Tragedy and farce were in a train wreck today as the political class's village idiots all lined up to demonstrate why they go to the village idiots' convention every year and compete to be speaker of the village idiot house of representatives.
The Miss America title went to Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, who got punk'd by a blogger from New York who runs a site called BuffaloBeast.com. He called the governor's office and not only got put right through but yanked the governor's chain for twenty minutes pretending to be the governor's billionaire backer, David Koch.
The governor warbled on like a Pizza Hut manager reporting big sales increases to his boss, comparing himself to Ronald Reagan breaking the air traffic controllers union, admitting he and his people had thought about seeding the demonstrations outside the capitol with "trouble makers" to try and discredit the demonstrators, unveiling his super-secret plan to con the Democratic legislators to come home with a promise to negotiate and then, once they were back, crying "Whoopsie!" and refusing to discuss anything, then threatening that if he doesn't get his way with the financial concessions the unions have already agreed to, he'll start firing thousands of state employees.He also confirmed that he and a number of new Republican governors talk every day on how to kill off unions.
An Indiana deputy attorney general twittered that damn right the demonstrators there should be met with deadly force. The Republicans withdrew the bill intended to strip private employee unions of the right to do anything besides hold Easter egg hunts.
The Teabag governor of Florida, whose health care company swindled the taxpayers for a couple of billion, says he's not so much in favor of banning collective bargaining as he was a few days ago.
Meantime, on the other side of the aisle, the Obama administration assumed its usual pretzel position gay rights, announcing that the President, who still thinks marriage equality is illegal, has decided the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and the Department of Justice should stop defending it. This after two years of defending it. And they will keep enforcing it, while hoping a court will let them off the hook, but they won't introduce legislation to just repeal it.
Here's what you need to know about DOMA.
It has two parts. One part says states can outlaw marriage equality. The other- and this is the new sticking point- denies any federal benefits to legally married same-sex couple in states that have legalized such marriages. It's the latter that screws gay and lesbian widowers out of survivor benefits from Social Security, pension rights, tax discrimination if they take advantage of their partner's employment benefits, immigration rights, and roughly a thousand other little pluses that the feds give you for being married.
The "enlightened" position on the right is that the government should repeal the ban on state same-sex marriage. That means you can file a joint state tax return on a good day. Bob Barr, who wrote the law but in his senescence has seen God, takes that point of view.
On the other hand, one of Fox News' blonde news babes, Monica Crowley- who got her start as President Nixon's last remora and Boswell- was hyperventilating on Fox today that the administration's decision was like unto a dictatorship and dubbed the President Mubarack Obama.
Clever, for a Ph.D.
I've hammered on the Obama team since the campaign for their timorous approach to gay rights. They do as little as possible- the standard Democratic Party playbook guidance- but at least their department heads don't wake up every morning looking for new ways to mess with gay people the way the Bush administration did.
But- the perfectly cynical- this move is cost-free. It outrages the people who are already, and will already be, outraged. They won't vote for the President if he's the last man alive on the planet. It shores up the gay tribe for the 2012 campaign. They are used to grubbing for scraps if they come at an expensive HRC dinner with Bill Clinton or Lily Tomlin as the speaker. And it has no meaning whatever. The government has a whole bunch of cases in the pipe to the Supreme Court. Punting now, and saying you won't defend the law but won't urge its repeal either means when the Supreme Court rules- most likely to uphold the law- the administration can say- before the next election- "well, we tried. Besides, where you gonna go election day?"
Thus do cans get kicked down the road.
Here's a real world example of how second class American citizens are created:
Oh, btw: asked how he squares hawking his family values against his adulteries, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich rebuked the questioned by saying, "I hope that made you feel better about yourself," and then declared he believes in a forgiving God. He didn't seem to feel the same way raging about impeaching President Clinton while carrying on an affair.
But I digress. It's been a complicated day.
The Miss America title went to Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, who got punk'd by a blogger from New York who runs a site called BuffaloBeast.com. He called the governor's office and not only got put right through but yanked the governor's chain for twenty minutes pretending to be the governor's billionaire backer, David Koch.
The governor warbled on like a Pizza Hut manager reporting big sales increases to his boss, comparing himself to Ronald Reagan breaking the air traffic controllers union, admitting he and his people had thought about seeding the demonstrations outside the capitol with "trouble makers" to try and discredit the demonstrators, unveiling his super-secret plan to con the Democratic legislators to come home with a promise to negotiate and then, once they were back, crying "Whoopsie!" and refusing to discuss anything, then threatening that if he doesn't get his way with the financial concessions the unions have already agreed to, he'll start firing thousands of state employees.He also confirmed that he and a number of new Republican governors talk every day on how to kill off unions.
An Indiana deputy attorney general twittered that damn right the demonstrators there should be met with deadly force. The Republicans withdrew the bill intended to strip private employee unions of the right to do anything besides hold Easter egg hunts.
The Teabag governor of Florida, whose health care company swindled the taxpayers for a couple of billion, says he's not so much in favor of banning collective bargaining as he was a few days ago.
Meantime, on the other side of the aisle, the Obama administration assumed its usual pretzel position gay rights, announcing that the President, who still thinks marriage equality is illegal, has decided the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and the Department of Justice should stop defending it. This after two years of defending it. And they will keep enforcing it, while hoping a court will let them off the hook, but they won't introduce legislation to just repeal it.
Here's what you need to know about DOMA.
It has two parts. One part says states can outlaw marriage equality. The other- and this is the new sticking point- denies any federal benefits to legally married same-sex couple in states that have legalized such marriages. It's the latter that screws gay and lesbian widowers out of survivor benefits from Social Security, pension rights, tax discrimination if they take advantage of their partner's employment benefits, immigration rights, and roughly a thousand other little pluses that the feds give you for being married.
The "enlightened" position on the right is that the government should repeal the ban on state same-sex marriage. That means you can file a joint state tax return on a good day. Bob Barr, who wrote the law but in his senescence has seen God, takes that point of view.
On the other hand, one of Fox News' blonde news babes, Monica Crowley- who got her start as President Nixon's last remora and Boswell- was hyperventilating on Fox today that the administration's decision was like unto a dictatorship and dubbed the President Mubarack Obama.
Clever, for a Ph.D.
I've hammered on the Obama team since the campaign for their timorous approach to gay rights. They do as little as possible- the standard Democratic Party playbook guidance- but at least their department heads don't wake up every morning looking for new ways to mess with gay people the way the Bush administration did.
But- the perfectly cynical- this move is cost-free. It outrages the people who are already, and will already be, outraged. They won't vote for the President if he's the last man alive on the planet. It shores up the gay tribe for the 2012 campaign. They are used to grubbing for scraps if they come at an expensive HRC dinner with Bill Clinton or Lily Tomlin as the speaker. And it has no meaning whatever. The government has a whole bunch of cases in the pipe to the Supreme Court. Punting now, and saying you won't defend the law but won't urge its repeal either means when the Supreme Court rules- most likely to uphold the law- the administration can say- before the next election- "well, we tried. Besides, where you gonna go election day?"
Thus do cans get kicked down the road.
Here's a real world example of how second class American citizens are created:
The development floored Edith S. Windsor, an 81-year-old widow who filed one of the two new lawsuits in New York. Ms. Windsor is seeking the return of about $360,000 in estate taxes she had to pay because the federal government did not recognize their marriage when her wife died two years ago. The couple married in Toronto.
Oh, btw: asked how he squares hawking his family values against his adulteries, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich rebuked the questioned by saying, "I hope that made you feel better about yourself," and then declared he believes in a forgiving God. He didn't seem to feel the same way raging about impeaching President Clinton while carrying on an affair.
But I digress. It's been a complicated day.
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