You know, I understand (even if I don’t respect) the need to run against my city as a symbol of Things Gone Wrong, but it gets old. Especially when someone like McCain – who is more a Washingtonian than he’ll ever be an Arizonian – says ridiculous shit like this:
“It’s harder and harder trying to do the Lord’s work in the city of Satan,” McCain said of Washington.
What a hypocritical asshole.
So much for miracles, eh?
Florida Governor Charlie Crist (R) says he’s open to holding another Democratic primary in his state. As you recall, the Democratic National Committee has (thus far) held to the position that no Florida delegates would be seated at the nominating convention, and thus Florida would have no say in the nomination. This was all done as punishment for Florida breaking the party rules by holding its primary so early in the year.
The Democratic candidates did not (technically) campaign in Florida, but Hillary Clinton won the vast majority of the (unseatable delegates). Hillary Clinton, in one of her less impressive moves, has been arguing that those delegates should be seated, couching a rather self-serving argument in terms of fairness to voters. So far, the DNC (and the public, I hope) hasn’t been buying that argument. Everyone knew (and agreed to) the rules before, and the consequences were clear. Now, I suspect that Crist is trying to throw Clinton something of a lifeline here, a means of legitimizing Florida delegates. I’m not so sure it would work in her favor, though, as I bet her majority (if any) would be much less than it was the last time around. Her camp’s reaction to this offer (which the DNC has previously indicated it sees as a possible solution) will say something about what she’s more interested in – the will of the voters, or delegates for her.
Update: Crist now denies being open to a new primary – he simply wants the delegates seated, which is certainly to Clinton’s benefit.
Once again, Virginia’s House of Delegates is doing its damnedest to treat women as stupid chattel. From a NARAL action alert email rec’d today, pointing out that the following bills are up for a vote tomorrow (Thursday):
HB894: Burdensome Regulations for Abortion Providers- Requires abortion providers to meet onerous and unnecessary architectural and other standards in an effort to regulate them out of business.
HB1126: Criminalization of Pregnant Women – Allows the state to prosecute pregnant women for causing harm to a fetus with the intent of causing a miscarriage or abortion. [MB: This is a perennial VA GOP favorite.]
HB1315: Mandatory Ultrasound Requirement – Requires a woman seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound even if it is not medically necessary.
If you live in Virginia, please call your rep. ASAP or use this link to email him or her. If you don’t, well, make sure idiocy like this doesn’t creep up in your backyard.
The ridiculous Arlington tax decal that I noted a couple of weeks ago has started garnering some attention. I thought I’d reprint a comment by reader Kathy, left here last week. It got buried pretty quickly, so I wanted to give it the attention it deserved and reprint (with slight editing):
I just found out about this from the Sun Gazette, which carried a letter to the editor objecting to the sticker. This was the first I heard of the quote. I did indeed see the sticker candidates in the paper when the contest was announced, and indeed, I didn’t notice the quote if it was even legible in the printed newspaper at that time. None of the designs grabbed me and I didn’t bother to vote. Believe me, had I realized the content of this sticker design I would have been on the horn to the county right there and then.
Thee is no excuse for something like this even making it into the selected designs to be submitted for vote.
What is Mr. O’Leary thinking, to send out a quote touting obedience and “manliness†from a Confederate culture hero to Arlington’s many black citizens, let alone the entire half of the population, all races, that is female? I do not blame the student who designed the sticker; mature judgment is not necessarily to be expected from young people, but from our elected officials it is.
I would also point out that obedience is not particularly an American value. In fact, elevating obedience to high in the canon of virtues is distinctly un-American.
Had George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Mason and other heroes of the American revolution taken the above view on obedience, Arlington would still be part of an obedient colony to Great Britian, I daresay.
Had heroes like Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Roas Parks and the ev. Dr. Martin Luther King viewed obedience as a supreme value, black and female citizens would still be non-citizens in effect.
And I would mention, as did the author of the letter to the editor in the Sun Gazette, that Robert E. Lee himself broke his oath to obey duly constituted authority when he chose to go with the rebel cause.
Finally, while I have sympathy and compassion for the man and for many others who fought on that side, for my government to endorse Robert E. Lee as an authority on character is deeply offensive to someone whose ancestors also fought gallantly — to preserve the Union of which we are citizens today.
Offering gracious permission for us to remove these words is no compensation for our having parently paid our public servants out of our tax dollars to choose, print and distribute this offensive rubbish to every automobile owner in the county, bearing the county imprimatur. I am sure Mr. O’Leary is thinking of money, no doubt already spent. This is no time to throw good money after bad. There are times when officials make mistakes and need to admit it and need to do whatever is necessary to set the matter right. This is one of those times.
Mr. O’Leary’s office is an elected one, by the way. He has held it for so many years, usually running unopposed, that it may seem secure, but that could change.
It’s my understanding that O’Leary has already announced that this is last term, and I have to admit to wondering – when I first heard of this – if this was O’Leary’s way of thumbing his nose at Arlington on his way out. No matter what petty politics may or may not have played a role, I think Kathy persuasively states a much larger case against the decal.
That was brilliant.
It also touches on what I told friends about Huckabee last year – “He comes across *really* well, and you find yourself predisposed to whatever he’s saying. And then you realize what he’s saying.”
Ah well. Huckabee is, obviously, a complete religious nut. That said, I’d like more religious nuts like him, who realize that there’s more to that role than hating other people.
Update: Credit to Tina Fey for “Bitches get stuff done.”
John McCain, in order to secure a bank loan, promised the bank that – even if he was failing in the primaries – he’s stay in it long enough to collect enough public financing to pay the private loan back. Mark Schmitt explains it. (Via TPM)
Strikes me kind of like that welfare fraud the GOP used to go on about . . .
That was not a foul, woman! – A private high school in Kansas, center of American enlightenment, refuses to let a woman referee a high school boys’ basketball game, because – as described by the referees – the “[woman] could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy’s beliefs[.]” You know, I try not to mock people for their religious beliefs, but . . .
What could possibly go wrong? – Was I the only person that thought that, when hearing about the US plans to shoot down the satellite it says is falling out of orbit? When I first heard that the US was talking about the decaying orbit last month, it struck me as a bit odd – this isn’t really an Administration known for its open and straightforward approach. Well, surprise of surprises, it turns out that the claimed justification for shooting it down – dangerous gas clouds forming from the remaining satellite fuel – is most likely bullshit. Shocker. I’m giving it, at best, even money that they hit the damn thing on their first try.
Don’t like it? Tough. That, essentially, is how Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) office has responded to a request for an explanation of his vote for telecom immunity and the subsequent Senate FISA bill. Get the details (along with a tidy explanation of this history of FISA) in Mark Levine’s diary at Raising Kaine. I was particularly impressed with Webb staffer Jessica Smith’s attempt to get the proprietors of Raising Kaine to delete/edit what Mark wrote. Fortunately, the RK folks did the right thing and ignored her request, but it should put the rest of us on notice that this is something thought to be acceptable.
Well, okay. But just not when you’re hitting the ball. In response to this earlier article on the BOA’s attempt at muzzling its athletes, a Blacknell.net reader and friend sent in this Guardian story outlining BOA’s walking back of the restrictions. Apparently, athletes can say what they like, but just not when they’re in Beijing. I suspect that by the time we get to Beijing, the restrictions will be gutted (as they should be).
It looks like the Privileges and Elections Committee of the Virginia House of Delegates is about to kill very popular bills concerning bipartisan redistricting, no-excuse in-person absentee voting, recounts, registration receipts and election machine audits. They’ve scheduled a 7am session tomorrow, in which five members of the committee can kill each of these bills in an unrecorded voice vote. See Vivian Paige’s writeup for details and suggestions for action.
Crossposted to RK.
Well, McCain’s certainly making it easier for people like me to disabuse anyone of the notion that the man has any principles (nevermind admirable principles). McCain, who has publicly and repeatedly claimed to oppose waterboarding as torture – yesterday voted against the bill banning waterboarding. Musn’t be on the wrong side of George Bush, it seems, even when that makes you pro-torture. Straight-talkin’ maverick, indeed. This man will continue to debase himself on any issue, in the (almost certainly fruitless) pursuit of the White House.
Update: TPM has a further look at the various contortions used to try and explain this vote.
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