Category Archives: Politics

This Troll Again? Kim Davis reflects on her role in marriage debate 

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Source: Kim Davis reflects on her role in same-sex marriage debate – LGBTQ Nation

“How ironic that God would use a person like me, who failed so miserably at marriage in the world, to defend it now,” Davis said Tuesday. “The Lord picks the unlikely source to convey the message.”

Yeah, well, “ironic” is not the word I’d use. “Typical” is more to the point. It’s always that way with haters. Hate me because I’m gay? Wait long enough and someone will catch you trolling for trade in the men’s room. Hate people for using Federal assistance? Look closely at who’s skimming off the top of the money pile. Shame adulterers? Look who just got exposed for having an affair.

God didn’t use you, sweetie. What happened was you used “God” to not do your job. And Kentucky’s new governor, who wants to take clerks’ names off of marriage licenses, is just abetting you and your particular brand of zealotry.

Remember this face, friends. This is the face of true intolerance and hate. Well, you say, she looks just like every other regular, ignorant, white woman in America. That’s right. Be on the lookout. And don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

H/T LGBTQ Nation

Hillary, Bill, DOMA and Revising History

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This is a really terrific investigation by Chris Geidner on BuzzFeed about Hillary Clinton’s recent comments about DOMA. You should read it. Geidner’s combed through White House documents and has not found any evidence that Clinton (Bill) acted from a defensive position in signing DOMA like Clinton (Hillary) indicated that he did in her Rachel Maddow interview.

In fact, after the interview aired, I tweeted as much:

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The reason that I remember this so well is that I had only been all-the-way out for several years, I was living in D.C., young and politically charged, and I was very active in the Democratic party. To my memory, no one ever advanced the idea of a Constitutional amendment on marriage or the argument that DOMA was the lesser of two evils. That’s Bernie Sanders’ recollection, too. Not only has he called Hillary out on this, he also voted against DOMA.

Bill and Hillary Clinton may be pro-marriage equality today — and good for them; they should be — but the record is pretty clear: in the 90s, Bill Clinton did not support same-sex marriage.

I’m not terribly sure, with nearly 20 years of hindsight, that he should be pilloried for that, given the tenor of the times, but let’s not engage in fantasy revisionism. It’s okay to change your mind; that’s kind of the whole underpinning of the United States.

President Harding: Everything Old is New Again

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Interesting piece in the Times today about the President.

Warren G. Harding, the Pride of Marion, Ohio, and one of the worst American presidents. Evidently, he was swoon-worthy in his day. I don’t see it. |Image: Harris & Ewing Collection/Library of Congress.

Well, President Warren G. Harding, our chief executive from 1921 to 1923 and, by all accounts, one of the absolute worst of the lot. Perhaps Pierce, Buchanan, Bush #2 and Fillmore rank worse. Perhaps.

Harding was a known womanizer and there were plenty of rumors circulating at the time that he fathered a child with one of his mistresses and what do you know? Ninety-two years after he died, DNA has proven unequivocally that Harding was the baby daddy.

Ain’t that a pisser?

I love the fact that a century ago this was bedrock scandal of the first order. Today, who the hell cares? Heck, I didn’t care 20 years ago (-ish) when Clinton was being diddled under the desk. Why should I? Why should you?

Look, all men in power — old white guys — they all* have a bit on the side. The President of the United States is any different? Lucy Mercer … Marilyn Monroe … Monica Lewinsky … Even the old “bachelor,” James Buchanan had William Rufus King. Oh, look it up. Old Hickory called the pair “Miss Nancy” and “Aunt Fancy.” King was not only Buchanan’s live-in for a decade, he was Franklin Pierce’s vice president for a bit, but he died in office. AND, his relationship with Buchanan was likely the reason for Buchanan’s Southern sympathies, thereby hindering his ability to broker a peace with the secessionists and stop the Civil War.

Buchanan — another of the worst presidents.

*Yes, all is a strong word. I don’t mean all here; but I do mean most.

Poll: Indiana Voters Dislike Businesses Refusing To Serve LGBT Customers

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Poll: Indiana Voters Dislike Businesses Refusing To Serve LGBT Customers, Frown On Governor – BuzzFeed News.

Yeah, okay, I know enough Hoosiers to know the headline is true, but — and this is a big one — do they dislike Gov. Mike Pence enough to vote him out of office? Ay, there’s the rub.

JoDee Winterhof, HRC’s vice president of policy and public affairs, said in a statement: “Elected officials, and governors specifically, who experiment with these anti-LGBT bills that allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT people do so at their own peril.”

5794984932_535b1a72e8That’s a nice sentiment, Ms. Winterhof, but I’m not sure that boat holds water. HRC commissioned this study, so I’m at once dubious. (Sorry, just am; too many years in a newsroom not to be leary.) Secondly, it’s easy to take a poll in a non-election year and say you “do so at your own peril” when you are not a citizen of the state in question.

And neither am I. Anymore.

In the seven years I spent as a Hoosier, I spent six of them with the odious Pence as my Congressman. And I know this about Indiana politics: Hoosier voters are damn lazy. I saw it over and over and over again on the state and local level. They will vote in an incumbent every time — I even recall a local Indiana election where they voted in a councilman who was dying in a nursing home — and the default position in the voting booth is one of ardent conservatism because it seems less like rocking the boat than making a change does. It’s similar to the “Shy Tory” syndrome that we saw in Scotland after their recent election on leaving the United Kingdom.

I know a lot of decent, hard-working, socially-progressive, intelligent Hoosiers, but until they agitate their neighbors into making the change that is needed in their state — at the ballot box — you can scream “at your own peril” until the cows come home, but nothing in Indiana is going to change.

God, I hope I’m wrong.

(But, as a friend of mine so eloquently says, “Remember, I am Cassandra!”)

Back to 1910: This Congress is Eerily Similar to Those from the Past

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Fifty years ago, the Chad Mitchell Trio sang these lyrics:

We’re the bright young men
Who wanna go back to 1910
We’re Barry’s boys
We’re the kids with a cause
Yes a government like grandmama’s
We’re Barry’s boys
We’re the new kind of youth at your Alma Mater
Back to silver standard and solid Goldwater
Back to when the poor were poor and rich were rich
And you felt so damn secure just knowing which were which

I was reminded of this 1964 folk era ditty when I was reading a great editorial by Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post the other day. I was acquainted with Gene a million years ago when he was editing the Style section of the Post and I was a theatre flack in town. I’m not sure that editing the arts was his bailiwick, but he’s one of my very favorite columnists. Not just me: he won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary a few years back.

But, I digress. This particular editorial he takes the Republicans in Congress to task for moronically assuming that they can tell the American people they are there to protect the middle class and then, the first chance they get to actually do something meaningful, the House passes utterly and completely unsustainable legislation regarding rape and abortion. Yet another example of extremists in the party controlling the agenda. These bills won’t pass the Senate — and even if they did because everyone in the Senate was drugged and in a stupor and had their minds controlled by a cartoon super villain — the President would never sign such a thing.

So what is the point?

As Robinson points out:

People, we are in an economic recovery whose fruits are not reaching the middle class. We have a crucial need to address U.S. infrastructure and competitiveness. We face myriad challenges abroad, including Islamic terrorism and global warming.

If a renewal of the culture wars is your answer, Republicans, you totally misheard the question.

Yes. Yes they have. But, then again, haven’t they been mishearing the question for at least a half-century?

Back to silver standard and solid Goldwater…. *sigh*

Today the NYPD Hates Bill de Blasio; Tomorrow It May Be You

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The Real Reason Police Hate Bill de Blasio.

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New York Mayor Bill de Blasio

This is an excellent short piece from Daily Kos. New York City’s police (some of them) are up in arms about remarks made by newly-installed mayor Bill de Blasio. They have taken offense at some things the mayor has said in the wake of police shootings in Gotham lately. At one of these public gatherings, de Blasio said this about his biracial son:

Chirlane and I have had to talk to Dante for years about the dangers that he may face. A good young man, law-abiding young man who would never think to do anything wrong. And yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face, we’ve had to literally train him—as families have all over this city for decades—in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.

Some members of the NYPD and some members of the public find these remarks insensitive. They say it shows the mayor doesn’t stand behind law enforcement. Really?

The mayor should never criticize law enforcement? Even when everyone knows there are serious racial problems, serious ethical problems, serious effectiveness problems in the force?

To me, not criticizing, not accepting ingrained bureaucracy and prejudice is both obscene and a dereliction of duty.

We need cops. I’m all for law enforcement. I’m all for peace officers. To protect and to serve. No matter who you are. What I’m not for are cowboys and race-baiters and gay-haters and misogynists. Saying that there are bad cops, telling your kid to look out for bad cops who will profile you — and maybe even rough you up — because of the color of your skin, that’s not anti-police. That’s intelligent governing and parenting.

Being critical of police is the only way we will make change happen. Otherwise, New York, greed, graft and corruption are self-perpetuating and hellish to get rid of. The corrupt love to hang onto power. If you’d like a primer on what corruption can do to a city — your city —please visit the Wikipedia entry for Tammany Hall.

Vote on Tuesday

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Hey! WordPress and Pew Charitable Trusts have teamed up to get customized voter information to everyone on the platform before next week’s midterms. Especially given the advances that we’ve had in civil rights and LGBT equality in recent months — and especially if you live in a “red state” — it’s essential that you make it to the polls during this election cycle.

Care to Have Independence? Anyone? Scotland? No, Okay

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This is a pretty good analysis about how and why the pollsters got it wrong, courtesy of our favorite bunch of quants over at FiveThirtyEight:
Why Pollsters Think They Underestimated ‘No’ In Scotland | FiveThirtyEight.

The final numbers are fascinating and I am particularly enamored of the “Shy Tory” argument, which basically says they want to side one way but don’t want to be seen siding that way because of all of the passion on the other side. It’s a very good argument. Anyone who has ever been around elections understands it. Nate Silver expands the thought.

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The Scottish Parliament building, a fascinating piece of modern architecture that stands out like a sore thumb against a backdrop of old Edinburgh.

In the aftermath of the Scottish vote, I feel compelled to roll my eyes at all of the “fake Scots” in the U.S. who are such dedicated separatists, who blame the English for the tragic history of the Scots peoples, who beat their breasts about the terrible oppression at the hands of the English overlords for so many years.

And then they quote Burns. And have a wee dram and toast to “The Forty-Five” and refight the Battle of Culloden and vow that they will take up arms in the next Jacobite rising.

But here’s the thing: isn’t that just a bunch of romanticized twaddle? Haven’t there been two or three too many viewings of “Braveheart” in this camp?

Don’t get me wrong, I love Scotland. Edinburgh is one of the most fascinating cities in the world. I would go back any day of any week, if I could. But, I’m also a practical Unionist and a lover of London as well.

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Your faithful correspondent, mugging for the camera on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, in 2010. From my attire and from the sky, can you guess it is the middle of summer?


It seems to me that in 2014 the world is so intertwined that to separate one part of a major power and become a small power unto yourself seems a disaster waiting to happen. What about currency? And border patrols? What about taxes, the national health scheme, compulsory education, state-sponsored higher education, bank regulations, environmental regulations, the Navy, the power grid, elections, separation of powers — or not, weights and measures, language? The list is endless.

And, ultimately, that’s what those “Shy Tory” voters realized. It sounds good in a ripping good speech, but when you have to live it, well, let’s be prudent about it. To those abroad that are “sad for Scotland,” I say this: the people of Scotland voted. Overwhelmingly they said “nay.”

And, of course, I will remind those American Scots, pining away for a life in a motherland that they do not know and probably have never set foot in, of some other words of Robbie Burns: The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.

David Miranda Is Nobody’s Errand Boy

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David Miranda Is Nobody’s Errand Boy.

This is a really well-done long-format piece from BuzzFeed on the continuing David Miranda/Glenn Greenwald saga. I find it hard to be objective about this because I feel so strongly that Miranda is being singled out for his partner Greenwald’s role in the Snowden/NSA leaks. It’s an egregious use of power from the U.S. and the U.K., IMHO.

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David Miranda and the title card for the BuzzFeed story. | Photo: Jimmy Clark for BuzzFeed.