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Monday, January 30, 2006
Well that was fun
See what happens when you try to run two Web sites at once... Oh well.
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Homophobe to give Democratic response to State of the Union
On the unlikely chance that you thought there was any value left in the Democratic party after today, we have a homophobe giving the Democratic response to the State of the Union tomorrow.
This is so bad, I'm going to break my rule about not linking to the Washington Blade:
The new breed of Democrat can't handle the concept of nuance. They can't handle the concept of some things being difficult to oppose, and other things being easy. Yes, gay marriage is a tough issue. But ripping away the rights of every gay person and their children in the commonwealth should be a no-brainer. You can explain why that's a bad thing, even to the people of Virginia, if you have half a spine.
Feel free to give the homophobe an earful:
This is so bad, I'm going to break my rule about not linking to the Washington Blade:
A spokesman for Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine clarified today that he opposes the scope of the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage working its way quicklty through the Virginia legislature, but will nonetheless sign the measure as written if it is adopted, putting it to a referendum.Ah, so Kaine was for civil rights before he was against it.
Gay and lesbian couples already have difficulty finding courts that will provide protective orders in domestic violence cases, she said. If the amendment is approved in November, the few jurisdictions and judges that do offer protections will likely stop, she predicted. Ruble declined to name the jurisdictions because she feared they could be targeted.It's one thing for the governor to be worried about being "for" gay marriage in Virginia, the state that brought us miscegenation laws. It's quite another for the governor to not understand the difference between gay marriage and an amendment that rips away all legal protections from gay couples, gay employees, and their children.
Anti-marriage constitutional amendments have been used to challenge custody agreements, domestic violence laws and health benefits for public employees in several states.
Carrie Evans of the Human Rights Campaign said Virginia's Marriage Affirmation Act of 2004, which prohibits partnership contracts between same-sex couples, could be used to invalidate custody agreements or advance medical directives.
It is doubtful that Virginia's constitutional amendment would affect those types of contracts, she said. However, there are many protections left vulnerable to the amendment, like domestic violence laws and health benefits for public employees, she added.
The new breed of Democrat can't handle the concept of nuance. They can't handle the concept of some things being difficult to oppose, and other things being easy. Yes, gay marriage is a tough issue. But ripping away the rights of every gay person and their children in the commonwealth should be a no-brainer. You can explain why that's a bad thing, even to the people of Virginia, if you have half a spine.
Feel free to give the homophobe an earful:
Phone: (804) 786-2211Web form. Read the rest of this post...
Fax: (804) 371-6351
TTY/TDD (For the Hearing Impaired):
1-800-828-1120, or 711
Filibuster killed, 72 to 25
The Republicans needed 60 votes to kill the filibuster. They got 72. According to CNN, about 17 Democrats broke ranks with Kerry and Kennedy and voted against the filibuster.
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Domestic spying controversy is growing
Dkos has an excellent collection of updates about the "Bush spying on Americans illegally" scandal here.
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Body armor likely saved ABC anchor
Tell me again why Bush is so slow on getting the same body armor to our troops?
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The GOP's Supreme Court campaign began in 1982
The NY Times reviews the history of the Federalist Society and their campaign for the Supreme Court:
In 1982, the year after Mr. Alito first joined the Reagan administration, that movement was little more than the handful of legal scholars who gathered at Yale for the first meeting of the Federalist Society, a newly formed conservative legal group.Read the rest of this post...
Judge Alito's ascent to join Chief Justice Roberts on the court "would have been beyond our best expectations," said Spencer Abraham, one of the society's founders, a former secretary of energy under President Bush and now the chairman of the Committee for Justice, one of many conservative organizations set up to support judicial nominees.
He added, "I don't think we would have put a lot of money on it in a friendly wager."
Judge Alito's confirmation is also the culmination of a disciplined campaign begun by the Reagan administration to seed the lower federal judiciary with like-minded jurists who could reorient the federal courts toward a view of the Constitution much closer to its 18th-century authors' intent, including a much less expansive view of its application to individual rights and federal power. It was a philosophy promulgated by Edwin Meese III, attorney general in the Reagan administration, that became the gospel of the Federalist Society and the nascent conservative legal movement.
GOP Leadership battle getting heated and ugly
Love it when they fight among themselves....and they're fighting over who is not quite as corrupt as the other. Because, it's a given the GOP leaders are corrupt and they are worried:
In eight concise paragraphs, two moderate and two conservative House Republicans put into writing last week what they say many of their colleagues quietly fear: the GOP's plunging poll numbers, rising public support for a Congress controlled by Democrats and the increasing belief among voters that the Republican Party is corrupt.They can vote for change, but they're all the same. Blunt is DeLay. And Boehner is owned by industry according to GOPers themeselves:
House Republicans will gather Thursday to elect a successor to Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) as majority leader, and the perceptions of corruption, though "neither fair nor accurate . . . are reality," Reps. Jim Kolbe (Ariz.), Charles Bass (N.H.), Paul Ryan (Wis.) and Tom Feeney (Fla.) wrote in a letter to their colleagues, imploring them to vote for change. "We must realize that the Majority we have all worked so hard for is in jeopardy."
In one recent fax blasted around Washington, a Boehner opponent sneered at the Ohioan's support from conservative commentators, saying they were ignoring Boehner's own links to lobbyists, especially those from one of his biggest financial supporters, student loan giant Sallie Mae.Read the rest of this post...
Exxon Mobil sets another record profit
For the second straight quarter, Exxon Mobil has set a profit record. Remember that we are all in this together, just some of us are more in it than others.
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Monday Morning Open Thread
So, I guess it's an understatement to say this will be an interesting week....the Enron Trial start, there's the State of the Union...also, the GOP leadership election...and, of course, the Alito votes.
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Millions of poor to pay more or have nothing in GOP Medicaid plan
Well, those poor and young people can't really give very good political donations so what good are they anyway? If people want to participate in the new GOP America they better have deep pockets. Forget about what Bush is saying, look what he's doing together with the GOP in Congress. If only we saw cuts like that for Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, etc.
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Mr. Bush plans to recommend a variety of steps to help people obtain health insurance and cope with rising health costs. But the bill, the Deficit Reduction Act, written by Congress over the last year with support from the White House, could reduce coverage and increase the number of uninsured, the budget office said.Read the rest of this post...
"In response to the new premiums, some beneficiaries would not apply for Medicaid, would leave the program or would become ineligible due to nonpayment," the Congressional Budget Office said in its report, completed Friday night. "C.B.O. estimates that about 45,000 enrollees would lose coverage in fiscal year 2010 and that 65,000 would lose coverage in fiscal year 2015 because of the imposition of premiums. About 60 percent of those losing coverage would be children."
Even more documentation about FEMA incompetence after Katrina
Just more of the same and a glimpse of what the US should expect with any attempt by this administration to manage anything. Whether it's Iraq, Medicare, FEMA, whatever, it is always the same mess.
As Hurricane Katrina victims waited for help in flooded houses or in looted neighborhoods, hundreds of trucks, boats, planes and federal security officers sat unused because FEMA failed to give them missions, newly released documents show.Read the rest of this post...
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