Just WTF Is This ?

I somehow missed this till now, but what the hell ?  Is Ted Cruz determined to prove repeatedly his unworthiness for the presidency ?  Who on his staff approved this ?

This is the some clown who recently gave us the idiotic proposal of periodic elections for members of the Supreme Court, because boo hoo, he didn't get his way on the Affordable Care Act or same-sex marriage.  And because subjecting justices to the popularity-contest of periodic elections, and having them forced to raise money for said elections will ensure a less politicised judiciary alright.

Although, unfunny as this shit is, I will say his Ned Flanders is spot-on.  Read into that what you will.

Today(ish) in Republicans Saying Horrible Things

Tom DeLay on the recent decision on same-sex-marriage by the Supreme Court:

Well, we've already found a secret memo coming out of the Justice Department. They're now going to go after twelve new perversions: things like bestiality, polygamy, having sex with little boys and making that legal. And not only that, but they have a whole list of strategies to go after the churches, the pastors, and any businesses that tries to assert their religious liberty. This is comin' and it's coming like a tidal wave....They're coming down with twelve new perversions, and LGBT just isn't, is only the beginning. They're going to start expanding it to the other perversions.

Very precise, and very magical number that: twelve.


Rick Perry on the Supreme Court striking down Texas' absurd law requiring abortion-clinics to maintain hospital-level facilities:

"The Supreme Court's stay unnecessarily puts lives in danger by allowing unsafe facilities to continue to perform abortions," said the Republican presidential candidate in a statement. "I am confident the court will ultimately uphold these commonsense measures to protect the health and safety of Texas women."

Women's health, yeah that's what he's concerned about in shutting down clinics that often provide other services for women's health, beside abortion.


 Bill O'Reilly on the Affordable Care Act and the Supreme Court:

Now on healthcare, the issue is again greater good. Obamacare is obviously yet another federal entitlement program designed to help poor Americans at the expense of non-poor Americans. The president sold the law on the basis that it's a benefit for all; but only his party bought that....Subsequently, health insurance costs have risen for many working Americans, and a significant number of Doctors are refusing to take government-mandated insurance programs. But the four liberal judges don't really care about the overall impact of Obamacare. They want free healthcare for the poor.  That's what they want. And they'll find a legal justification for it, no matter what!  the actual law says. Add in Roberts and Kennedy, and presto! another enormous social safety-net that benefits the have-nots survives a valid legal challenge.

Note that there is no overlap between 'working Americans' and 'poor Americans' for Billo.


Rand Paul, who just met with racist anti-government radical Cliven Bundy:

Dr. Rand PaulVerified account‏@RandPaul

You can be a minority because of the color of your skin or the shade of your ideology. #StandWithRand

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3:20 PM - 30 Jun 2015

Erick Erickson on same-sex marriage and homosexuality:

First of all, you're only talkin' three to five percent of the population. Now, I know a lot of people, the thought is that you're born gay. That's, actually not really true in most cases. In some cases, I think it probably is. But in a lot of cases, if you got back to it, there are parental issues, there's abuse, and and that has a lot to do with it. And as you see a collapse of family -- I don't think that it's a coincidence that a collapse of family is, is directly inverse proportional or inverse related to the rise in people who identify as being gay.

Are we really living in the year 2015 ?  Sure it's not still 1985 ?


Bryan Fischer, on how the Supremes' ruling on same-sex marriage, is enciting terrorism:

I've not heard any body talking about this angle of what the Supreme Court did on Friday in their ruling imposing sodomy-based marriage on the United States of America. Now the whole world, this includes the Supreme Court, they know how the religion of peace deals with homosexuals -- they tie them to chairs and they throw them off of eight-storey buildings, and if they survive the fall, they stone them to death....Now how does the Muslim world justify their attacks on the United States ? Because they believe that we are the chief exporter of wickedness and decadence in the world. That's why they call us 'The Great Satan'. When we insult their god, their religion, their prophet, or their values, they claim a divine sanction to punish us for our transgressions. Now, the Left, interesting enough, actually agrees with the Muslim world on this score. Remember what happened with Pamela Geller and her 'Draw Mohammed Contest' in Garland, Texas. When the, when two Muslims shot the place up, who did the Left blame? They blamed Pamela Geller. She had provoked, she had incited, she had insulted the blessed prophet Mohammed and thus had brought this violence on herself. According to the Left, she got what she deserved. But now, what the Supreme Court did on Friday was to insult and offend the entire Muslim world, by celebrating and gloating and gushing over a sin that Muslims regard as so offensive to Allah that its practitioners must be thrown to their deaths. So the Supreme Court just gave the Muslim world another reason to attack us, and a terrorist attack appears imminent. So, if Muslims attack us, and they refer in any way to our celebration of homosexuality as part of the reason, then according to Liberals, culpability must be laid for that attack at the feet of the United States Supreme Court.

He'll be jumping for joy the second a bomb goes off, and the ambulance-sirens start to be heard in the distance.  'See, I told ya! It's the fault of all those perverted corrupt homosexual Liberals destroyin' America!'

A Little More on that Decision about Same-Sex Marriage

First, Digby has a good point about where this places the US, relative to the rest of the world.  Isn't that often the US leads the rest of the world on a progressive issue.

As for how we got here, I was just reading (okay, skimming -- those justices carry on and on and on) some of Robert's dissent, and I do tend to agree with him that this is a change that should have been legislated, and do tend to think that this will rankle with social conservatives much more and for longer than if this change had come about democratically.

When decisions are reached through democratic means,some people will inevitably be disappointed with the results. But those whose views do not prevail at least know that they have had their say, and accordingly are—in the tradition of our political culture—reconciled to the result of a fair and honest debate.

...

By deciding this question under the Constitution, the Court removes it from the realm of democratic decision. There will be consequences to shutting down the political process on an issue of such profound public significance. Closing debate tends to close minds. People denied a voice are less likely to accept the ruling of a court on an issue that does not seem to be the sort of thing courts usually decide.

But I get the impression that he thinks, as other social conservatives always argue, that this should have been an issue for the states.  That this should have continued to be argued state by state, with that map above slowly filling in one state at a time.

And there I'd have to fundamentally disagree.  It's far too important for that.  It's a question, wherever you may fall on the issue, of human rights, and inevitably any progress would have been much slower, and much harder fought in...ahem, certain states than others.  And that map would have probably remained holed a good while longer, with all kinds of complications for those whose marriages would be allowed and recognised in some states and not others.

It really should have been decided legislatively, on the federal level, but maybe there was no chance of that happening with all the Tea Party-types in Congress.  We'll likely never know now.

Roe v. Wade and the ongoing fight over abortion may provide some insight into what the fallout will look like, and how conservatives may fight this in the years to come.  With that issue, despite what was taken as a decisive victory for abortion-rights, the conservatives have steadily chipped away over the years, such that it is now exceedingly expensive, impractical, time-consuming, and traumatic for women to obtain access to abortion-services in many states.

Then again, same-sex marriage isn't so emotive as abortion, and the divide is much more generational on this particular issue, with those opposed dwindling year by year.  So perhaps they'll accept it eventually...after an electoral cycle or two.

Really ?

AP Photo

I'm not a fan of the use of the rainbow as a political symbol, as may be inferred from this previous post.

As for the question of 'gay marriage' itself, my official stance would be a libertarian one; that government should get out of the business of defining what is or isn't marriage, provide civil unions (with the same benefits & protections) for all, and let individuals and religious groups define marriage as they see fit.  But generally, I'm glad that same-sex couples should find greater equality, greater acceptance, and (hopefully) greater happiness.  And if they find that in us extending the definition of marriage, more power to 'em.  History in the West is and has been clearly on the side of same-sex marriage, whatever I may think (and really, it's primarily if not solely the government redefining words that troubles me), and whatever the right-wing christianist bigots in the Republican party think.

Still, I do think this was ill-advised.  The Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage was already likely to be the rallying-point for the Republican Party's base in the next Presidential elections that so-called 'Obamacare' (and I still hear every time the intended slur in that name, how ever much the Dem's may have tried to co-opt it) was in the last.  And the Obama administration just handed the GOP a needless present by turning the executive mansion into a political symbol.  And why ?  To provide a feel-good moment, to briefly excite the Democratic Party's more progressive supporters ?  A tweet wasn't enough ?

Maybe it was in part an attempt at trolling the GOP, given all the rhetoric of the last seven years about Obama being some sort of foreign interloper in 'our house' and 'taking our house back'.  If so, consider the effort successful.  I hope, sincerely, that it was worth it. *


* Call it concern-trolling if you will.  Whatever I may think of Hillary, the last thing the US needs is continued or expanded dominance of Congress by the GOP, and/or another Republican in the White House, at a crucial time especially for appointments to the Supreme Court.  And you may have just given the Republican base their moment.

Emily, '16, Yeah!

Feel like I've neglected the US stuff lately, but frankly, short of the daily stories of white cop shoots black or brown guy for looking at him the wrong way, or decades-long neglect of infrastructure and/or complete disregard for the environment & human safety leads to completely needless disaster, most of the political stories in the US consist of trying to make a remotely reasonable spin on the latest bullshit to fall out of a Republican candidate's mouth.

So hey, here's this, only a few days old, and only slightly indicative of how fucked up the Supreme Court's decision on campaign-finance was that turned a run for president into a financial and promotional no-brainer for any semi-conscious Republican wanting easy easy money and free publicity.

Emily Farris Is Not Running for President

Pollsters included the name of a random woman in a survey—and 20 percent of Republican primary voters said they dislike her.

Pity Emily Farris. Republican primary voters just don’t like her very much.

In a survey released on Wednesday, Public Policy Polling found that Farris near the bottom of the GOP field. She polled well behind fellow Texans Rick Perry and Ted Cruz. Just 3 percent of voters had formed a favorable opinion of her, while 20 percent reported unfavorable views. Only embattled New Jersey Governor Chris Christie faced a wider gap.

And Farris isn’t even running. She’s a political science professor at Texas Christian University, whose name was included within the enormous field of Republican hopefuls as a statistical control. “It’s a little surreal to think that 20 percent of Republican primary voters have a negative opinion of you, when they most likely don’t know you,” she told me.

Farris’s unlikely journey from scholar to subject of political polling began with a PPP poll of Iowa voters, in April, that included Michigan Governor Rick Snyder. Paul Egan, a reporter for the Detroit Free Press, called up PPP director Tom Jensen to make sense of the results. Snyder, Jensen told him, was effectively unknown. “If I had polled you for favorability with Iowa Republicans, you would come out with the same number he did,” Jensen said.

He put that proposition to the test in PPP’s next poll, of Arizona Republicans. It turned out that Jensen had been mistaken. Snyder was viewed favorably by 5 percent of respondents; Egan, the reporter, actually outpolled him with 6 percent support.

Farris, who teaches an upper-level class on polling, was puzzled by the inclusion of an unfamiliar name. PPP explained its logic. “Well, next time throw my name in the poll as someone with no national profile,” she tweeted to PPP. “It'll amuse my Survey Research students.” And then, on Thursday, she spotted reporters trying to figure out why a quarter of Republican voters had opinions about “Emily Farris,” when they’d never heard of her.

Yep, there are so many B-list and C-list candidates on the clown-car-train for the Republican nomination in 2016 that voters don't even know who the hell they are any more, but will express an opinion anyway, even for a completely random made-up candidate.  I'll joke: Sure gives ya faith in democracy, huh ?...  But seriously, I do wonder whether the results would be the same if repeated with Democratic voters.*

Thanks Chief Justice** Roberts !


*No, really, I am completely serious as in whether this has anything to do with the ability or lack thereof to admit ignorance or failure, that seems to characterise certain types of political leadership, and how that might be reflected in the electorate.  Isn't funny, because it isn't meant to be.  And I'm genuinely interested.

**Thanks Harriet Miers !