I'm Just Sayin'

If anybody should appreciate that basic human decency requires marriage equality, it should be a guy whose own parents could not legally marry in 26 of the states in the union when he was born. Somebody like, say, Barack Obama. I'm just sayin'.

If anybody should appreciate that separate does not mean equal, it should be a guy whose skin color would have relegated him to separate, crap accommodations and train cars and water fountains and bathrooms and hotel rooms, if he would have been allowed into one at all, a scant few years before he was born. And it should really be that guy if he grows up to be a fucking constitutional scholar. Somebody like, say, Barack Obama. I'm just sayin'.

If anybody promises to be a fierce advocate for a specific segment of society should that segment elect him to the presidency, he really ought to spend more energy fulfilling promises to the people who actually voted for him than placating people who did not and never will vote for him in the first place. He should not tepidly announce that he didn't really like Proposition 8 because it was sooooo divisive, and then trot out an aide to assure the conservative wing that he really really really doesn't think anybody afflicted by The Ghey should be allowed to get married, but should settle for a bargain-bin generic package with some of the same benefits--if individual states decide to do that; heavens, this can't be a federal matter--and be grateful for it.

If anybody pulls that kind of bullshit once, let alone over and over, he can forget about my money and my vote. I won't support someone who's happy to make me a second-class citizen.

I'm just sayin'.

Another Morning in Lower Wingnuttia Province, Southern Jesustan

Fuck.

Ignoring warnings of illegality from their own secretary of state, most House Republicans voted Wednesday to require him to verify that presidential candidates on the Arizona ballot are, in fact, born in the United States.

SB 1024 would require political parties to submit to the Arizona secretary of state "documents that prove that the candidate is a natural born citizen, prove the candidate's age and prove that the candidate meets the residency requirements for President of the United States."

But the measure, approved 31-29 with no Democratic votes, goes even further. It gives the secretary of state the unilateral power to keep a candidate off the Arizona ballot if he or she has "reasonable cause" to believe the candidate is not qualified.

There really isn't much more to say about a state that recently, sort of in order:

1. Kicked over 300,000 people off the state-subsidized healthcare rolls, including 31,000+ children from the CHIP program.

2. Made drastic cuts to public education in response to the state's budget disaster, to the extent that school districts are laying off hundreds of teachers, schools are closing and merging, and librarians, counselors, and even full-time principals are things of the past. Shall we talk about what it's doing to the state university system? That's a whole 'nother post.

3. Enacted legislation preventing unmarried (read: gay) couples from adopting unless absolutely no one else wants the children in question.

4. Closed all but four of the 17 rest stops on the highways in our rather large state. Take a leak and a nap at McDonald's if you need a leak and a nap that bad, bitchez!

5. Closed numerous state parks, including some containing prehistoric ruins that will now be wrecked by pothunters in the absence of ranger patrols.

6. Made it illegal for anyone receiving subsidized healthcare--state employees, that means you too, not just the poor folks--to get an insurance-covered abortion, unless the woman's life is in danger.

7. Made it legal for doctors, nurses, and pharmacists to refuse to dispense emergency contraception, even to rape victims, and also made it legal for the same to refuse to refer said victim to a healthcare provider who will actually do his or her job. Want Plan B, you slut? Get it off the internet. No internet access? It's your own fault for taking such a low-paying job.

8. Made it illegal for anyone to provide a minor with a prescription for contraception, or perform any mental health screening or treatment, or provide comprehensive sex education, without parental permission.

9. Made it legal for anyone over the age of 21 to carry a concealed weapon without a permit and the training that such permits require.

10. But has a governor who vetoed a bill that would have ended the state ban on 4th of July sparklers, because she thinks they're too dangerous.

11. Passed a law requiring law enforcement to demand proof of citizenship or legal residency from anyone they arrest who they suspect might be Mexican in the country illegally.

12. Decided to allow the citizenry to sue any cop they see not being rigorous enough in demanding papers from a Mexican person they happen to be questioning.

And now (13) the fucking birthers have managed to tack a giant birther turd onto an unrelated piece of legislation that got through the state House. No way in hell will it withstand a challenge from even the night janitor at the Supreme Court, should the state Senate pass it, but that's immaterial. With this latest variation on the dog whistle, Arizona has officially wrestled the Dumbfuckery All-Around Championship from previous titleholders Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina.

It's not even much of a dog whistle any more. It is more of a train horn blasting at different intervals and varying decibel levels, but the message is the same. ZOMG BLACK GUY IN TEH WHITE HOUSE!!11!!!1!!! Just come out and say it, fuckers, and save yourselves some breath and time spent typing amendments to every House bill that comes down the pike.

Seriously, just hammer this one out and append it everything else you fucking do up there in Phoenix: Whereas, Barack Hussein Obama is the 44th President of the United States, therefore, be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of Arizona, the Senate concurring, that: ZOMG BLACK GUY IN TEH WHITE HOUSE!!11!!!1!!! SOCIALISM!!!!! SAUL ALINSKY!!!eleventyone!!!!

It's very easy to say oh my god I'm moving to Canada, or Massachusetts, or Washington, but it's not very easy to actually do it. My partner and my job--I still have one--and my friends and my son's roots are here. So we stay and watch the state, and sanity, crumble around us.

Note: should you find yourself in need of a birther takedown, I suggest this.

This Post Brought to You Courtesy of Relpax

The weekend came cloaked in the fog that boils up out of a migraine and the various combinations of chemicals that are then required to be something resembling functional, so it almost snuck past me. But even in an elitriptan hydrobromide-and-Excedrin haze, I managed to notice healthcare reform, such as it is, passing the House; Obama using women this time as the prop in his kabuki caving to Bart Stupak; and the teabaggers showing their true colors (white, starched, and pointy, natch).

Healthcare, yes. I am still hugely disappointed that the putative party in power relented on the public option, but most of the other provisions in the bill--like, say, covering 36 million people who would otherwise be screwed, and eliminating pre-x denials, and closing the donut hole--are long overdue. So good start, there.

But let's talk about abortion and religion and executive orders, shall we? In a sop to Bart Stupak and his band of unnamed, unnumbered holdouts, Obama signed an executive order that double-dog promises to keep federal funds from paying for abortions for all but the standard, if cognitively dissonant, rape/incest/mother's life exemptions. On the plus side, the order simply reaffirms the odious, now-in-its-third-decade Hyde Amendment. On the downside, it extends the reach of the Hyde Amendment into the to-be-created health insurance exchanges, requiring abortion funds to be completely segregated from all other funds moving through said exchanges, effectively making abortion coverage so complicated and cumbersome to manage that most exchanges and involved companies will decline to offer it. Maybe the additional level of healthcare that will now be available to more women--assuming it encompasses increased contraceptive education, availability, and affordability, along with enhanced prenatal and postpartum care--will result in fewer unplanned or unsustainable pregnancies. That would be good. Obama blithely affirming Hyde, when even Stupak said the votes were probably lined up to pass the bill without him? Not so much. Not so much at all. More in-depth discussion is over at Jezebel, and is required reading.

The classiest endnotes to the healthcare debate came from (1) the House floor, where an as-yet unidentified but presumed Republican screamed "baby killer!" at Bart Stupak when he indicated he'd support the slightly more incremental encroachment on reproductive liberty represented by the XO instead of his own, more intrusive, amendment, and (2) outside the Capitol when protesting teabaggers (a) called Barney Frank a faggot, (b) spat on African-American Representative Emanuel Cleaver, and (c) called Rep. John Lewis a nigger.

Let that last one soak in. They screamed "nigger" at John fucking Lewis.

That's your tea party movement right there in a nutshell. There's a black guy in the White House who wants a slight increase on affluent people's taxes so that everyone in the country gets at least some basic level of healthcare and doesn't have to die from an unfilled cavity, instead of the current system of the uninsured poor waiting until a treatable condition morphs into an acute, catastrophic condition before showing up at the emergency room, resulting in everyone pitching in at a considerably higher rate and everyone's care levels being compromised. The black guy wants everyone taken care of, so they're losing their shit and screaming about the end of the world and, now, letting the pointy white hats slip out a little too much so that anyone who's paying attention can see it, can hear it when they scream nigger at a man who nearly lost his life during the civil rights battles of the 1960s. Because in the end that's all they are, all they have left. Fuck off, teabaggers. You got yours. Now it's time for everyone else to get theirs.

Arizona Yet Again Fails to Disappoint

And here we go again. Rockstar Arizona state representative of the day (we don't say du jour in these parts) is Judy Burges (R-Skull Valley), who earned her tally mark in the GOP locker room in Phoenix by preparing legislation requiring presidential and vice presidential candidates to prove their natural-born US citizenship before they'll be allowed on the ballot in our fair state. In fact, they'll have to double secret probation downward dog prove it, which should make the AZ secretary of state just thrilled about his job.

The kind of certification Burges wants, though, could be more difficult than simply checking for a valid birth certificate, as the arguments about his legal qualification go beyond whether he was actually born in Hawaii.

A lawsuit filed in federal court in Pennsylvania charges, among other things, Obama lost his U.S. citizenship when his mother married an Indonesian man and moved there, and he failed to reclaim it as an adult. But Judge Barclay Surrick threw out the case without ruling on the issue, saying the plaintiff did not have standing to sue.

Oh, in case you need to ask? This is about the integrity of the electoral process. It isn't about Obama.

Burges said the measure is not necessarily about Obama, though she admitted she doubts he was born in Hawaii as he claims or that he can show he is a U.S. citizen.

No, honest, it's not about Obama, necessarily.

Still, she acknowledges she is not an Obama fan.

"When someone bows to the king of Saudi Arabia and they apologize for our country around the world, I have a problem with that," she said.

Totally not about Obama!

The two-term lawmaker said her concerns remain about having a president whose citizenship — and, as she sees it, loyalty — is not clear.

"We want to make sure that we have candidates that are going to stand up for the United States of America," Burges said.

Clearly not about Obama in any way at all!

Got anything else for us, Judy?

"Obama has a book, and it said, when it came down to it, he would be on the Muslim side," Burges continued. "Doesn't that bother you just a little bit?"

What bothers me, actually, is legislators--even of the state-level Republican variety--functioning as human equivalents of forwarded e-mails from right-wing relatives. What Burges just told us right there is that she didn't read the book herself, but knows somebody somewhere this one time said Obama has this book saying he loves Muslims and hates America. She probably isn't sure which of Obama's two best-sellers contains this information, although when it comes down to it, they both probably do, so it doesn't really matter.

The quote comes from Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope," where he writes about conversations with immigrant communities following the 2001 terrorist attacks, especially Arab and Pakistani Americans. Obama said they were fearful over detentions and FBI questioning and were concerned about the historical precedent.

"They need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction," Obama wrote.

It remains unclear, then, why Burges chose the comparatively more difficult route of writing legislation and hustling votes when she could have just busted out the markers and posterboard for some where's the birth certificate or, better yet, Obama secret muslin signs. Maybe she thought her bill would be a more subtle approach, assuming this is what passes for subtlety in Skull Valley.

An ugly direction indeed. Hey, Arizona statehouse Republicans: can we at least see a little more originality out of you lot next time around? Even Glenn Beck will think you're nuts on this one, and that is just never a good sign.

E-mails I Receive

My right-wing nutjob Army Ranger brother has declined to remove me from this right-wing nutjob e-mail blast list, so if there's a hot right-wing meme being flung through the interwebz, it'll land in my inbox eventually. Yesterday I got this one; have you seen it?

Picture from Wednesday's Veterans Day Ceremony... Check out this latest picture from WEDNESDAY, Veterans Day 11/11/09 at the Ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery. I don't know whether the National Anthem is being played, or the Flag is going by, or WHAT, but EVERYBODY in the picture is either saluting or has his hand over the HEART. All except ONE. Guess who??? And some people actually call him our President!!!??? I do not make this stuff up! You would think he could, at least, fake it.

Really, I don't blame my brother. Why not just mindlessly click on "forward" when it would take an entire thirty seconds online and possibly THREE clicks to ascertain that the words accompanying the picture are, shall we say, flat-out wrong? The photo is actually from the Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington, and was snapped not during the anthem, but immediately after Obama walked onto the dais during "Hail to the Chief." Later, when the national anthem was played, Obama indeed placed his hand over his heart, as other photos show.

Simple enough, no? I replied to his e-mail with this information, including links to Snopes.com AND a corroborating piece on Free Republic (shudder), as a public service to the peeps on his list who think Snopes is a liberal conspiracy, as well as links to both the C-SPAN video of the ceremony and a cellphone video posted on YouTube. And this is the reponse I got from one of my brother's buddies:

Just a point of military and civilian ceremonial courtesy; when Hail to the Chief is played military officers do not generally salute forward, they face the direction of advance of the Commander and Chief, and upon facial recognition or 12 paces render a hand salute. ADM Mullen and the Lieutenant Colonel pictured are both facing forward. Also as a point of civilian courtesy the gentlemen to the Presidents left would not have his hand over his heart facing away from the President, he would not have his hand over his heart at all. If he did (which is fine but not proper) he would still turn to face the President as he advances. When Hail to the Chief is played the President continues to move past all other U.S. officials (civilian and military) at least two paces. This signifies that he is the highest ranking U.S. official in attendance, he would not have halted his advance behind the official party and crossed his hands. While I dispute you rendition of the facts I do not contend the President was in anyway being disrespectful, just that the facts do not fit the picture. Even if the cermony was altered and all parties remained facing forward, the President would have continued forward past his subordinates.

Protocol is huge, at least to the military so I highly doubt the scenario you laid out is accurate. Having served in a protocol position in the military and dealt with these types of events I feel qualified to dispute your findings.

I find this response fascinating for its "protocol mandates x; therefore y is impossible" mindset. Despite the "Hail to the Chief" explanation, hell, despite the video showing--complete with sound!--Obama walking onto the stage as HttC plays and the officers salute and the civilian clamps his hand over his heart, and despite the fact the the position of the table and chairs as shown in the photo leaves no space for Obama to have continued to a spot two paces in front of his subordinates (he is standing even with them against the table, not behind them as the e-mailer alleges), the former protocol officer highly doubts the scenario and feels qualified to dispute it. Protocol is huge in the military and mandates one specific procedure for the president to walk onto a stage, so therefore that is the only way he could have walked onto the stage, and I can tell you exactly how the photo would have looked if they'd taken a photo, which they couldn't have since the photo you showed me does not match what I know the photo should look like. I am aware that the speed limit on this road is 65, officer, so it is simply impossible that I was traveling at 85, and I am qualified to dispute your findings.

So of course I wrote him back with specific links to video, telling him that regardless of protocol, the evidence shows that something slightly different happened. His response?

I would guess the report is wrong but I can confirm thru a friend who commands one of the honor guard companies at Arlington. Not to be arrogant but [your brother] will tell you I am rarely wrong.

In other words, who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes? I would dearly love to be so goddamn sure that everything I think--or, I suppose, everything I have been compelled to think by my institutions--is the only possible reality. Curse this career devoted to science for compelling me to draw conclusions from evidence even when they contradict expectations!

Somebody's Mama Fell Down on the Job

And I don't mean Obama's.



Stay classy, jerks.

The Personality Cult of Dear Leader

No, not him. The other guy, who came before him. Thank god Glenn Greenwald is around to do the heavy lifting on a day when I have a headache and a deadline.

I'm always amazed -- even though I know I shouldn't be -- at people's capacity simply to block out events, literally refuse to acknowledge them, when they are inconsistent with their desire to believe things.

Just click over to Salon and read, and weep, and then print it out and roll it up into a tube for whacking upside the head the next person you hear muttering about how creepy it is that President Obama would dare tell your kids to pay attention in school and do their homework.

In other news, there's a good chance Obama ate breakfast this morning, which is exactly what Kim Jong-Il does every morning himself, and which Mao and Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin and Charles Manson were rumored to do as well. Eeeeeeeevil!

But of Course

Obama school talk stirs furor
Planned TV speech next week is decried as 'creepy' attempt to brainwash students

Wait, that's not quite histrionic enough; let's do it up like the Daily Star's front page this morning:

There, that's more like it. [headdesk] [facepalm] [heavydrinking]

Wow, so somebody who knows about these things is calling Tuesday's planned stay-in-school speech brainwashing! Maybe a retired PsyOps commander or high-level CIA spook? I mean, it was in the headline, so it must at least be a psychologist or childhood development specialist, right? Oh.

Trent Humphries, a 36-year-old computer consultant who counts himself among the Tea Party members, blames the controversy on the president himself...

"If he were going to a school to speak, that would be a different issue, but to speak to all children in America without their parents present, I don't know," he said, describing it as "creepy" and saying parents should be included in conversations about staying in school.

A Teabagger dad thinks it's creepy. Well then. That settles that. And Obama thinks he can just beam into a first-grade classroom and talk about the highly controversial topic of staying in school without asking parents who send their kids to school about that? The nerve of that man. What's next? A lecture on regular flossing and eating vegetables? That's a topic for parents to present to their children only as they see fit! The unbridled hubris! Thanks for alerting us, Daily Star!

Some parents apparently see the address as a campaign speech to a captive audience. Fair enough. Others see it as an end-run around the excellent arguments the town-hallers have been hollering, like Obamacare! and HitlerHitlerNaziHitler!

[Flowing Wells Unified School District Superintendent Nicholas] Clement received another note from a pastor, saying he was recommending that members of his congregation keep their children home on Tuesday. Acknowledging other presidents have made similar speeches encouraging youths to succeed in school, the man said he finds the speech "highly suspicious given the timing and the battle for health-care reform."

Because lord knows if you give that Socialist Nazi Commie Fascist an opening, he'll totally exploit the opportunity to explain all the policy and financial nuances of insurance regulation and co-ops and public options to your sixth-grader--in 45 minutes--and your kid will totally absorb all of that information and then run out to lobby his senators and possibly bring them coffee and stuff to keep them awake for the floor vote and wham, before you know it we'll all be speaking Canadian and sieg-heiling maple trees and little Johnny will start pestering us for curling brooms.

Unless it's a ploy to turn the kids into homos, of course.

In the Amphitheater Public Schools, Superintendent Vicki Balentine said she's heard similar concerns from about two dozen people.

Much of it, she said, stemmed from misinformation. Some callers thought the purpose of the speech was to sell kids on health care, or to address students about homosexuality.

To be fair, it's not all about the speech, although the shorts-knotting springing up around it is enough material for a solid week. The curriculum supplement sent out has raised the ire of people like Michele Malkin for being "activist" and people like Arizona education head Tom Horne for, well, oh, Tom Horne.

Arizona schools chief Tom Horne put out a press release objecting to the "worshipful" tone that the White House expects students to use, drawing examples from some curriculum prompts suggested by the U.S. Department of Education to engage students in dialogue about the speech. One singled out by Horne asks students to brainstorm: "How will he inspire us?"

Because the only inspiration in Arizona comes from Jesus, thanks--well, except for that bit about compassion towards the weakest among us he was always going on about, but that's a discussion for another time--and because inspiration is always and only religious in nature, schoolkids are being directed to worship Obama. QED.

The White House hasn't had a complete tin ear on this--hey, if we've learned anything from the healthcare kerfuffle, it's that maniacs must be appeased--so they changed one really offensive activist question in the lesson plans.

The White House altered the language of one suggested activity, which initially read, "Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.”

That was changed to: “"Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals.”

How awful that first directive was. What other president would have have the unmitigated gall to require such a thing of children? Oh.

President George H.W. Bush made televised address to students in October 1991 as campaign season was heating up... Bush asked students to “take control” of their education and to write him a letter about ways students could help him achieve his goals, strikingly similar to Obama’s messages.

Sigh. Coming soon to a breathless headline near you: Obama pulmonary action stirs furor: President's insistence on continuing to draw breath in the White House decried as 'creepy.'

But of Course

I'm a little slow on the uptake today, so it took me this long to realize that doucherocket William "time to refresh the tree of Liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants" Kostric, who showed up at Obama's town hall meeting in New Hampshire yesterday with a giant penis handgun strapped to his leg in a bitchin' Han Solo-style holster and a poster in his hand printed with an only thinly veiled threat against Obama, isn't really a New Hampsherite after all. No, he's from Arizona. Of course.

And he hearts Ron Paul and hates taxes and Social Security and President Wilson but really likes Randy Wilson--well, who among us wouldn't list a white supremacist who survived the Ruby Ridge shootout as one of our heroes on a public website, am I right, ladies?--and lurves that Second Amendment and always straps his piece on when he goes out of doors like everyone else in New Hampshire, unlike his sissy socialist new neighbors next door in the People's Republic of Massachusetts.

Scottsdale, AZ apparently wasn't right-wing enough for him. And as an Arizona resident, that's a scary thought. Of course, somebody wasn't paying attention at Gaby Giffords' townhall in Douglas last week and let his gun fall clean out of his pocket, which is arguably more Wild Wild West than Mr. Kostric's securely-snapped-in-a-holster-but-still-dickish posturing, although it bespeaks maybe a little less competence with firearms, which now has me wondering if that makes me feel better or worse about Arizona.

Anyway. Kostric strikes me as little more than the malevolent little weasel kid on the playground who was always waving the biggest stick he could find just far enough away from your face for him to be able to say innocently what, I'm not doing anything to you, I'm just holding this stick, I'm not touching you I'm not touching you I'm not touching you until an adult happened to notice what he was doing. And the problem is that that kind of behavior exactly epitomizes the healthcare screamers, but now they're showing up with guns instead of sticks, and no adults are around to tell them to put those goddamn things away before someone gets hurt.

Mr. Kostric, you aren't just innocently exercising your Constitutional right to bear arms and your home new state's laws on open carrying, nor your Constitutional right to free speech. You're posturing. You're trying to intimidate. You're quite possibly trying to provoke a confrontation so you can be the new poster boy of the right wing, now that the shine's worn off of Joe the Fucking Plumber and even most of your ilk are starting to see through the carnival sideshow that is Sarah Palin. It's transparent. It's pathetic.

Unfortunately, it's also likely to be pretty fucking successful, if the sidewalk outside your local Planned Parenthood for, oh, say, the last forty years or so is any indication. The right wing's tactics of intimidation and provocation have gone unchallenged enough there to allow them to keep coming back weekend after weekend, egged on by eliminationist rhetoric from their favorite commentators. We know how that ended for George Tiller. Now William Kostric has shown up outside a facility where the president was scheduled to speak, waving a poster with an incendiary message lauding political assassination, with a loaded gun strapped to his leg, and the only sanction he's suffered so far has been getting lectured by Chris Matthews on TV.

Secret Service? Your table is ready.

On Second Thought, Schadenfreude Pretty Well Sucks Too

Seriously?

We all now know that President Obama this evening will give some federal agencies the right to give some federal employees some benefits at some time in the future. The problem, as one reader writes, is that federal agencies already have that right, and in fact, are already providing the benefits.

Yeah. That presidential memorandum that fiercely extends some (taxable as income) benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, so bravely signed with such fanfare at 5:45 pm last night? It turns out we had those benefits already.

I would really like a good reason to not make this my fucking masthead. Next: Obama signs memorandum guaranteeing gays the right to breathe a heady nitrogen-oxygen mix. But only for the duration of his adminstration. Also, the right to celebrate Christmas or Chanukah and maybe Eid if we mind ourselves.

Because Schadenfreude is Better than no Freude at All.

Huh. Hot on the heels of this comes the news that President Obama tomorrow will sign an executive order a memorandum that gives all same-sex partners of federal employees the same suite of benefits as straight spouses moving costs as long as he's in office. Moving costs, people! It's the lesbian dream second-date U-Haul reservation fantasy come true!

"Our analysis has been that it will take an act of Congress for the full suite of benefits such as health benefits and retirement benefits to be provided for same-sex couples and families," said Leonard Hirsch, president of Federal Globe: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Employees of the Federal Government. Hirsch said the executive branch has the authority to extend certain other benefits through departments and agencies, such as providing relocation costs for partners of federal employees.

Hirsch welcomed the announcement and said his organization would gladly help with implementing the new policy. "We look forward to working closely with the administration to put this in place as quickly as possible," he said.

Well, get a good night's sleep, Leonard. Lord knows you have lots of boxes to pack there.

The only good part of this whole deal is watching Aravosis melt down ripping Obama after he spent the entire campaign ripping Hillary Clinton up, down, and sideways, and banning people from his blog who were overly critical of Obama.

Boggle.

The Obama administration has released a brief regarding a suit filed by a married male California couple against the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Neat! Unfortunately, the brief, in a variety of ways, tells us to STFU and marry a straight person if we want our slice of the government's precious, limited pie.

I don't often link to Aravosis, but the man is a lawyer, and he parses the brief at length and better than I could. I will just add my two log-cabin-backed pennies to the discussion, regarding this:

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.

Miss the point, much? No, the purpose of DOMA is clearly not to discriminate against either men or women. That's because the purpose of DOMA, and even more so the purpose of the defense offered by the administration, is to discriminate against both men and women who happen to be gay. And when Obama's lawyers start trotting out the legalese equivalent of "you have the same right as everyone else to marry someone of the opposite sex," well, I start putting my fist through the nearest wall.

Patience, my ass. Putting off action is one thing. Actively working against a cause you pledge your support to whilst campaigning for dollars and votes is entirely another.

Maybe one of my lawyer friends can talk me down. You guys enjoy a challenge, no?

Oh, Distress

I keep reminding myself that Obama cannot be all things to all of his supporters, but over the past few weeks it's been difficult. On the one hand, Sonia Sotomayor. On the other, Guantanamo staying open. On the one hand, a promise by the press secretary that Obama has a strategic intent in play of planning to eventually someday probably ask Congress to think about repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell if they get a chance, on the other, yesterday's reduction of the whole shebang to a lame-ass punchline at a fundraiser. Oh, wait. Maybe those are actually both fingers on that other hand, and maybe they're both being jabbed in our direction a la a newly crabby Susan Boyle.

A gaggle of sign-waving protestors milled around outside The Beverly Hilton, the sprawling hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. They must have caught the president’s eye when he arrived at the hotel from an earlier stop in Las Vegas because he relayed one of their messages to the crowd.

“One of them said, “Obama keep your promise,’ ” the president said. “I thought that’s fair. I don’t know which promise he was talking about.”

The people in the audience – who paid $30,400 per couple to attend – laughed as they ate a dinner of roasted tenderloin, grilled organic chicken and sun choke rosemary mashed potatoes.

The gaggle of protestors were pretty clearly displaying their dismay at the failure of the campaign-promised repeal of DADT to materialize, but maybe Cadillac One was zipping past them too quickly for Hopey to read the signs, or maybe the forcefield distorted them. Maybe it's all a carefully calculated setup for the complete package of homo-friendly initiatives rumored to be launched on Stonewall day, because gosh, doesn't elation feel extra good after several weeks of blind rage?

Meanwhile, the defenders of marriage are driving me to distraction. On my Facebook news feed? Really? Get bent. Luckily, Rob Tisinai's wonderfully modulated voice and measured delivery gave me a bresh of fresh, rational air. From Joe.My.God.:

Unfortunately, Yes. Yes, We Do.

Nail, meet hammer; watch your head.

Words

As I sit simultaneously waiting for the California Supreme Court to announce its ruling on the Proposition 8 challenge and mulling the Sotomayor nomination, I keep coming back to two sets of words President Obama has let slip, only to have conservatives pounce on them and fling them back at us with monkey-poo abandon.

God is in the mix.

Carrie Prejean likes that one. So does everyone who opposes marriage equality on religious grounds. They are only too happy to remind us that our President, the one we threw our support to, is nominally on their side in this one.

Empathy.

The alleged Democratic majority should make Sotomayor's confirmation a done deal, at least on paper, at least until the Blue Dogs decide it's more important to roll over for Republicans than to advance any actual Democratic interests, and meanwhile John Boehner has already been bleating for a week that he will filibuster any nominee who intends to decide cases based on emotions and gut reactions and empathy rather than the law. Because of course that's how all the people Obama considered for the spot built their careers, on touchy-feelyness rather than legal knowledge. But none of the real legal-world qualifications matter any more, because now the opposition has the E-word to pour into the troughs for the base to snarf up and spit back over and over and over.

In a world where the sound bite has replaced reasoned discourse, and regurgitation critical thought, words are extremely precious and delicate commodities. Either the other side needs to give up their indiscriminate plucking and recoding, or our side needs to exercise a little more caution. Both propositions speak to the suck factor of our situation.

Oh. Guess That's Settled, Then.

Last week I wondered if Obama's troubling decision to let bygones be bygones and not prosecute order-followin' CIA torturers was simply a token olive branch to the pro-torture camp, a gesture that would free him up to go after the White House legal flunkies who wrote the memos stating that torture was fine and dandy in the first place.

Apparently not.

Asked Sunday on ABC's "This Week" about the fate of those officials, Emanuel said Obama believes they "should not be prosecuted either, and that's not the place that we go."

O_o. Is there anyone we can prosecute, or do we just leave all-expense-paid tickets to Madrid lying around in strategic locations and sit back and hope the Spaniards follow through? This is getting more disillusioning by the day.

Obama: Let Bygones be Bygones

Hmm. Ah...

President Obama absolved CIA officers from prosecution for harsh, painful interrogation of terror suspects Thursday, even as his administration released Bush-era memos graphically detailing — and authorizing — such grim tactics as slamming detainees against walls, waterboarding them and keeping them naked and cold for long periods.

Obama said he wanted to move beyond "a dark and painful chapter in our history."

So the people who conducted activities best described--especially by one-time candidate Obama--as torture are getting a free pass. Because... well, apparently because Bush administration lawyers wrote memos saying the techniques were A-OK, that, say, subjecting a person to controlled drowning right up to but not crossing the line into actual death is not torture because it does not result in "severe pain or suffering." Apparently it tickles so much that people decide to talk just to stop the laughter, and that's why the CIA was so desperate to keep it on the list of approved extreme interrogation measures.

Jesus. Well, okay, so now we have a bunch of torturers exonerated because "I was just following orders" is now back in vogue as a bulletproof excuse. Is this simply the opening gambit in a larger gameplan to go after the people who wrote the memos? Or the people who asked other people to write the memos and then signed off on them? Or possibly their boss, or their boss' boss? Because after making so much noise on the campaign trail about Bush ceding the moral high ground with his torturefest, issuing get-out-of-jail-free cards is kind of a bad idea, isn't it?

Obama disagreed, saying in a statement, "Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."

Really? Really, Barack? Please tell me that was just a very unfortunate choice of words and not an accurate representation of your--or, more saliently, your Justice Department's--viewpoint on the last administration's war crimes. Nothing will be gained? Nothing will be regained. Like our standing in the world and the trust of our allies. Or our national integrity. We have already laid blame for the past, so in that sense you're right in not seeing the need for more resources to be spent in that direction. Making amends for the past and bringing to justice the people who led us down that path? Lots and lots will be gained by spending time and energy in that arena. Some stuff you can let slide. Other stuff you need to exact retribution for. Please don't think for a moment that you can pass off the torture doctrine as belonging to the former category.

Go Irish

Now that John D'Arcy has weighed in on Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama to give the commencement address, old home week is complete here in Boltland. First, the bishop's statement explaining what has his ecclesiastical shorts in a knot when he contemplates Obama striding beneath the shadow of the Golden Dome:

While claiming to separate politics from science, he has in fact separated science from ethics and has brought the American government, for the first time in history, into supporting direct destruction of innocent human life.

For the first time! In history! D'Arcy seems to have forgotten about prior little government-sponsored dustups like the Sioux extermination program and, oh, maybe Hiroshima--lord knows I can barely remember those myself given my busy schedule these days--as well as about the fact that Notre Dame has previously hosted both Condi Rice and W himself. Maybe casual capital punishment and wanton warmongering don't count as life-extermination any more?

My personal brushes with D'Arcy came shortly after he landed in South Bend as the new bishop in the spring of 1985, imported from Boston to replace an oldster whose name completely escapes me at the moment and likely to ensure the primacy of some old-school conservatism in the diocese. One of his first churchly duties there was to preside over my confirmation ceremony, where he proceeded to warn us that our friends are really evil, awful people who will persuade us to do bad things, so we should ignore them and remember that our trust should really belong to the church. 25 years later I still have the friends but have quite happily shed the church. And D'Arcy's still in South Bend spouting twisted half-truths to whatever audience he has left.

Enjoy your boycott, John!

Friday Again? That Was Quick

The week screamed by and I barely noticed. Some items pinging my radar today:

In the Whole Lotta Good, Little Bitta Crap department we have Obama capping a week of signing SCHIP and capping bailed-out-executive compensation at $500K (sniff, sob) by reversing course on federally-funded faith-based organizations and deciding they can go ahead and keep discriminating in hiring after all.

Obama clearly singled out the policy during a July campaign speech, declaring that "if you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them — or against the people you hire—on the basis of their religion."

But once he won the election, religious conservatives began lobbying Obama and his transition team on the issue.

Thursday's announcement surprised and pleased religious conservatives, who had a strong ally in Bush and had been pressing the new Democratic president to revoke his earlier promise.

While this may not be as bad as it looks on the surface--a review process has been put in place to "ensure that federal programs and practices involving grants or contracts to faith-based organizations are consistent with law," allowing specific grants to be evaluated for legality in hiring--the glossy picture doesn't show the details of what was probably intended to be a compromise but has come back looking like capitulation. Capitulation to conservatives, again, for no apparent gain other than the ability to cite specific examples of attempted cooperation and accomodation of decidedly non-liberal viewpoints, while giving a tacit imprimatur to religious discrimination and using federal funds for just a little bit of proselytizing on the side.

In other capitulation news, I think I'm capitulating on trying to understand the machinations at work as the Senate holds the stimulus bill up by its ankles and shakes it in hopes that something good falls out of its pockets. It came in at $880B, climbed to $920B, moderate Republicans tried to trim it to $650B, and now it's settled at about $800B. And still no one is sure what needs to be in it and what needs to be out. I sure as hell don't know.

Some items on the cutting board included $99 million in technology upgrades for the State Department's National Cyber Security Initiative, $200 million for benefits for Filipino veterans, $55 million for the Historic Preservation Fund, and $122 million for the Coast Guard to purchase new or renovated polar icebreakers.

But senators also debated whether to keep in the bill numerous big-ticket items that their colleagues had fought for. About $14 billion in Pell grant funding appeared to have survived, but some senators were targeting at least $10 billion in other education programs. Billions of dollars in energy efficiency incentives and state aid also were under review by the centrist group.

Could the problem be that the scope of the stimulus package is simply too far-reaching and hopelessly broad? We are in a state of panic and everyone agrees that somebody has to do something right now about it, but one of the first rules of surviving a disaster is to compartmentalize. We need economic triage, and what's coming out of the House and Senate at the moment is the equivalent of the guests in a ballroom that's caught fire running around screaming with their hands in the air trying to put out all the fires and collect all the fur coats and save the champagne and finish the quickie in behind the stairs and hey how about we strip that old wallpaper while we're in here instead of assessing, planning, and executing a series of small tasks in order.

Don't get me wrong; I love Filipino veterans as much as the next guy, and appreciate the need for polar icebreakers--although if the Coast Guard can just wait a few months, all the polar ice should be gone anyway--but I don't know that their funding belongs in this bill. The on-fire ballroom absolutely needs some ADA-compliant toilets and low-energy compact fluorescent lighting, but the plumbers and electricians should really wait to get in there until the fire is out or there might not be enough money left over to pay the firemen, and then no ballroom left to upgrade. Can we not have a series of stimulus bills that are graded to address the most pressing needs first?

That, of course, would require a majority of senators to agree on those most pressing needs, and prospects for that are grim.

Barry, Object Lesson. Object Lesson, Barry.

Okay, Mr. Bipartisanpants. You made a big deal about wanting to reach across the aisle and work with legislators from both parties to solve this giant economic disaster that both Democratic and Republican lawmakers contributed to, and that both Democratic and Republican voters are suffering from. That's great and noble and a wonderful example for our nations children and, apparently, fairly short-sighted.

You agreed to strip funding for Medicaid family planning from the package because it got John Boehner's purity-drenched undies in an uncomfortable knot (in fact, it gave him such a whopping case of the vapors that he totally accidentally said the program would cost 100 million dollars rather than actually saving 70 million dollars over the next ten years and providing comprehensive healthcare to thousands of women who can't afford it otherwise). You did this because both sides have to compromise and sacrifice certain things in the spirit of cooperation, right? And because poor women are so used to taking it in the teeth anyway, the Medicaid family planning was the easiest symbolic sacrifice to make in order to win Republican support for a stimulus plan that was guaranteed to pass the House anyway due to the Democratic majority, right? Right?

The vote was 244-188, with Republicans unanimous in opposition despite President Barack Obama's pleas for bipartisan support.

Oh. Well, that was totally worth it, then. It was also totally worth it to commit $275B to tax cuts and only $90B to infrastructure projects. Because it's far more important to give individuals $500 tax breaks that will most likely go either straight to a credit card bill or to China, via Wal-Mart, than to fix bridges that will, say, allow millions of people to drive over the Mississippi River for the next forty years without winding up sandwiched between cement and dirty water.

Yes, you signed the Ledbetter Act, and that's both way awesome and way overdue. That makes me happy, and I'm still happy you won. But for fuck's sake, stop giving away shit when--remember this?--you won, and when you already have the votes you need lined up, and when you know the other side will sit on their hands no matter how much woman- and minority- and gay-repressing stuff you cede to them in the name of "bipartisanship." They know they're losing the war, but they'll happily posture all day to wring every last concession out of you they can. You think you're being cooperative. They think you're being a pussy and are ready to jump all over that six ways to Sunday.

Bush never quite got the "fool me once" saying down. You need to make it your mantra.