Month: July 2013

DOMA Drama

Hip hip hoorah!  We have a win!  SCOTUS over turned DOMA by a 5-4 ruling…..

For gay rights advocates, the decision opening the door to resume same-sex marriages in California bolstered determination to expand the right to wed for gay men and lesbians. The Human Rights Campaign set a goal to achieve that in all 50 states within the next five years.

And for opponents of gay marriage, the battle turned to state capitals, where 36 states bar gay marriage by statute or constitutional amendment. “We didn’t lose,” Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage said, noting the high court had declined to recognize a constitutional right to marry. “They punted.”

All the celebration while it is a great ruling it does not pave the way to a total ban of DOMA…..the battles will be in the states where 36 states (i believe) have some sort of law against gay marriage….the Right will stick to the old battle chant…”I have not yet begun to fight”……it will get uglier before it gets better……there will be many long drawn out battles to come…..

As they say….”It ain’t over ’til it’s over”………

(Newser) – The Supreme Court’s gay marriage rulings have pretty much everyone talking and typing. Many liberals are overjoyed, but others urge caution, while conservatives look for silver linings. Here’s what people are saying:

  • “This may be remembered as the day when the nation stopped regarding gay people as second class citizens,” writes Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post, but there’s still much more to be done. The Prop 8 ruling “leaves things basically the way they stood before—not after—the landmark 1967 Loving v. Virginia ruling that struck down laws against interracial marriage.”
  • Adam Winkler at the Daily Beast complains that “to hear the reasoning of the court, it sounds like procedure is more important than people.” Even the comparatively bold DOMA decision leans on process and states’ “traditional authority,” which “may have sent a signal to lower courts that limiting marriage to one man and one woman remains constitutionally permissible.”
  • Winkler also points out that the court rejected the Obama administration’s arguments that laws discriminating against LGBTQ people should be subject to more rigorous judicial review, on par with race or gender. “The court’s refusal may be read by lower courts to mean that LGBT discrimination may still be constitutional, especially when it’s consistent with tradition rather than contrary to it.”
  • “This happened the right way—from the ground up, with argument, with lawsuits, with cultural change, with individual courage,” writes Andrew Sullivan at The Dish. “So to those who are often tempted to write off America’s ability to perfect its union still further … let me just say: I believe.”
  • June Thomas at Slate feels like she just won an Oscar. “As the decision was announced, I finally allowed myself to experience a feeling a belonging,” she writes. “Perhaps the world really is changing.”
  • Meanwhile over at the conservative blog RedState, Dana Loesch looks on the bright side, arguing that this is “a loss for big government, not for marriage.” After all, power was just removed from the federal government and returned to the states. “If big government is needed to define marriage then the people who make up the church” have failed to “live and evangelize their faith.” For more conservative reactions, click here.

Personally, I think that the bigger story was the VRA smack down….but this will be a drama that will be coming and coming…possibly until the 2016 elections……

My Zimmerman Statement

People have been trying all weekend to engage me in to commenting on the outcome of the Zimmerman trial…..I have resisted as long as I could but the endless prying has brought me to this post.

This will be my one and only statement on the trial of Zimmerman and its verdict.

People let it go!  He was tried and found not guilty whether you agree or not that is how the system works here….maybe not as well as some of us would like but it is the rule and now it is over.

The tragedy of a 17 year old being shot for any reason is a horrible thing and very little can be said to defend it to anyone.  The sad part is this incident is the price we pay for allowing morons to carry guns legally.  The death of a loved one at the hands of self-styled vigilantes will continue and there will be more Trayvons out there….you may not hear much about them but they will be there.  And as long as we allow idiots who fancy their manhood in the carrying of a gun we will mourn for our dead.

The people can and should do something about this….it cannot be fixed in a year or maybe even 10…..but it can be fixed.  Do what you have to do to fix this outrageous law…….if you cannot do that then learn to live with…..MORONS WITH GUNS!

One last thing….we hear once again about a national conversation on race is needed……it has been needed for 50 years and there has been NO one that has the guts to start it.  Until we have this talk and be honest with each other there will ALWAYS Trayvons and Zimmermans…….

Get busy or SHUT UP!

Egyptian Restart?

Inkwell Institute

Middle East Desk

While Americans were celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence the Egyptian people were declaring theirs, at least independence from the dictatorial approach of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood……..if you have no idea of what a speak then I suggest you read a newspaper and let that mind numbing Honey Boo Boo die a natural death…….

Once the Egyptian army ceased power and put Morsi under protection the war hawks in Washington started thumping their chest……people like McCain who condemned the army for their action….basically he has come to support the Muslim Brotherhood…..think about that people!  McCain and the Muslim Brotherhood?

Let’s go back about 15 years and the Muslim Brotherhood was high on the terrorist list…….because of their extreme religious beliefs and their embracing of terrorism as a political weapon……so now let us ask…..what happen for that to change?  It appears that since they participated in the general elections in Egypt after the fall of Mubarak…they have become a democratic institution and in being so deserves the support of people like McCain…….

Now with that said….I want to ask…..why does Hamas not deserve recognition other than being on that same terrorist list that the Muslim Brotherhood use to reside?

Hamas is an organization that represents the people of Gaza and yes they were democratically elected to the posts…..so why are they not worthy of support?

Easy answer….ISRAEL!

The Jewish state is controlling the terrorist list and in doing so controlling the US Middle East foreign policy……..because the Brotherhood participated in the elections does not give them a free ride….there are many democratically elected leaders that we do not deal with for whatever reason…..but when it comes to the Middles East….it is Israel that will dictate what and who we are to support…..this is why Israel can get away with murder and I mean it in actual terms…….

The US will play NO significant role in the events taking place in the Middle East as long as our policies are driven for the benefit of Israel and no one else…..

Can You Be Too Atractive?

Recently I did a post and made fun of the Saudis because the “religious police” arrested a couple of men for being too handsome…their reasoning was that their looks would entice women too easily……I said then and stand by my statement that it is an absurdity that their is a crime of being too handsome……..

But wait!  what is the old saying?  “Whatever you can do, we can do it better”……….Iowa has proven this statement……Think Progress has brought this to light…..

Standing by a December decision, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday that a male dentist who fired a female assistant because she was too attractive and threatened his marriage did not commit sex discrimination.

The all-male court ruled against Melissa Nelson, who sued her former employer James Knight, alleging Knight’s wife told Knight to fire Nelson because “she was a big threat to our marriage.” Knight fired Nelson in January 2010 after more than 10 years working for him, later testifying that she was not fired for performance reasons.

The Court wrote:

“It is abundantly clear that a woman does not lose the protection of our laws prohibiting sex discrimination just because her employer becomes sexually attracted to her, and the employer’s attraction then becomes the reason for terminating the woman once it, in some way, becomes a problem for the employer. If a woman is terminated based on stereotypes related to the characteristics of her gender, including attributes of attractiveness, the termination would amount to sex discrimination because the reason for termination would be motivated by the particular gender attribute at issue.”

Can you believe the bullsh*t?

Is There Such A Thing As Luck?

The weekend and time for a cleansing couple of days…….the mind needs a diversion…….

Some numbers are lucky…..some places are lucky…..and then there are people that are just plain lucky…..we all know someone like this….but this woman has them all beat…..

The Syracuse Post-Standard has a medical story equal parts amazing and scary: Doctors who thought a 41-year-old woman was dead were preparing to remove her organs when she opened her eyes in the operating room. St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center eventually got fined $6,000 by the state after investigators found a series of mistakes in the near disaster, the most jarring of which is that doctors disregarded a nurse’s observation that the patient had been showing signs of improvement and was not, in fact, dead. The woman had overdosed on Xanax and other drugs, and doctors concluded she had suffered not only a “cardiac death” but irreversible brain damage, reports the newspaper. Neither was the case. Doctors scheduled the organ removal even after a nurse noticed that the woman’s toes curled during a reflex exam; she also appeared to be breathing independently of her respirator. And still, the operation went forward, or would have had the woman not opened her eyes. A sad coda: The patient was released from the hospital two weeks after the incident, but she killed herself more than a year later, in 2011. (Details are just now coming to light thanks to a FOIA request by the Post-Standard.) St. Joseph’s tells the New York Daily News it regrets the error and worked to set things right by the patient’s family, which did not want the incident discussed publicly. Click for the full story. (This isn’t the first instance of a supposedly dead person waking up, either; there was this time. And this time. And this time. And this time. Yeah, it happens a lot.)

Talk about a thankful day!

Immigration 2.0

When the Congress is inactive, which is 90% of the time, we are beat down by the media with such fluff as Zimmerman, Beibs peeing in a bucket, planes, trains and other assorted garbage…..so as usual there is little making news….I mean reports that actually impact average person’s life…..with all that said I need to return to an issue I wrote about earlier this week…..Immigration.

I wrote that the immigration issue was looking good for passing because business would make out like a bandit with no gun from the contracts the bill would produce…..today I need to revise my optimism and admit that I may have been wron…..wro….wr….mistaken.

It appears that the GOP optimism from a month ago maybe dead and the GOP is looking for ways to oppose and then defeat any attempt for a comprehensive immigration bill.

Some of the influential voices on the Right are now having doubts about the issue……

(Newser) – As the House GOP meets tomorrow to begin hashing out immigration reform, two prominent conservative voices have some advice: Kill the Senate version that just passed. It “is a comprehensive mistake,” write Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard and Rich Lowry of the National Review. “House Republicans should kill it without reservation.” (This is a “rare joint editorial from two of the most muscular conservative voices in the land,” observes Mike Allen in his Politico Playbook blog.)

Kristol and Lowry, who note that they’ve disagreed previously on immigration reform, say the Senate bill is “riddled with exceptions, loopholes, and waivers” in terms of enforcement. As a result, it won’t actually solve the problem of illegal immigration. It also tilts too heavily toward low-skilled labor, is too large in scope, and was put together in a “hasty manner.” What’s the rush now? they ask. Republicans should resist “political panic,” hold off in case they retake the Senate next year, and then work on a better bill. “Passing any version of the Gang of Eight’s bill would be worse public policy than passing nothing,” they conclude. “House Republicans can do the country a service by putting a stake through its heart.” Click here or here for the full column.

Looks like the GOP members of the House are listening to the voices from the Right……..

(Newser) – Immigration reform has no chance in the House, top Republicans privately tell Politico. GOP leaders, after many listening sessions, say that even the most popular parts of immigration reform will be difficult to get through; ultimately, they predict what Politico calls “a slow, months-long death.” The site compares it to what happened with gun background checks: Conventional wisdom (that background checks were too popular to kill or, in this case, that killing immigration reform would be too risky in terms of alienating the Hispanic vote) simply proved wrong, because most House Republicans care more about catering to their mostly conservative white constituents.

  • Critical talks on immigration reform are taking place today, with House Republicans coming together to decide next steps, the Hill reports. On the Democrats’ side, President Obama and Joe Biden are meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus today for a strategy session.
  • Not surprisingly, the White House is cheering the comprehensive immigration reform bill today, with a new report estimating the bill would increase GDP by 0.3 percentage points over two decades, encouraging job creation, job growth, and worker productivity. The report also says budget deficits would decrease.
  • Also today: George W. Bush will deliver a speech at a naturalization ceremony, during which he will note “the important contributions of immigrants to our society and economy,” according to a statement. But the speech won’t get political or push any specific agenda, a rep tells CNN. (Though Bush does want reform to pass.)

So what has happen in a month that would torpedo the optimism that was felt by the nation?

My feeling it is the upcoming elections in 2014.  While immigration reform polls high for the nation….it polls low in most congressional districts…….the GOP can oppose Obama and immigration and most will not fee any blow back in the election.  You notice that the border security is being pushed…..the reason is if they can get that then the whole comprehensive thing will be DEAD for the foreseeable future……and NO one will feel any pressure from the voters back home.

A sad way to run a country……but the old saying is…”the people get the government they deserve”…….it is time to put the country above elections and do the right thing….if you cannot do that then go home and work at you chicken farm……(an obvious reference to WW2)…………