Republican Senator John Cornyn, who chairs the NRSC, had this to say in the wake of Al Franken's victory today (ht: Kurtz):
The implications of this Senate race are particularly significant because the Democrats will now have 60 votes in the Senate. With their supermajority, the era of excuses and finger-pointing is now over. With just 59 votes, Senate Democrats in recent months have passed trillion-dollar spending bills, driven up America's debt, made every American taxpayer a shareholder in the auto industry and now want Washington to takeover America's health care system. It's troubling to think about what they might now accomplish with 60 votes.
Just five months ago when newly inaugurated President Barack Obama and his horde of 58 Democratic Senators climbed out of the mouth of hell and came into a land called America. In this utopia that was January 2009 America, the auto industry was thriving, there was no national debt and no one had ever seen a budget defecit. The land was at peace and everyone who needed health care was quickly attended to without fear of massive personal debt.
Look what they've done.
And now they have a comedy writer with them. The horror.
In case you weren't depressed today, know this: worldwide defense spending hit $1.46 trillion in 2008, a new record. Since 1999, total spending is up 45 percent.
Check out how American defense spending compares to the rest of the top ten:
1. USA $607bn 2. China $84.9bn 3. France $65.74bn 4. UK $65.35bn 5. Russia $58.6bn 6. Germany $46.87bn 7. Japan $46.38bn 8. Italy $40.69bn 9. Saudi Arabia $38.2bn 10. India $30.0bn
We outspend the other nine countries on that list by $130 billion.
By the time a health care reform bill finally makes it to President Obama's desk in October, I'm going to need a therapist. I'm feeling uneasy. I have no confidence in the Democratic Party to accomplish anything. The fact that all interested parties have basically given up on the possibility of a single payer system is enough to make the process seem like another round of special interest roulette where the American people get screwed, Congress gets their campaigns financed and a handful of multinational corporations get all of our money and most of the rest of us die poor and in excruciating pain.
The status quo, which health care corporations are dumping tons of money into saving, is not just ineffective in that so many of us are uninsured, but it is also generates a great deal of fraud, unfairness and immorality. Swimming Freestyle blogger Jay McDonough writes, "A recent investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations found, in the last five years, WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled coverage for more than 20,000 people to avoid paying more than $300M in claims." We don't just need reform, we need the cops.
Even one of the beneficiaries of the stupefying wealth of the industry, former vice president for corporate communications at health insurance giant Cigna, Wendell Potter, motivated by his disgust at the wealth he, his company and his industry gained at the expense of his fellow Americans' health, gave devastating testimony (video) about the industry's behavior before the Senate Commerce Committee.
Here's a bit of Potter's testimony (h/t Jamie Court):
I know from personal experience that members of Congress and the public have good reason to question the honesty and trustworthiness of the insurance industry. Insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and they make it nearly impossible to understand -- or even to obtain -- information we need. As you hold hearings and discuss legislative proposals over the coming weeks, I encourage you to look very closely at the role for-profit insurance companies play in making our health care system both the most expensive and one of the most dysfunctional in the world.
Despite the obvious fact that this country is crying out for coverage, too many of our legislators are trying as hard as they can to ignore the writing on the wall. The lengths to which some of our representatives are willing to go in order to preserve this unnecessary middle-man, this corporate interloper standing between us and our doctors smack of desperation.
One of the most transparent ruses being floated by members of Congress who are in bed with the health care industry is the "trigger," meaning that if the insurance industry doesn't cut costs by some preordained amount after a certain number of years, a public option will go into effect. This is simply a way for the insurance companies to buy time in hopes of getting a more friendly political playing field between now and the time the trigger goes into place, which is likely to be never because the language will be so vaguely written that the companies will be able to sue their way out of complying anyway.
In what must be a brilliant strategy by Barack Obama, John Kerry--who, as we recall from many prior misadventures, has the reverse Midas touch--is now proposing legislation that would trigger a public option in.... get this... ten years! Clearly Obama is making Kerry the face man for the trigger option so that it will die the sad, fiery death of the Kerry/Edwards campaign.
Between now and October there's a very good chance that the Democrats will have managed to seat Al Franken in the Senate. That's important because there's growing consensus that with 60 Senators the White House will be able to craft the best possible reform package in conference after the House and the Senate pass some version of a reform bill.
Even so, for the reasons stated above, waiting until the last minute to watch the White House and progressives in Congress try to pull out the big win gives reform advocates the willies. And my health care provider does not cover the willies. Well, my health care provider doesn't exist, but if it did exist, I highly doubt it would cover the willies or even a case of full blown heebie jeebies.
The latest government report on the matter is reviewed here. The global warming denier movement, however, is alive and kicking. Helping to fuel that nonsense is irresponsible reporting by none other than CBS which ran this report on a "suppressed" report at the EPA that "questions global warming". Holy shit!!! Except, Gavin at Real Climateexplains that the people responsible for the report are not climate scientists and their assessments are based on old debunked denier talking points.
Last July the LA Times published a primer on Thomas Jefferson's religious beliefs, focused on his own version of the New Testament, known as the Jefferson Bible. I love how these old stories often wind up on Digg months and years after they're written.
The founders' religious beliefs have become a huge matter for debate between religious conservatives and secular progressives. In some ways this battle over the favor of these dead men is one way to keep the struggle between theocratic and secular forces going, no matter what the history actually says.
The Bush-Cheney-Rove Justice Department prosecuted 600 elected officials plus 2,500 collateral cases (children, elderly parents, children of defense lawyers, etc), and 85 percent of the officials were Democrats. And -- this is something the filmmaker came to understand after producing this film -- most of the rest were moderate Republicans, not Federalist Society Republicans.
The prosecutions were concentrated in presidential election swing states, as were the U.S. attorney firings.
The cases overwhelmingly -- almost all of them -- went to the small number of judges who had been appointed by George W. Bush.
All the cases that resulted in short prison terms included probation periods until after the next election.
Top fundraisers and staff of presidential candidates Clinton, Edwards, and Obama were indicted. [...]
[I]gnore the bit where he says we shouldn't prosecute the people who did this. If we do not, we can kiss any sort of democracy goodbye.
This one involves the investigation of former Republican Representative Rick Renzi of Arizona. In the fall of 2006, the Justice Department granted a U.S. attorney permission to wiretap Renzi's phone. The next day an inaccurate characterization of the investigation was leaked to the press, in what, according to "Career federal law enforcement officials who worked directly on a probe" was a ploy by senior Bush administration political appointees to tip off Renzi about the wiretap thereby helping him to get re-elected. The inaccurate leak suggested that the investigation of Renzi was far less serious than it actually had been.
Renzi was eventually indicted and will go on trial September 22, on charges that include public corruption, extortion, insurance fraud and racketeering.
One reason I dropped the pretense that this blog is being written from the South Pole (I write from Baltimore and I cry when it drops below 30 degrees) is because there are actually people living and working in the extreme Antarctic environment. These people are truly hardcore. I wouldn't last six minutes down there.
Today, I saw the story of Jerri Nielsen FitzGerald, a doctor at the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, who, in 1999, found a lump in her breast. Since she was the only doctor at the station and the weather was too extreme for an evacuation, she performed a biopsy on herself with the help of staff. She was finally flown out that October when the temperature at the pole was 58 degrees below zero. Sadly, FitzGerald's cancer returned in 2005. She died Tuesday at the age of 57.
One of the cable news channels accidentally indicated that South Carolina governor Mark Sanford is a Democrat.
He's not.
CORRECTION: Earlier in this post I indicated that this was an accident. It was not. It was part of an obvious pattern to smear and slander the Democratic Party. My mistake.
Neil Rogers retired from his show on Miami's WQAM on Monday. This came as a bit of a shock to his fans who were expecting Rogers to retire at the end of his current contract with the station that was set to expire in 2013. Rogers has been at war with QAM's management for many years. Lately things have been getting more heated between station manager Joe Bell and Rogers, culminating in the firing of the show's long time producer and substitute host Jorge Rodriguez.
I'll miss the show quite a bit. Not only was he the best talk host in radio, he was a much needed liberal voice in a market deeply vulnerable to propaganda. To say he handed Florida to Obama in 2008 is overstating it, but Rogers was the first person in the media to predict Barack Obama would become president. His influential voice ferociously advocating for Obama and against the grave-robbing neocons for more than 18 months on what was consistently the most highly rated talk show in Miami helped the cause big time.
Neil's legacy extends far beyond that. In the days after Shock and Awe--long before the Downing Street memo was well know, long before we knew there would be no WMD found in Iraq, long before the American body count hit a thousand--Neil was denouncing the invasion and calling it another Vietnam. When hostile callers mocked him with polls that said over seventy-percent of the American people supported the war, Rogers bellowed, "I wouldn't care if I was the only schmuck in America that thought it was wrong! It's freaking wrong!" He spent much of the rest of the Bush administration passionately reading great anti-war and anti-Bush op-eds on the air from the likes of Cenk Uygur, Greg Palast, Doug Thompson and many others. He also posted the stories on his website.
In the seventies Rogers came out on the air. For the next three decades Rogers never swerved from his identity as an openly gay man, and most of his audience learned to be comfortable with his orientation at a time when most of the country was still openly hostile to homosexuality.
The fact that the people running WQAM pushed him into retirement speaks volumes about what radio in Miami and radio in America has become. When Rogers did not pick up his microphone on Tuesday, it was our loss, not his.
I like Paul Begala a lot. During the election his analysis was relatively solid. When he stood up to the Bob Novaks or Bill O'Reillys of the world, he would almost always clearly made the fools across the table from him look like fools. But using the same WWE-style rhetoric on Meghan McCain, no matter how annoying her play of the I'm-young-and-know-so-little card, seems like a mistake by Begala. I would much rather hear him take on a more patient tone and use a strategy designed to let McCain explore what it is she's trying to say. She's not intellectually dishonest, not yet anyway, and that deserves... something. It just feels like Begala missed a chance at a bigger moment here.
A memo detailing a January 2003 meeting between President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair is drawing attention in Great Britain, where they might give a shit about launching illegal wars that have genocidal consequences. This will not be a big deal here, where we don't. Also, I blogged about this bullshit in 2006, when Keith Olbermann and the British Press brought it up in the first place.
This memo is known as the Manning Memo. The meeting in question took place two months before Shock and Awe. In the is meeting Bush and Blair were discussing ways to engage Iraq if the UN wouldn't pass a resolution legalizing the invasion. Bush suggested that the US would "fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in UN colours over Iraq with fighter cover". If Saddam fired at the planes this would provide all the legal pretext Bush would need to invade. Then Bush would find a way to lock up them Duke Boys.
During the meeting Bush made it clear that even without a second UN resolution, the US was going in. Bush even said that he knew the start date of the war. Blair said he was "solidly with the president".
Blogging on TPM, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich laid out the things President Obama needs to do to save health care reform, which has taken on water in Congress despite having stacked approval ratings. It's a solid message from someone the president listens to, but it's not anything that bloggers haven't been sceaming out their spleens about for quite some time now.
UPDATE: Paul Krugmanwarnsthe moderate Democrats are a danger to health care reform. Again, we know. But it is good to hear people the media and the president listen to raise the alarm on this issue.
I'm beginning to think that I dreamed the entire 2008 election. Panicky Democratic Senators are bowing down before their Republican counterparts like it's fucking 2002. Every time I turn on Sunday television I see Newt Gingrich. What part of the word mandate do people in DC not understand? Bush won the 2004 election (I'm playing along) by 2.4% of the popular vote and the first words out of his mouth were, "Suck it bitches, MANDATE!" Obama kicked McCain's ass and every time he opens his mouth some scumbag from the last administration gets up, acts like he or she has a shred of credibility, then trashes whatever change Obama proposed. Instead of laughing their asses off, the media hires these people and listens to them. If the Roman Empire had Fox News they wouldn't have needed Huns.
Even the Washington Post is Republican Party-lining it like it's the eve of Shock and Awe. On Thursday, they fired Dan Froomkin. One day later, who do they hire? Droolie McCombsucker--Paul Wolfowitz. How the fuck is this possible? This jackass was one of the architects of the Iraq War. How did that work out? How does that line pop on a resume? And does anyone recall Wolfowitz being forced out of his deliciously evil job at the World Bank in the ugliest manner possible? Christ, Washington Post, why didn't you just hire Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales too and be done with it?
Baucus gets more money from the health and insurance industry than any other member of Congress. He should resign for putting his campaign ahead of the American people on the most important issue the country faces.
Call his office and let him hear you: (202) 224-2651.
According to Walter Cronkite's spokesperson, he's recuperating from a recent sickness and not as gravely ill as some media outlets have reported. That's good news. People don't have to pass on in order for the rest of us to celebrate how awesome they were.
In this brief clip from 1963, Cronkite sat down with President Kennedy to discuss the only hot war the U.S. was engaged in, somewhere called Vietnam.
In this clip, Al Jazeera's Hamish MacDonald reports that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, may be in a power struggle with former president Hashimi Rafsanjani. Wait, MacDonald? Really?
The Times Onlinereports that Khamenei has told Mousavi to stand beside him for Friday prayers at Tehran University while he calls for national unity. Watergate Summer has a haunting clip from YouTube of Iranians chanting "Allahu Akbar" through the night and the story behind it.
Salontries to untangle all the influential players in Iran's elite circle of religious authorities.
On Wednesday, Tom Daschle, the man who President Obama initially selected to be his nominee for HHS secretary, said:
While I feel very strongly that consumers should have the choice of a national, Medicare-like plan, my colleagues do not. . . But we were concerned that the ongoing health reform debate is beginning to show signs of fracture on the public plan issue, so in order to advance the process of developing bipartisan legislation and to move it forward, it's time to find consensus here. We've come too far and gained too much momentum for our efforts to fail over disagreements on one single issue.
First of all, Mr. Daschle, you don't feel "very strongly" about it if you're willing to drop it now. Not getting a public option now is unacceptable. Sure, a lot of conservative Democrats are saying they will vote against a public option, the truth is, when it's all laid out on the line and the grass roots health care movement has time to focus on the few Senators standing between us and our goal, you have your votes.
I really hope the White House understands that this issue is not something the people are flexible about. Health care is a right. If we are not covered, very many of us will not be in a hurry to move forward to the next item on any agenda. The fact that single-payer is not steamrolling toward passage is sick and unacceptable. The public option is a half-measure to begin with. Do not take that away.
Republican House Rep. Pete Hoekstra just used Twitter to compare shutting down congress over the need to drill oil to the protesters currently standing off against the repressive regime in Iran (via Dependable Renegade).
I remember that day. It was a god damned massacre. The Democrats surrounded the Republicans and deliberately fired into the peaceful crowd, killing seven...
Wait, that was Iran.
What Hoekstra and the Republicans did was a political stunt designed to give the Republicans a talking point during election season to pin high gas prices on Democrats. Not exactly the spirit of the Green Revolution.
Hoekstra also exhibited his "bravery" recently when he leaked classified information from a classified intelligence briefing to the House intelligence committee. He also claimed that the Obama administration ordered troops to Mirandize detainees, which General David Petraeus quickly confirmed was not true.
Sometimes I hear conservative spin as a voice in my head before I hear it as a voice coming out of the TV or Radio. Last night as I tried to sleep, it occurred to me that neo-cons would soon be spinning the ongoing peaceful democratic revolution in Iran as proof that George W. Bush was right to invade Iraq.
Before logging on this morning to predict that Dick Cheney or some other neo-con would be soon be spewing this bullshit on a Sunday show, I decided to look at a couple of conservative websites to see if it was already there. My search ended on the first site I checked--Red State--where Brian Faughnan wrote this:
The United States has helped make the world’s most dangerous hot spot somewhat safer by supporting democracy in the Middle East. As Moe has pointed out, the emergence of a democracy in Iraq has encouraged other nations to demand the right to choose their own leaders. The world can only become safer if the people of Iran win their fight to choose the man who replaces Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
This is pretty sick spin. George W. Bush's version of supporting democracy in the Middle East is what provoked Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khemenei to turn away from a moderate reformer as president in favor of the frothing madman, Ahmadinejad, who could serve as Bush's convincing foil in a game of international brinksmanship. The allure of Western freedoms and culture, as much European as American, is a factor in this revolt, but it's not coming to them by peering over the border into Iraq. They're getting some of it from technology, but most of it is coming from the Iranian people's own vision of the future of their own democratic institutions, which have been evolving for decades.
Another powerful Iranian cleric, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri has spoken out in favor of the protestors. Montazeri, a rather progressive figure, was originally supposed to succeed Iran's initial Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, when he died 20 years ago this month.
The Telegraph is reporting that Mousavi's wife warned protesters that riot squads would be equipped with live ammunition and that leaked results show that Ahmadinejad came in third.
Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan has a list of demands circulating among the Iranian resistance.
Tonight I got to spent some time with a couple of my old friends from South Florida. While the three of us waited for our ride, we quickly discussed how we felt about the new administration. Two things we agreed on were our concerns about were the way the president is dealing with entrenched Wall Street power and how important it is that the administration succeed in passing real health care reforms. We probably would have gotten around to more areas of concern, but it was a brief conversation.
I am happy to see that this week the White House tackles both of these issues. Today the president will deliver a speech outlining his case for health care reform to the AMA. On Wednesday, Obama will unveil his plans to tighten financial regulations. Roll out a real gay rights agenda and things will start looking damned hopeful indeed.
The Obama administration, in the persons of the DOJ's Tony West, James Gilligan and W. Scott Simpson gave eight legal reasons in the form of a Motion to Dismiss Smelt/Hammer v. United States of America why gay people are separate and unequal. A summary list of those reasons:
1 - Court Lacked Jurisdiction 2 - Plaintiff's Claim Lacks Standing 3 - DOMA is a Valid Exercise of Congress' Power under the Full Faith & Credit Clause 4 - DOMA Cannot Be Said to Violate an "Asserted Right to Travel" 5 - DOMA is Consistent with Equal Protection and Due Process Principles 6 - DOMA Does Not Violate the Right to Privacy 7 - DOMA Cannot Be Said to Infringe on any Rights of Speech 8 - DOMA Cannot Be Said to Infringe on any "Right" under the 9th Amendment
Reasons 1 and 2 are techno-legal, and can be dismissed as regards the separate and unequal discussion that follows. These same technical reasons could have been enough for the Obama DOJ to weigh in on the Constitutional basis that the President is required to do if s/he feels that the case at issue IS Constitutional. If the case is deemed un-constitutional, the President is free to not defend the damn law.
The Department of Justice may also notify Congress of a refusal to defend an impugned statute without appearing in court for either side. As recently as 2005, the Department of Justice notified congress that it would not defend a law prohibiting the display of marijuana policy reform ads in public transit systems. ACLU et al., v. Norman Y. Mineta (civil action no. 04-0262).
Since PresBO's DOJ wieghed in, points 1 & 2 alone would have sufficed if the Administration meant it's campaign claims, namely that DOMA was "abhorrent" and should be repealed, yet felt on technical bases that the case lacke merit or standing.
And yes, repeal means a legislative process. But the Administration has not sponsored or introduced their own legislation. But they did offer the remaining six reasons why I am separate and unequal along with other gay people. Frankly, this leads me to the belief that the campaign promise was empty, hollow, as actions are louder than words as we all know.
Let's have a look at the interesting points and most egregious claims in this Memorandum of Points and Authorities.
"I certainly agree (a) that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional, at least as applied to couples like those who are currently challenging it in federal court here in Massachusetts.... I'm not at all reluctant to have it known that I think the equality component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause forbids the federal government to deny same-sex spouses benefits identical to those that it would grant to opposite-sex spouses when the spouses are "married" under the law of their state -- that is, when the spouses were married and reside in states where the law forbids a distinction between same-sex and opposite-sex marriage and rejects the DOMA definition of 'marriage.'"
Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is Clearly Unconstitutional
Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) DOMA, 1 U.S.C. § 7 states, ““In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word „marriage‟ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word „spouse‟ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”
Because of this interpretation guideline, same-sex couples legally married in their state are denied economic benefits granted to heterosexual couples legally married in the same state. These include spousal health insurance for state employees, federal income tax deductions for those “married filing jointly,” and the one-time lump-sum death benefit granted to a spouse under the Social Security program claim. Gill et al. v. OPM et al. v. U.S., No. 12-345 ¶ 6-8 (D. Mass. filed Mar. 3, 2009).
The denial of these benefits to legally married couples has no rational basis. The denial of marriage-based benefits to same-sex couples has been found to violate constitutional equal protection guarantees by a number of State Supreme Courts. Kerrigan and Mock v. Connecticut Department of Public Health, 957 A.2d 407 (Conn.,2008.), In re Marriage Cases 43 Cal.4th 757 (2008), Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health, 440 Mass. 309 (2003), Varnum v. Brien, WL 874044 (Iowa 2009). The challenge to DOMA 1 U.S.C. § 7 does not argue that same-sex marriage is guaranteed by the United States Constitution. It does not, in fact, address the question of same-sex marriage at all. Instead, DOMA 1 U.S.C. § 7 denies benefits to same-sex couples already legally married in their home state where the equality question has already been argued in front of the courts and settled.
Conclusion
The President reserves the right to refuse to defend an unconstitutional statute. Section 3 of the DOMA is clearly unconstitutional in that it denies married same-sex couples economic benefits granted to heterosexual married couples from the same state without providing a rational basis for this discrimination.
We ask that President Obama and Attorney General Holder refuse to defend DOMA in the upcoming challenge filed in the State of Massachusetts, Gill et al. v. OPM et al. v. U.S.
Yes, you'll notice that's the Gill case, not Smelt/Hammer. But it's the same difference in Presidential perogative as regards USA standing. Larry Tribe and the FlipFlop folks viewpoints are prior to the filing of this MPA (Memorandum of Points and Authorities) under discussion.
On to the egregious. Reason 5 (C) DOMA is Consistent with Equal Protection and Due Process Principles; DOMA Does Not Rest on Any Suspect Classification. The twisting of the Loving decision from the DOJ motion:
Loving v. Virginia is not to the contrary. There the Supreme Court rejected a contention that the assertedly "equal application" of a statute prohibiting interracial marriage immunized the statute from strict scrutiny. 388 U.S. 1, 8, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1967). The Court had little difficulty concluding that the statute, which applied only to "interracial marriages involving white persons," was "designed to maintain White Supremacy" and therefore unconstitutional. Id. at 11. No comparable purpose is present here, however, for DOMA does not seek in any way to advance the "supremacy" of men over women, or of women over men.Thus DOMA cannot be "traced to a . . . purpose" to discriminate against either men or women.
Speechless. The issue is about orientation, not gender, which is superfluous, as we're talking about SAME SEX COUPLES. But that's the rub with this argument; same sex oriented people clearly do not have the same rights as opposite-sex oriented people, hence the term "Unequal" in my post headline.
Since the claim by Hammer/Smelt brought up the Ninth Amendment, the same rude treatment was given by the Obama DOJ as they too brought up Griswold and twisted it just as they did Loving. Reason 6: DOMA Does Not Violate the Right to Privacy
Plaintiffs also assert that DOMA constitutes "an undue invasion of the Right of Privacy,"citing Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S. Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965). See Complaint ¶¶ 17, 27, 28. This claim must fail, first, because the Supreme Court has rejected a "right to privacy" claim in relation to same-sex marriage. One of the arguments made in Baker v. Nelson, referred to above, was that Minnesota's refusal to permit same-sex marriage constituted "an unwarranted invasion of . . . privacy" in violation of the Constitution. See Jurisdictional Statement, Baker v. Nelson, No. 71-1027, at 18 (Attachment 2 hereto). In dismissing the appeal in Baker "for want of Case 8:09-cv-00286-DOC-MLG Document 25 Filed 06/11/2009 Page 47 of 54 a substantial federal question," the Supreme Court necessarily addressed the merits of that claim, and rejected it. 409 U.S. 810 (1972) (Mem); see Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. at 343-44.
Even if Baker were not dispositive in this regard, this Court should reject plaintiffs' right to privacy claim. The Supreme Court has described the contours of this right as follows:
The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however . . . the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. . . These decisions make it clear that only personal rights that can be deemed "fundamental" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," are included in this guarantee of personal privacy.
So you see, according to the Obama DOJ, rights of marriage equality for gays are neither fundamental, nor do they rise to the level of the "concept of ordered liberty." [And btw, just be on the alert about Griswold and the Ninth Amendment as regards women's reproductive rights with this Administration, as Griswold and the Ninth are part and parcel of Roe v. Wade.]
I'm not buying into what others around the blogosphere are saying about the incest and pederasty angles that are being read into this MPA, as I think that's overly reaching compared to the civil libertarian material I've pointed out so far, which I believe is enough to oppose the Administration.
Which brings me to the next part; how to oppose a popular President and not support the Right?
Money.
In this case, I propose that neither Obama, the DNC, DLC, Democrats of any stripe get one nickel until they do a 180 on this issue. Additionally, I think a tactic from the AIDS activists of the '80s is due for revival:
GAY MONEY.
It's FUN! Stamp your cash in pink, red, hell just write on it in pen GAY MONEY and watch how the bills flood the circulation. Hell, just screwing around with money to send messages is kind of a neat way to protest at all.
But to end, that's the first peaceful method of protest I can think of at this moment as I am just simply mad at this turnabout from the campaign rhetoric. I'm sure to think of others, and I bet you will to.
Thank you for reading.
Out, Proud, and Not Asking For Rights - Simply Demanding and Living Them - Kelly Canfield, Denver Colorado
The situation in Iran is not going to quiet down for a long time, and even when order is restored, the country will be fundamentally changed. There is heavy dissent coming from power players in the religious and political establishment in Iran. TPM points out that former Iranian President Rafsanjani had resigned from the Expediency Discernment Council and the Assembly of Experts, according to al Aribya and that Iran asked foreign journalists to leave the country.
Grand Ayatollah Sanei in Iran has declared Ahmadinejad's presidency illegitimate and cooperating with his government against Islam. There are strong rumors that his house and office are surrounded by the police and his website is filtered. He had previously issued a fatwa, against rigging of the elections in any form or shape, calling it a mortal sin.
Of course, no event would be complete without hearing from the blame Obama-firsters. This time it's Romney. Everyone else will be blathering out this talking point on Monday.
Well at least when Americans steal elections we make it look close. Cenk Uygur writes:
This conversation about whether the Iranian vote was fixed is nonsense. Of course it was! Yes, polls in Iran are unreliable but Mousavi was leading 54-39 in the one poll before the election. Heavy voter turnout favored him. And instead he loses 63% to 34%. That's an absolute joke. They might as well have gone all the way and called it 97-3%.
According to these "official" results Mousavi lost his own home district (which is inconceivable in Iranian politics) and got far less votes than previous reformist candidates [...]
You have to understand 63-34 is a gigantic blowout that is much larger than some of the biggest landslides in American history. When Reagan crushed Mondale in 1984 and carried 49 out of the 50 states, he only won 58.8% to 40.6%. To say Ahmedinejad won 63-34 is not only saying we fixed this thing, but we're rubbing it in your face.
Going this route is has terrible disadvantages for the man who wields the most power in Iran--Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. True revolutionary zeal has been awakened in Iran. Keeping Ahmadinejad in power makes it easier for the United States to pressure Iran to make concessions because Ahmadinejad's cartoonish villainy unites the world against Iran.
Stephen Colbert crosses paths with the former President George W. Bush. After the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner, you'd think it would be a bit awkward. Little bit. Classy move by both of these guys to participate in a truly non-partisan bit of entertainment for the troops.
I just found out that one of my Religion professors, Dr. Manuel Vásquez, appeared on Bill Moyers Journal in 2007, to discuss immigration policy. Not only is Dr. Vásquez a fantastic teacher, he makes for a very impressive guest.
Fox News anchor Shepard Smith speaks out against the crazed anti-Obama emails his station gets by the truckload. You know what he could do... maybe he could get his network to stop catapulting the propaganda 24/7 and maybe start telling the truth about any Democrat, especially the president, now and again.
President Obama beams in an appearance on The Colbert Report, which is being filmed this week in Iraq. Much to the delight of the troops, he orders Gen. Odierno to shave Colbert's head.
It wasn't hard to predict that when the voters put a brilliant African-American with a "funny name" in the White House that a certain small percentage of the American people would lose their minds. Pastor Wiley Drake, for instance, prays for the president's death. Jon Voight called the president a false prophet. Newt Gingrich is already calling Obama's presidency a failure. Station nation, we are only four and half months in.
I'm sure a lot of conservatives think they're just reacting to Obama the way progressives reacted to Bush. That's not even close to being true. In December of 2000, after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bush in the case of Bush v. Gore, Gore made a concession speech in which he said, "I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country."
I didn't like it that Bush was the President, but in 2001, I gave the spirit of Gore's speech a chance. The country moved on from the election, 9/11 happened, and even the minimal dissent Bush faced vanished for years.
If the GOP propagandists think they can pin the Bush failure, which is still slopping over this country in waves, on President Obama, they're... probably right. The independents in this country are suceptible to propaganda and there will be a lot of it targeted at this president. Lies about health care are flying. The establishment that owns the media is going to kill even a public option. Forget about single payer. The latest lie is that the health industry will reform itself. And if it doesn't? Well then in four years a trigger will go into effect and we'll get a public option then. And I got an auto industry to sell you. The trigger option means we lose. Not getting at least a real public option in 2009, means we lose.
So having the White House and the Congress doesn't mean shit if the minority party is willing to call you names around the clock and the people covering politics in this country are willing to pretend that they don't know wether the president is or is not a socialist. If you have a job that gives you health benefits, hold on to it. The USA won't be joining the rest of the industrialized world in the 20th century any time soon.
According to TPM, Arlen Specter implies that he'll please unions with his EFCA vote. According to The Corner, Diane Feinstein has not come around on EFCA and she is still looking for a compromise. I have a compromise for her. Get behind the bill and people will be less inclined to support your primary opponents.
As emails, screenshots and behind the scenes sources continue to come out of the woodowork, I think my theory of what happened is holding up quite well. I did enjoy Henneberger's lovely sermon on journalistic values though.
UPDATE: Tommy responds to Henneburger's PD post. In an semi-related note, I miss Political Machine more every day.
It's one thing when a drug-addled freak calls Barack Obama anti-American on the radio, it's quite another when a US Senator does it. Especially because he's so, so wrong.
The senator who once famously declared that global warming was the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" has now moved on to President Barack Obama.
In comments made to an Oklahoma news outlet, Sen. James Inhofe (R-KN) declared Obama's speech in Cairo attempting to ameliorate tension between the United States and the Muslim world "un-American," because he referred to the war in Iraq as a "war of choice," "and didn’t criticize Iran for developing a nuclear program."
Obama's Cairo speech was deeply American. It was honest and courageous. It was designed to makes us safer and a more effective operator in the world. It used tactics opposite the ones that reduced American power in the world. If Inhofe wants to see something that's hurting America, he should do a Google Image search on "James Inhofe".
Thursday afternoon I received an email from my boss at Politics Daily, Michael Kraskin, that said this:
Due to new decisions regarding the editorial direction of Politics Daily and financial limitations, I'm sorry to tell you that we will be ending our contract with you effective today.
I was a bit shocked because I figured that for the meager sum they were paying me, I could blog at that site for all of eternity. At the time I guessed that they were letting me go because my posting frequency had dwindled. When I was initially hired by the site I was posting ten times a week. Since the election ended, I've been busier, so the most I managed in a week is two or three posts. Still, in my 18 months with Politics Daily (which was previously called Political Machine), no one had ever complained to me about anything I posted there.
Confused, I emailed Kraskin and asked if there were any adjustments I could make that would allow me to keep the gig. He's a nice guy, and he politely reiterated what he wrote in the first email. For an hour or so, I just felt numb and rejected. Then I went on Twitter. I quickly found out that I was not the only Politics Daily writer to have been canned by the site. Tommy Christopher has been fired from PD too. I started reconstructing the saga I had missed over the previous three days.
On June 1, Playboy blogger Guy Cimbalo published an unctuous post about the top 10 conservative women he would like to hate fuck (the post has been pulled, but Caleb Howe has the screen shots). Hate fuck? Seriously? If you're not hip to the terminology, consult with the urban dictionary. I'm not even going to go into it. Cimbalo's post was so disgusting that he managed to unite, if only temporarily, liberal and conservative bloggers at the gut level in a way in which I haven't seen in my three and a half years as a blogger. Tweets and re-tweets started flying. Posts on Hot Air were suddenly lining up with posts on Huffington Post. LOLcats and LOLdogs living together. Madness.
Tommy weighed in on the controversy at Politics Daily right away. Tommy jumps on stories and produces funny material about them fast. I know because I spent over a year racing him to the primo material when we were both posting frequently during the never ending election season.
I'm not sure how long it took, but the post he wrote was taken down, reportedly because of profanity, although the piece contained no uncensored profanity. Since nothing dies in the blogosphere, you can still read the post at Tommy's blog Tommy Christopher's Daily Dose. According to reports, Tommy was fired three days later by Politics Daily editor-in-chief Melinda Henneberger just hours after pitching a follow up on the Playboy saga. Jason Linkinshas details of Tommy's firing at Huffington Post. Tommy wrote about it here.
In following the story of Tommy's firing I noticed in the comments section of Linkins' story that several other Politics Daily writers were fired at the same time I was fired. These were the bloggers who were hired by AOL when they hired Tommy and me in late 2007, to help launch Political Machine, which was re-branded earlier this year as Politics Daily. We were all kept on after the re-launch even though a bunch of experienced writers I never heard of were hired and featured on the site.
Despite Kraskin's assertions that I was let go because of Politics Daily's "editorial direction" and "financial limitations" it's hard for me to accept that the timing of the firing of all the Political Machinebloggers and Tommy's firing are unrelated. I can only speculate.
Henneberger told Linkins this:
Does it make a lick of sense to you that I would fire anyone for standing up for women, or for taking on that disgusting story in Playboy? [ED. NOTE: Uhm...no, Melinda, it doesn't, which is sort of why I asked the question!] The bloggers for the old AOL site, Political Machine, weren't retained for the new site, Politics Daily, which has only been in existence for the last five weeks, and which we're just staffing up. Sorry so dull, but there's nothing more to it than that.
Maybe Tommy was just part of the purge. I've heard differing accounts of the timing. Maybe the people at AOL didn't anticipate the immediate criticism they would receive for letting Tommy go, so they decided that firing all the Political Machine writers would allow them to respond to that criticism by saying that Tommy's firing was just one of several lay-offs associated with the re-brand. Or the economy.
So, the AOL audience will no longer have my posts to comment on in all-caps anymore, unless they come to Ice Station Tango to do it. I had a great time writing for AOL. The Political Machine team covered the election very well and I will always be very proud of my participation in that coverage. Everyone at the site has been very kind and professional, regardless of political ideology, since day one. I wish the fired PM'ers luck moving forward. I also wish Michael Kraskin, Melinda Henneberger and everyone still working for Politics Daily all the best. No hard feelings. I just think the firings were weird and unfair, but that's life.
Not like it's hard to score on Bill O'Reilly these days, but Rick Sanchez--who apparently has been born again hard--cleans his clock with the greatest of ease.
RevPhat has a great idea on how we can counter July 4th teabagging activities in the true spirit of socialism--sharing our food with those who could use something to eat. I smell a blogswarm. When I know how this is supposed to work, I'll let you know.
What do you have to say to your audience before they carry you off? Internet host Hal Turner found out today when Hartford police came and got him for allegedly inciting his audience to "take up arms." According to the Hartford Courant, Turner is accused of "singling out two Connecticut lawmakers and a state ethics official."
A CNN/Opinion Research poll shows three Republicans who had prominent roles in last year's presidential election process locked in a three-way tie for the party's 2012 nomination. Mike Huckabee actually leads in this poll with 22%, while Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney weigh in with 21%. In spite of the fact that recently he's been on TV more man-hours than Wolf Blitzer and the endless NBA playoffs combined, Newt Gingrich manages only a paltry 13%. Jeb Bush is on the poll at 6%.
You want to hear something crazy? I think John McCain is going to run again. Sure, McCain will be like ninty-seven by the 2012, and age was something that hurt him badly in 2008, but he doesn't care. And look at his mother. The man has longevity genes. No, McCain can never be ruled out. Heck, he'd probably run again just to screw with Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. He probably thinks the only reason he's not president right now is because he let his advisors sell him on Palin for VP.
On Thursday, the Governors of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia will sign an agreement called the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on Oceans that is designed to improve the health of the Atlantic Ocean. I couldn't be happier that someone is doing something to protect our messed up oceans, but the fact that we can't get the entire east coast--much less the entire country--on board for this is pretty sad.
In the wake of the horrific murder of his nemesis, Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry seizes the opportunity to say a lot of messed up shit like it's cool. Way to cement that image, Randy.
While we're on the subject of murder, Crooks and Liars has a post up about a billboard that implies atheists are very likely to be murderers. Ironic in light of recent events.
Rush Limbaugh is trying to convince people that this country's political establishment is the new slave-class in America. What a rapid descent. After only four months (nominally) out of power, crackers are the new black! I thought gay was the new black. Apparently Republican is the new gay. This shit changes fast.
Republican Senator John Cornyn, who chairs the NRSC, had this to say in the wake of Al Franken's victory today (ht: Kurtz): 
