al Franken in the Senate, this gives us a supermajority of 60 votes--though not reliably. It loudly sounds the call for other moderate Republicans, the three or four left in the party, to join Specter with the Democrats. Specter's defection is, as Nate Silver has said, "a manifestation of the Republican Death Spiral," and:
The more conservative [...] their message becomes, the more they alienate non-base Republicans. But the more they alienate non-base Republicans, the fewer of them are left to worry about appeasing. Thus, their message becomes continually more appealing to the base -- but more conservative, partisan, and strident to the rest of us. And the process loops back upon itself.
And as people like Michael Steele, FatAss Limbaugh, John Boehner, and Michele Bachmann prove every time they speak, what's left of the Republican party is the hardcore wingnuts. And how will they attract moderates and independents with the kind of nonsense that gushes from their mouths? No wonder Olympia Snow freaked out when she heard the news about Specter today.
Specter's defection also gives the GOP a big black eye. Think about it: Specter would rather switch parties than be identified as a Republican in Pennsylvania? Well, PA went Democratic bigtime, and all that's left of the national GOP now are the old Dixiecrats and the Christian Taliban. The GOP base is shrinking down to just old, far-right white people, mostly poor but with a few plutocrats:
But outside Washington, the reality is very different. Rank-and-file Republicans remain, by all indications, staunchly conservative, and they appear to have no desire to moderate their views. GOP activists and operatives say they hear intense anger at the White House and at the party’s own leaders on familiar issues – taxes, homosexuality, and immigration. Within the party, conservative groups have grown stronger absent the emergence of any organized moderate faction.
There is little appetite for compromise on what many see as core issues, and the road to the presidential nomination lies – as always – through a series of states where the conservative base holds sway, and where the anger appears to be, if anything, particularly intense.
And if the intolerant far-right holds sway, then where in the Republican party is there room for anyone else with a differing view? They've become the party of dittoheads and teabaggers!
In other words, those that best respond to the current GOP message are becoming an increasingly smaller part of the American electorate, while the newest voters are essentially repulsed by that message. And despite the valiant efforts by the likes of Republicans like Mehgan McCain and Steve Schmidt, the base won't let the party moderate on gay marriage (even though gay marriage could easily be recast as a "conservative" position -- keeping government out of the business of regulating how people live), or any other issue the base considers part of conservative orthodoxy like immigration, taxes, or government spending. I mean, how ridiculous did Govs. Palin, Sanford, and Jindal look trying to reject federal stimulus money?
Yeah, I'd switch too, if I had to rub shoulders with that crowd.
One of my favorite punching bags, Michele Bachmann, is at it again. This time, she's determined--all on her own, apparently--that carbon dioxide "is a natural product of nature" (what would be an unnatural product of nature, one wonders?), and that "it (carbon dioxide) isn't a harmful gas." Takes a gasbag like her to know, huh?
The fun starts around 1:25; I love Keith Olbermann's expression and comments after her segment, beginning at 2:22:
OMG, what is it going to take to get this woman out of Congress? Isn't there some clause in the Constitution that requires representatives to have intelligence levels above that of houseplants? Between Bachmann and Norm Coleman, the rest of the country has to wonder what kind of idiots we're breeding here in Minnesota. Well, at least she's responsible for a great deal of money being donated to the Democratic party!
About once a month, this guy steps up and starts browbeating the President of the United States because they lost the election.
I think that Dick Cheney wants this country to get hit again for political gain...I think Cheney is that mean.
We got hit on your watch. You were in the briefings back then.
Is this the best thing the conservative movement can come up with, Dick Cheney once a month going out there, rearing his ugly personality and his hatred for the country?
Norm Coleman has kept his word and filed a notice of petition to appeal his election-contest loss today to the Minnesota Supreme Court (pdfs available here). The former U.S. senator’s petition will ask the state’s high court to find fault with last week’s election contest court ruling that Democrat Al Franken won Coleman’s old Senate seat by 312 votes.
Coleman lawyers Ben Ginsberg and Jim Langdon told reporters by phone that the petition highlights alleged double-counting of votes and failure to count thousands of rejected absentee ballots. Among the arguments are equal-protection and due-process claims based on the U.S. Constitution.
Langdon said the high court would have broader discretion to consider such Constitutional arguments than did (sic) the lower, three-judge election-contest panel, which he said was more constrained by prior court rulings.
Langdon estimated that oral arguments the Coleman’s side is requesting could come in two weeks to two months, although the Supreme Court isn’t actually obligated to hold oral arguments at all. He said he expects "a very time-sensitive and expedited schedule"--in part because rules obligate the court to drop everything else for this kind of case.
What Normie expects to get out of this when, in every recount of the absentee ballots, Al Franken's lead has increased, is simple: the 59th Democratic senator is delayed from taking hs seat, and Normie stays ouf of jail for one more day. He knows he can't win, but he's just following orders at this point.
Norm is a lying, whining weasel, pure and simple, a sore loser and a future felon, and the Rethug plutocrats backing his endless legal shenanigans are obstructionist, petty assholes. Norm won't be able to run for dog catcher in Minnesota after this fiasco, but he keeps filing petitions and appeals and wasting the people of Minnesota's time because his masters in the GOP have told him to do so. And for their part, the GOP moneymen financing all this don't give a rat's ass about Norm or Minnesota, but they'll do anything to slow down Pres. Obama's agenda. Yes, they all belong in court, all right--criminal court.
Here's hoping that that Minnesota Supreme Court refuses to hear this case, and kicks Norm to the curb.
I deliberately use the word black rather than the words African American. The latter lacks the proper emotional value. It is cultural and geographical. The former is visceral. Bigotry is not subtle. It is primal. It is not about ideas. It is irrational.
He is smarter and more educated and more articulate than they. A self-made man, he represents everything they would claim to value. But he looks different, to them. They hate him because he looks different. They hate him because he is dark. In "Western" "Culture," the very words black and dark have powerfully negative value. They often are used as synonyms for the sinister.
They hated President Clinton, and tried to destroy him. But one of their elected governors didn't talk secession. They didn't talk revolution. They didn't attempt (and miserably fail) to launch nationwide protests against him. Bill Clinton was a lot of things. He was not black.
President Obama is no crazy liberal. He is increasing defense spending. Even Alan Greenspan is suggesting economic solutions more akin to "socialism." Gun lovers have nothing to fear. On policy grounds, we crazy liberals have been criticizing him from day one. The radical right have been lambasting him. With the nation fighting two wars and an economic meltdown, they openly hope he fails. But they are not about policy. They are about hatred. And they hate Obama as they have never hated any president. It's not complicated.
No, it's not. From Hannity and O'Reilly, to Glenn Beck and the Coultergeist, the naked racism is openly on display. Look around the net at the various non-Fox reports on the teabaggers this week: the Obama effigies, the offensive posters, the wild accusations of "fascism", "communism", "socialism", frequently made by people whose most intellectually challenging activity of the day is putting on their socks. Look at the series of orchestrated attacks by Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Ari Fleischer, and then look at who didn't point fingers: Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice.Coincidence that the two most prominent black members of the Bush Administration have kept their silence on Obama's performance and policies? I doubt it.
They didn't do this to Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. They didn't do this to Jimmy Carter during the Iran Hostage crisis. And they damn sure didn't do it when Dubya started an unjust and illegal war with a series of lies, tortured people, and put us deeply into debt. John Kerry's birth certificate wasn't doubted. Joe Biden's citizenship wasn't questioned. John Edwards didn't inspire cries of "Kill him!" from rabid, unwashed crowds of the Republican base. Hillary Clinton, of all the recent Democratic candidates, most closely suffered the same level of hysterical outcry, and there's a reason for that, too. But that's for another post.
Barack Obama, alone of all recent Presidents and presidential candidates, has suffered the most egregious, outrageous, insulting, and treasonous protests and criticism. After his election victory, there was widespread talk that Obama's presidency would usher in a "post-racial" atmosphere in America. It's pretty obvious now that not only are we far from post-racial, but in some ways we seem to have regressed to a pre-1964 level of discourse.
At least, on the Republican side. The party has regressed to its Dixiecrat origins, entering the last stages of Nixon's famous Southern Strategy, but is in danger of declining to become merely a regional party. However, this is when it could be most dangerous to the Republic, for the seeds of hatred the Repugs have sown for the last forty years are beginning to bear fruit, in the time of our first black President. Only time will tell if this noxious weed will find fertile ground to grow.
Local congresscritter and world-class loony Michele Bachmann is at it again, this time telling absolute lies and untruths about the 2006 "flying imams" incident at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Appearing on San Francisco radio KSFO back in April, Bachmann told a totally fabricated story about the incident:
“The imams, the imams were actually attending, ah, Congressman Keith Ellison’s victory celebration, when he won as a member of Congress,” Bachmann said.
Actually, they were in Minneapolis attending the fourth annual conference of the North American Imams Federation, as the Minnesota Independent, the New York Times and others reported at the time.
She also related that local “Somalis have been recruited, ah, taken, apparently to, ah, training camps, and, ah, one of the Somalis, ah, became a suicide bomber in the Middle East.” While there’s evidence that these young men weren’t “taken” but saved up to fund their own trips, the error here is in the story of a local Somali man who is thought to have died as a suicide bomber: He did so not in the “Middle East,” but in Somalia.
Of course, they were here for the party--don't all the Muslims know each other? Is there any connect with objective reality for this woman, or, as has been suggested elsewhere, does she actually believe everything she reads on the internet?
Congressman Ellison, appearing today on The Ed Schultz Show, said: "This is not true. I think it could even be called 'Psycho Talk.'"
My advice for Michele is: increase your medication.
Remember this, from Edward Percovic, best friend of Pittsburgh cop killer Richard Poplawski:
"We recently discovered that 30 states had declared sovereignty. One of his concerns was why were these major events in America not being reported to the public."
"You can’t convince me that the Founding Fathers wouldn’t allow you to secede.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact, and if a state says: ‘I don’t want to go there, because that’s suicide, they have a right to back out. They have a right — people have a right to not commit economic suicide...
[...]Texas says go to hell, Washington, which by the way has been said before. I believe it was Davey Crocket...it’s about time that somebody says that again."
"We think it’s time to draw the line in the sand and tell Washington that no longer are we going to accept their oppressive hand in the state of Texas. That’s what this press conference, that’s what these Texans are standing up for. There is a point in time where you stand up and say enough is enough, and I think Americans, and Texans especially have reached that point."
Then tonight, I'm watching Hardball, and Tom Delay is on, grinning like he's been sniffing the insecticide again, dancing around Chris Mathews' questions. "Is Gov. Perry really serious about secession?" Mathews asked. "Because 600,000 people died the last time Texas talked about it." Delay, a frozen smile on his face, wouldn't give a definitive answer, except to repeat how "proud" and "independent" Texans are, that they "have a unique history with the United States," and that they wouldn't "let the federal government tell them what to do," over and over again.
For a state that receives 88 cents of federal support for every 1 dollar of taxes it gives, compared to Minnesota's ratio of 46 cents to the dollar, that's a lot of proud and arrogant talk. For a former Confederate state's governor to even hint at secession, that's bordering on treasonous. Wasn't this issue settled almost 150 years ago? Remember the Pledge of Allegiance that they were sooooo adamant, a year ago, that Pres. Obama recite? It includes the words "one Nation, indivisible." Indivisible, dammit! We're not going through that shit again.
The Republicans, as has been said here and many other places, have been reduced to their base, the hard-core crazies and wingnut extremists. They've become not just the "party of no," but a whiny, manic, totally insane gang of ignorant, obstructionist cretins. Texas is the same state whose senator, John Cornyn, thinks he can keep the rightful winner of the Minnesota Senate race out of office. The same state whose governor seems to think that the federal government is overly intrusive, has a senator who thinks he can decide who represents Minnesota in the United States Senate! The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
The Republican party, as I've said many times before, is only interested in regaining power, not bettering the lives of Americans. The tea parties, the obstructionism, the lying and deceit; all this is excessive, but not outside the law. Divisive, but not presenting a clear and present danger to the Republic. However, what Rick Perry and others are saying is dangerous, threatening, ominous speech; it cannot be allowed to continue. One civil war in this country was enough.
Therefore, I ask and implore President Obama, that if Gov. Perry continues to speak of secession, to send Federal troops to the state capitol at Austin, Texas, and arrest the governor on charges of high treason. These actions by Gov. Perry demand nothing less than his arrest and trial, and it must happen with all deliberate haste, should he continue to foment rebellion against the legitimate authority of the United States government. A challenge of this gravity, especially at this crucial time in our nation's history, deserves nothing less.
A new survey of Minnesota by Public Policy Polling (D), finds a clear verdict on the part of the state's voters: They want the disputed Senate race to be over, for Norm Coleman to concede defeat, and Al Franken to be sworn in. The poll was conducted yesterday and today, in the aftermath of the election court's ruling that Franken won the race.
People are finally beginning to see through Normie. I've said for a long time that Norm was a greedy, opportunistic, Bush-loving, self-serving jackass of a lackey who served the interests of the previous administration far more than he ever did the people of Minnesota. Now it's becoming obvious to a majority of people in the state.
If you haven't done so already, please stop by http://giveitupnorm.com, and give my favorite ex-senator a message. The sooner this sore loser is out of the way, the sooner the people of Minnesota will finally have full and responsible representation in the Senate.
By the way, and it's a point we've made before, but it's been pretty impressive how Franken has been so disciplined during this recount period. Indeed, until last night, when had we heard from him. Clearly, the GOP thought they were dealing with the stereotype that was Al Franken -- not the guy who proved to be a candidate who, well, got more votes than Norm Coleman. In fact, this has been a problem for the GOP in general the last few years when it comes to dealing with Democrats: They believe their own stereotypes about their opponents, rather than actually dealing with their opponents at face value.
Jill Tubman exposes the racist underbelly of tea party protests:
Were you wondering what happened to all the rabid, wild-eyed bigots yelling, “Kill him!” and “Terrorist” and “Socialist” carrying stuffed monkey plush dolls at the McCain-Palin rallies? It’s easy in our jubilation over Obama’s victory to forget the many people in America who were deeply fearful and hate-oriented towards an Obama presidency. Those people didn’t just shrug their shoulders at the Democratic victory in Nov 2008. No, they’ve re-organized. Largely abandoned by the Republican party who tapped cynically into their ignorance, fear and hatred and whipped these folks into a racist lather as a Get Out The Vote strategy, the Tax Day Tea Party people have used the internet to find each other and organize.
[...]I’ve been parsing the words and the racists have been very careful to cover their tracks and fury that a black man is President. But not well enough. I’m starting to become pretty convinced at this point that “socialist” is a some kind of code word for “nigger”.
I've been watching this so-called "movement" develop, too, with a great deal of disgust and animosity on my part. Why are crowds of white people, seemingly from every trailer park in the land, so concerned that people making over $250,000 will see their taxes rise by 4%, while their own taxes decline? Why the complaints that the government is spending too much money, when they said nary a word while George Bush spent money like a drunken sailor? Why do they seem to share a particularly vehement animosity for Pres. Obama, the Democratic party, and, most confusingly, policies that benefit them? And yes, these crowds are 100% white, in every video I've seen. What's eating them?
Well, as Ms. Tubman noted, now we know where those nutjobs at the Palin rallies last fall went to: they're making the Lipton Tea Company rich by spending their time and money mailing teabags to politicians! They didn't go back under their rocks, they didn't go back to the double-wide and hit the Jack Daniels; no, they're buying guns and copies of The Turner Diaries, preparing for some soon-to-come apocalyptic event. Jill Tubman goes on to note that Stormfront, the neo-Nazi organization, is loving it:
Ladies and gentlemen, I think every WN needs to not only attend the April 15th Tea Party nearest you (I’m going to the Alamo in San Antonio) but then stay involved and help provide leadership to this movement.
I believe that this is the white revolution we’ve been waiting for.
It doesn’t look what we expected but this is it.
I’ve seen probably 50 videos on TV showing previous marches and what strikes me is that the participants are all WHITE. It stands to reason . . . we’re the ones being taxed to support Affirmative Action, Welfare and other worthless social programs. It’s our tax dollars going to ACORN and supporting the 12 million illegals swarming into our neighborhoods.
There you have it: ACORN, affirmative action, and "other worthless social programs"--like Social Security and Medicare, no doubt--are ruining our nation.
Watching the reports tonight of the turnout nationwide, I'm somewhat gratified that the turnout was underwhelming. The teabaggers had turnouts of hundreds at best, dozens more likely. But a new report from Homeland Security worries me. The report, available here and stoking the ire of the wingnut bloggers everywhere, identifies right-wing extremist groups as a new and growing source of terrorism.
“The consequences of a prolonged economic downturn — including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability to obtain credit — could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities,” the report warns.
The report explains that threats so far have been “largely rhetorical,” but points to the April 4 shooting of three police officers in Pittsburgh as a “recent example of potential violence associated with right-wing extremism.”
The document points to both the economic downturn and election of President Barack Obama as potential recruitment tools for militant groups.
“Many right-wing extremists are antagonistic toward the new presidential administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms ownership and use,” it reads.
But to the wingnuts, this is treasonous talk! Forget that the worst act of terrorism on American soil before 9/11 was committed by an American veteran. Forget the several cases of rightwing nuts committing suicide by cop. And most of all, ignore the racist undertone in the tea bag parties today.
You know what really irritates me about the tea parties? The basic fact that if right now, it were President John McCain and not President Obama, and nothing else had changed, these tea parties wouldn’t exist. You know it, I know it, and even the teabaggers know it. It is just such transparent bullshit that it is offensive. The most these guys ever did during the last lost eight years was put a limp Porkbusters logo on their website, but now that we have President Malcom X George McGovern Shabazz, they are freaking out like there is no tomorrow. So absurd.
Cole is spot on; damn right, it's offensive and absurd. We've got a real mess here. I don't know what could be the solution, except for information, intelligence, and persistence. We need to ignore the idiots, bigots, and racists, and work on restoring our country. (And a few firearms in the hands of sane people wouldn't hurt, either. Why should the wingnuts be the only ones able to defend themselves?) We need to stop watching Fox and listening to FatAss Limbaugh. And we need to vigorously confront and combat this ignorance whenever and wherever it appears. That shouldn't be too hard, just look for the teabags.
All weekend, far-right windbags like Newt Gingrich and Glenn Beck were yapping about how poorly President Obama and the U.S. Navy were handling the pirates who attacked the Maersk Alabama. They called Obama weak, politically correct, yadda yadda yadda. And once again, Obama proved that, unlike the previous resident of the White House, he can do more than one thing at a time, and do them all well. The successful rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips by U.S. Navy Seals, acting on the President's orders, should have Obama's critics hanging their heads in shame.
I just got off the phone with a military expert and former Army Ranger who supports Republicans and Dems, and he hammered Gingrich and conservative media figures for criticizing Obama, saying that the Commander-in-chief deserved "respect" while a sensitive operation was unfolding.
"I would hope that they’re feeling a little silly today," said the expert, Andrew Exum, a fellow at the Center for National Security Studies. "It’s bad form. You don’t make this a partisan issue until an operation has been assessed. It’s fair game ex post facto. But during the emergency, I think that our elected leaders deserve our respect."
Gingrich whacked away at Obama’s handling of the standoff on Twitter over the weekend, saying it made us "look weak." The Wall Street Journal editorial page, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck also targeted Obama.
Exum, who advised Obama during the campaign but who also supports Republicans, hinted that the criticism bordered on unpatriotic. "If Glenn Beck loves his country as much as he alleges, he should hold his tongue when elected leaders on the ground are dealing with a very difficult situation."
Glenn Beck, hold his tongue? Gingrich shut up for a minute? I wish! These people have no honor and less sense. Their opportunistic criticism of the President should be noted by all. Once again, the wingnuts prove that they don't care about their country, they only care about regaining power.
Over five months after the election, a three-judge panel has declared Democrat Al Franken the winner of the Minnesota U.S. Senate race.
The judges--Hennepin County's Denise Reilly, Pennington County's Kurt Marben and Stearns County's Elizabeth Hayden--issued their final ruling late Monday, stating "Franken received the highest number of lawfully cast ballots in the Nov. 4, 2008 general election."
They also determined that Franken is entitled to receive the certificate of election.
The anti-gay marriage group National Organization for Marriage, the sponsors of a new, anti-gay marriage, fear-mongering video now being shown online and in trailer parks everywhere, have named their new initiative "2M4M." They think it stands for "2 Million for Marriage;" I leave it to Dan Savage and the rest of the Craigslist-reading world to inform them of its true meaning. But the fact that these idiots don't have any idea what that acronym means to the rest of the world gives me hope, because if they'll put out a bad idea like that, then the rest of their divisive crusade can't be any smarter.
It's bad enough that in their melodramatic video they make totally false claims, like the idea that granting the same rights to gays that straights enjoy "will take their freedom away;" it's worse that they sound just like the Dixie segregationists of the mid-20th Century. I wonder if these fools realize how similar their arguments are to the racist fallacies once said to oppose integration. Do they understand that lying about gay marriage doesn't bring more people to their cause, but instead makes reasonable people rightly fear them, and not their "coming storm" of gay people enjoying the same rights as everyone else? And what the hell would be wrong about that anyway? Also, do they realize that hiring actors to pretend that they're "concerned citizens" only weakens their arguments and makes them look even more like fools?
By falsely claiming that gay marriage proponents are trying to force their values on everyone else, without showing any support for their wild statements, this group sounds just like the segregationists who said that if you give black people integration, then next they'll be taking your jobs and marrying your daughters. (And the problem with that is....?) It's a crime that a group of people have to suffer and be denied the inalienable rights that all humans should enjoy, simply because of who they choose to love. It should be a crime to deny anyone the right to love and marry whom they choose. If these fearmongers don't like it, then they can stay in their dark caves alone, for all I care. But they must be made to understand that the right to marry is just that, a right...and all their prejudices and fears can't take that away from people--at least, not forever.
Michele Bachmann says that she really hasn't "purposely been trying to be inflammatory" by saying she wants Minnesotans armed and dangerous, calling herself a foreign correspondent in enemy territory, saying that we're in danger of becoming a dictatorship, etc., etc., etc., yadda yadda yadda.
The tide of conservative opinion is turning against Norm Coleman. Both the National Review and Powerline today tacitly admitted that the contest is lost for Normie. In two consecutive posts in Nation Review's The Corner column yesterday and today, Ramesh Ponnuru said that Coleman should give up:
If he keeps up the fight, he is likely to lose, unnecessarily deprive Minnesota of a second senator, end his political career seen as a sore loser, and hurt his party in a state that is eager for this fight to be over. His team has talked enough about further legal challenges that if he leaves now, he will get some points for grace. (Needless to say, that sentiment would not be universal.) But this is, I think, the last moment where he can exit with some dignity.
Meanwhile, today on the Powerline blog contributor Scott Johnson admitted today that Al Franken "didn't steal the election." In a column also reprinted in National Review Johnson wrote:
The logical implication is that we may never determine who actually received more legally cast ballots. Coleman formulates the issue in terms of equal protection and urges a lowest-common-denominator approach to the inclusion of rejected absentee ballots as a matter of constitutional law, but I am afraid he may have identified a wrong without a legal (as opposed to a political) remedy.
[...]...the Coleman campaign has put on a performance that conveys a strong impression of complacency and ineptitude; the Franken campaign outhustled and outsmarted it.
[...]And I don’t think it can exactly be said that he (Franken) won the election fair and square. Indeed, I can’t find a single good thing to say about him except that he didn’t steal the election.
Wow, the harsh light of reality has finally hit the troglodytes at the National Review and Powerline! Now all we need is for Gov. Pawlenty to realize that Coleman is a political tar baby, and stop equivocating about putting his signature on the election certificate. Coleman has ruined any chance of further elective office in Minnesota, and T-Paw needs to realize that the same thing can happen to him by association. If he's planning to run for president in 2012 or 2016 (and he is, you can bet), Pawlenty needs to think about that long and hard. Personally, I don't think the Gov is smart enough not to toe the GOP line, and will do everything he can to delay signing that certificate. Meanwhile, Minnesota goes without full representation in the Senate.
The GOP strategy is clear: delay that 59th seat by whatever means necessary! Any consideration for the rule of law, for the principles of representative democracy, for the good of the country--none of that stands a chance against the greed and lust for power that's driving the Rethugs. I think this debacle will help counter the usual loss of seats by the majority party in 2010. People will remember who thought of the country, and who thought only of themselves.
So I'm watching the dust settle after the latest Palin blowup, and I can't help but laugh. Levi says that Sarah "probably knew" they were having sex? And he's the fall guy in all of this?--
So, yeah. Levi Johnston was just some regular dumb kid from in a shitty town, and then he knocked up his girlfriend, and because his girlfriend's mom was running for vice president as a family values conservative, he had to pretend he wanted to marry this girl, and he was dressed up in a monkey suit and paraded before the nation as an exemplar of traditional heartland values like "terrible life-altering accidents stemming from lack of proper sex education (and also, you know, being a dumb teenager— it happens, but usually you can do something about it unless national politics are involved)."
And Sarah, as stupid and vindictive as ever, goes after this kid with a vengeance. But Levi is the bad guy here, not the one who put this teenaged couple into the national spotlight in the first place? Hey Gov. Stupid, who put their unwed pregnant teenage daughter out before the public in a vain and cynical attempt to win votes? Amazing--for the first time in my life, the conservatives celebrated an unwed teenage mother's pregnancy! And did anyone actually believe that this kids were going to get married? Did you not see the look of "get me outta here!" on Johnston's face all throughout the convention?
So after the breakup, the arrests, and the nationally-syndicated back&forth, we've got a kid with no father in the house, two teenage high school dropouts, and one insanely vindictive, hugely cynical, and immensely stupid governor, all airing their dirty laundry before the nation. This latest modern-day Hatfield-McCoy scuffle just makes me glad that most of the country had the good sense to vote for Obama & Biden last fall!
The Iowa Supreme Court this morning upheld a Polk County judge’s 2007 ruling that marriage should not be limited to one man and one woman.
The ruling, viewed nationally and at home as a victory for the gay rights movement and a setback for social conservatives, means Iowa’s 5,800 gay couples can legally marry in Iowa beginning April 24.
[...]Today’s decision makes Iowa the first Midwestern state, and the third in the country, to allow same-sex marriages.
[...]Supreme Court Justice Mark Cady, who wrote the unanimous decision, at one point invoked the court’s first-ever decision, in 1839, which struck down slavery laws 17 years before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of a slave owner to treat a person as property.
Iowa’s gay marriage ban “is unconstitutional, because the county has been unable to identify a constitutionally adequate justification for excluding plaintiffs from the institution of civil marriage,” Cady wrote in the 69-page opinion that seemed to dismiss the concept of civil unions as an option for gay couples.
“A new distinction based on sexual orientation would be equally suspect and difficult to square with the fundamental principles of equal protection embodied in our constitution,” Cady wrote.
The ruling, however, also addressed what it called the “religious undercurrent propelling the same-sex marriage debate,” and said judges must remain outside the fray.
[...]“Our constitution does not permit any branch of government to resolve these types of religious debates and entrusts to courts the task of ensuring that government avoids them,” the opinion says.
The ruling explicitly does not affect “the freedom of a religious organization to define marriage it solemnizes as unions between a man and a woman,” the justices stressed.
Indiana's Evan Bayh pisses me off. Here's a Democratic senator who thinks he's a "bipartisan statesman," some kind of Republican-lite asshole who can't decide where he stands. Why he thinks that "working" with Republicans who use him and his "bipartisanship" as a tool to oppose and obstruct the President is a good thing, is beyond me. When in this Congress have the Republicans responded in kind, and reached across the aisle to help Democrats? Never! Now, when I reach out to someone and they spit on my hand, I usually make that hand into a fist and apply it upside their head. But Bayh seems to think that he's accomplishing something--but for whom?
Now, it seems that there has been, at least in the recent past, a method to his madness. Ezra Klein charts Evan Bayh's inconsistent conservatism:
The two really interesting data points, however, are the 109th Congress, which stretched from 2005 to 2007, and the 110th Congress, which ended in January of this year. In the 109th Congress, Bayh's voting pattern suddenly develops an uncharacteristic liberalism. He becomes the 19th most conservative member, with a record more liberal than, among others, Joe Biden. As context, there were also the years when Bayh was preparing for the presidential run that he eventually aborted.
I've thought for a while that Bayh was posturing with his Blue Dog Democrats for a reason, but now I really don't understand what he's doing. Did he not notice that his state, Indiana, went for Obama last year? What's he after?
No matter--Bayh is an opportunistic weasel, and the voters of Indiana need to give Bayh the boot, and put in a truly progressive Democrat when he's up for reelection.
Glen Beck is seriously in need of an intervention. The man is publicly breaking down on cable tv! He was always a crazy wingnut, but since he moved from CNN to Faux, he's been crying, blabbering, and otherwise having a full-blown psychotic break on tv. His latest nutty cause is....well, I'll let Stephen Colbert explain it, better than I ever could:
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