There’s one key point that John missed…BOTH SIDES DO IT:
“It is unfortunate that while the Romney campaign made it clear that Grenell being an openly gay man was a non-issue for the governor and his team, the hyper-partisan discussion of issues unrelated to Ric’s national security qualifications threatened to compromise his effectiveness on the campaign trail,” Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper said in a statement. “Ric was essentially hounded by the far right and far left.”
Of course no one believes the “far left” had anything to do with this, except maybe Charles Lane and David Gergen, and when you’ve lost them, you’ve lost almost no one else.
This is at least a medium-sized fuck up by Team Mitt. It makes him look like a pansy ass who can’t stand up to the Lord’s Resistance Army.
They should have either known the God Squad was going to kick teh gay to teh curb or had a strategy to deal with teh kicking. They sure as shit can’t have it both ways, take a brave principled stand against discrimination, while allowing the gay to be prayed away.
David Koch
BWAHAHAHAHHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHH
blaming the “far left” for right wing homophobia
HAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAH
keep fuckin dat chicken, Log Cabin
JPL
Some of us are listening to the Pres talk about finishing the work at hand.
Steve
Not really a classic example of the genre, since it’s a partisan GOP group trying to make it look like both sides were equally responsible. Now if the media said the same thing…
RalfW
Somewhat OT, but on the theme of Republicans and medium size fuck-ups, here on the defrosting tundra they’re fumbling the football on the 5 yard line for the MN Vikings.
I’ve been totally stunned by how incompetent and foolish the MN GOP have been this biennium. They can’t find their ass with both hands. Though they can pass ALEC bills, anti-abortion bills, anti-gay bills, and anti-voter bills.
But pass a bonding bill? A tax bill? A stadium bill that a lot of people hate but had seen, for years, as inevitable? Nope.
General Stuck
Obama just gave his prime time address to the country from Afghanistan and dint salute the Bush administration, or even mention them. No pansy ass on board Airforce One. Now we get to hear Romney and the wingnuts whine themselves to sleep tonight. All over again
jrg
Yes, it’s the far left. Meanwhile, the GOP bigot brigade is pushing an anti-gay amendment here in NC.
20 years from now, it will be thuh libruls that pushed all this crap. They will take no responsibility for it at all.
arguingwithsignposts
But I hope they will go down to electoral defeat trying.
David Koch
Swing state ad hammers Mitten’s and his Swiss Bank account
http://youtu.be/R5e0QoUdPJM
MobiusKlein
So the right hounded him for teh ghey,
the left hounded him because he was a misogynistic asswhole warmonger,
and that’s just the same?
well, then…
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
Listened to the speech in the car, hope to watch it on the teevee when i get home. Was he standing alone, or with Karzai, or troops? I didn’t hear any audience sounds. Had to leave NPR’s coverage so am deprived of Mara Liasson’s insights on the political meaning of the speech.
JCT
Well if the shoe fits… jeez, like shooting fish in a 5-gallon barrel .
@General Stuck: Yup, I’m thinking maybe we need to send all of these guys some jumbo blankies to comfort them as they drown in their wing nut tears as Obama bitch-slaps them repeatedly.
Lev
Sometimes, the Etch-a-Sketch has been rewritten on a few too many time to just shake and start anew.
gbear
Count me in as one gay man who can’t get enough of using the term ‘pansy assed’ to describe the Mitt campaign and christian conservatives in general. I know Dan Savage appologized for it, but I’d still like to see it go as viral as ‘Santorum’.
Fucking pansy ass Romney campaign.
Edit: anyone have a link to Obama’s speech?
AA+ Bonds
LOL, like cops/private security let “the far left” into the buildings that Grenell spends his entire life hiding inside
(The truth is that if you are at all left-wing in this country and attach your name to scary business like critiques of capital, the consequences generally range from police entrapment to economic ruin through blacklisting unless you can produce an Ivy League degree as a form of loyalty oath)
Anya
What’s this Log Cabin Republicans you speak of? A place for gay men who love money more than they love themselves?
Peregrinus
@Lev:
Some of the magnets are apparently failing. Ironically, this is painting a much clearer picture of the campaign’s future than you ever get with an Etch-a-Sketch in that condition.
Roger Moore
@MobiusKlein:
In case you haven’t noticed, there are a fair number on the left who will accuse any gay Republican of being a sell-out, even if they’re such a neocon asshole warmonger the left would never take them.
MaximusNYC
Listening to Obama’s speech now. I notice he makes a point of mentioning OBL’s escape at Tora Bora.
Heliopause
I commented on this earlier today: Politico had a masterpiece of the genre. It implies, among other things, that the Blue Dogs who lost in 2010 were run out of Congress by the “far left”.
jl
@General Stuck:
” Obama just gave his prime time address to the country from Afghanistan and dint salute the Bush administration ”
And what would he have said if did mention the Bush administration? Something nice (would be insincere and unbelievable), or say it was was a near thing, salvaging something from the f up those goof balls made of it (rude)?
Sometimes, if you can’t say anything nice, and can’t think up anything that is believable and nice, best to say nothing at all.
The more poutrage the President draws out of the GOP and our failed corporate media experiment, the better I feel about the election in November.
Anya
@David Koch: I saw the ad and I thought “meh”
@jrg: Sure, but Obama didn’t repeal DADT the first month in office. Also, too, he’s obstructing the repeal of DOMA. I think I heard it from some log cabin guy or GOPride. I can’t keep the GOP gay orgs apart.
Roger Moore
@Peregrinus:
BGinCHI
It’s a High Broderism reach-around with a half twist.
AA+ Bonds
@Roger Moore:
Let’s just stick with “self-mutilator” and give them the benefit of the doubt
Litlebritdifrnt
@SiubhanDuinne:
No audience, he was alone at a podium in front of a backdrop of camo military jeeps.
Bobby Thomson
@RalfW:
You act as though that wasn’t their intention all along. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Villago Delenda Est
The left doesn’t like Grenell because he’s a fascist sack of shit.
The right doesn’t like Grenell because he’s gay.
I don’t see an equivalency here.
But then again, I’m not a wingtard.
General Stuck
Ha ha ha, Swiftboat 2.0 emerges
notice anything different about images of Obama in this video?
Roger Moore
@RalfW:
Is this supposed to be a bad thing? Hey, at least you’re getting some good out of having an intransigent, incompetent, tax-averse Republican legislature.
Baud
I would have no problem taking credit for this scumbag’s departure if I were in any way responsible for it.
The Moar You Know
@Anya: Apparently it’s a big fucken cabin
jl
@Peregrinus: IIRC, from the vasty depths of kiddy time memory, after awhile the filings don’t stick the window anymore, and you can see the little gears and levers moving the stylus around.
You just twirl the knobs and you see the guts of the toy trying to draw something, but nothing happens.
So, yeah, if the Romney campaign keeps on in same direction, looks like that is what is up.
They are giving their buds in the press nothing but cheesy low class snotty Romney gaffes (a product much inferior to the BidenGaffe). So the press has to run with stupid garbage, like a trip to sign a treaty IN A TIME OF WAR WHEN WE SHOULD BE SUPPORTING THE CIC OF THE US (oh, excuse me, that was before 2009, I got confused) is a campaign stunt.
Edit: I know the President is not the CIC of the US, I was just reporting the press attitude before the wrong kind of people got into the WH, AGAIN! First that trailer trash, and now this!
AA+ Bonds
I personally met Grenell on the field of gay battle and bested him in honor and by the gay code he had to quit the Republicans and that is why he quit
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@General Stuck: I picture Arianna with a bottle of wine and her feet up on her desk, watching herself in that over and over again for hours.
Mr Stagger Lee
@RalfW: Hmmmm the Los Angeles Vikings goes along nicely with the Los Angeles Lakers(To those who don’t know the Lakers were originally from Minneapolis). Well at least you won’t worry about the Twins moving to the Valley.
General Stuck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
What a shape shifting clown, that woman.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: My personal opinion is that the speech was taped and he’s on his way home. The background just looked odd. Maybe he was speaking on the plane with a green screen but because of security, it would not surprise me if he taped it.
also, too..when has the Pres. ever been on time…really.. I might trust him on foreign policy but he has never given a speech on time.
The Moar You Know
Funny how no one mentions that this tool was a founding member of the “He-Man Woman Haters Club”.
Litlebritdifrnt
@jrg:
But tonight there was a discussion on my local RWNJ radio station that was actually nuanced and balanced. The guest was a Duke law professor who basically argued that it was about civil rights, it was not about marriage. The guest argued strenuously against Amendment 1 because it was discriminatory against social contracts, and get this, the host agreed with him! A caller called in and said that his Church does not perform marriages period, if you want to get married you have to go to another church. His suggestion was rather brilliant, if you want to “get married” but you are gay or an atheist or an agnostic, you go to the Magistrates Office and get married, if you are a religious type you go to the Church and get married, both ceremonies carry the same weight of the relationship under the law. I thought it was a brilliant solution, and the RWNJ host AGREED!
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@AA+ Bonds:
That was funny.
jl
@SiubhanDuinne: Obama gave two speeches, one to the troops, which I just watched on Youtube, and then taped a message to broadcast in US. In speech to the troops, Obama said he was taping the address right afterwards.
Comment below yours says the taped speech looks funny, like it was greenscreened. Seems to me that film of a person standing in flood lights with stuff in deep background, at night does that.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
just watch the right try to have it both ways.
Suffern ACE
@The Moar You Know: That is so not fair to He-man. Although he had a special relationship with Man at Arms, he was always concerned with advancing the career of Teela.
Peregrinus
@Roger Moore:
@jl:
Clearly I don’t remember enough of my childhood. Or else I didn’t have an Etch-a-Sketch long enough for that. Or else I didn’t have an Etch-a-Sketch at all . . . which brings us right back to square one.
Litlebritdifrnt
@General Stuck:
The Sheriff is near
General Stuck
@Litlebritdifrnt:
You got it :)
Anya
@General Stuck: I am not clear, do they think the Navy Seals ordered themselves to kill or capture Bin Laden? Are they disputing that the POTUS gave the order? Also, too, do you think other than the news junkies, does anyone else know who Arianna Huffington is? I would think the average voter (I am assuming the target audience) would look at that ad and think that HuffPuff might be some foreigner.
Baud
@General Stuck: I hope they continue talking about Obama and bin Laden in the same breadth. I want people to reflexively connect the two.
PeakVT
@RalfW: Football stadiums are bad deals for taxpayers since they are used on so few days. OTOH, urban basketball/hockey/etc. arenas and urban baseball stadiums are usually a net positive for a city.
Hill Dweller
@jl: FWIW, one of the print reports said Obama spent 45 minutes shaking hands/signing autographs/taking pictures after his speech to the troops.
I suppose it could have been taped, but it would have been a tight fit time wise.
Raven
@Litlebritdifrnt: Those were not fucking jeeps!
Mnemosyne
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Here’s the thing, though: that brilliant “new” system is the exact one we have now. No foolin’.
Right now, everyone goes down to the courthouse to get a marriage license from the state. From there, the couple decides what (if any) ceremony they want to have, or if they just want to get in front of a judge and have him/her sign the paperwork.
That’s what’s driving me nuts about the whole frickin’ debate. People keep trying to come up with these new and novel ways of describing exactly what hetero people are doing right now.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Raven:
Oops, they were camo military vehicles of some description, is that better?
Raven
@Litlebritdifrnt: Mastiff’s
JR
I disagree: to me, this reads like R-money signaled to the farthest fringe that he would be a good little soldier in their kulturkampf, and all it cost him was an adviser whose policy ideas were as predictable as a pendulum’s swing and a little integrity. To soothe the fears of the Fischers, that’s a bargain.
JPL
@Raven: You will admit that the Pres..was on time though. I mentioned to a friend that he was on the way home when he gave the speech and her hubby mentioned that omg..the speech was on time. First time ever of course unless it was taped. Guess it means the meaning of live.
Jay B.
Both sides DO do it.
The Romney campaign punts because their neocon is gay and the right hates gays.
The Administration fires people (or has them “resign“) because the right hates them.
JPL
Tomorrows headlines..Obama lied about the live speech what will the children think? .. Children only think btw under a democratic president.
also,too ..Romney would have given the same speech..
WereBear
The scenes of the troops shaking hugs, hugging, and crowding around the President were amazing to watch. I can’t recall every seeing such genuine regard and excitement between the troops and their President with any other Administration.
And I don’t recall George W. “Fake Turkey” Bush allowing any of the troops this close, ever. Unless of course they were jogging with him on their prosthetic legs.
Compare and contrast, indeed.
General Stuck
@Anya:
Obama has wrested away from the GOP, maybe their signature issue, other than tax cuts. That being the party of national security that they have owned since Vietnam. All the polls give Obama the clear advantage over the wingers on protecting the country. They can’t abide that with any semblance of grace, even if they wanted to. And it is doubly bad for them because both their current GOP hopeful POTUS and GWB, publically dissed the importance and even need to get OBL. So they lash out with trying to conflate a CiC role as opposed to the military role in something like the op that killed OBL, hoping desperately to change the new equation of them as second fiddle to Obama and dems in general on such issues.
Goes directly against 40 years of demonizing democrats as sissies and weak on defending the country. I don’t think it will work, and is just another example, like the birth control nonsense, of a party out of control and spazzing out from one day to the next. While Obama goes coolly on being a competent POTUS toward maybe being a great one when it is all said and done.
As for Arianna, I have no idea how popular she is, but she managed to get herself a starring role in the updated Swiftboating ad on Obama. After being on our side for so long, from being on the other side before that. That’s some decent creds and accomplishment, if you’re a shithouse rat.
Roger Moore
@PeakVT:
The devil is in the details. A big sports venue is a major attraction that will bring people into its neighborhood. The trick is keeping them in that neighborhood well enough that they spend money on something other than the event they’re going to. That works great if you can easily walk between the venue and nearby restaurants and shopping, but not so well if the venue is cut off from its neighborhood by a pedestrian-unfriendly sea of parking lots and access roads. Here in LA, the difference between Dodger Stadium and Staples Center is pretty stark.
ETA: And there’s still some question about the value of a sports venue on a regional basis. Even one that’s the core of an entertainment district is probably only diverting entertainment dollars from one place to another, not creating new economic activity.
jl
Here it is. People can judge for themselves.
President Obama Speaks on Ending the War in Afghanistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l4TsjAKp18
Looks like was filmed outdoors at night or in one of those huge aircraft hangars. Not venues where a video produces a ‘natural’ look.
Some commmenters will regret what they typed when the wingnut Obama Bagram greenscreen coverup BS cranks up.
But, it’s better than the teleprompter thing.
TruthorScare
So we’re supposed to think the Marquis de Mittens would be a strong world leader, when the church ladies and old guys in robes and pointy hats just had their way with him?
We’ll need to send some ointment for his butthurt along with those blankies.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Mnemosyne: The point was that he suggested (and this is a RWNJ caller, I am familiar with him) that the State adopt a policy of allowing gay couples to go to the ROD and get a marriage license in order to be married by a magistrate. He said that the only restriction would be they could not be married in a Church that was opposed to it. I think that is a huge step forward. Even the RWNJs agree with us that gays (and atheists) should be allowed to “marry” under State law.
Jewish Steel
Way to stick up for your own team, Willard. Chickenshit motherfucker.
West of the Cascades
@Anya: George Bush ordered the Seals to get Bin Laden, or perhaps Mitt Romney did. Or it was the general to whom the POTUS relinquished operational command while he went golfing. It’s hard to keep track of what the explanation of the day is from the wingnuts.
mainmati
@SiubhanDuinne: He was sanding alone in a Baghram AF hangar with a camouflaged humvee behind him.
mainmati
@SiubhanDuinne: He was standing alone in a Baghram AF hangar with a camouflaged humvee behind him.
jl
@WereBear: I looked for a video of him meeting the troops, but did not find one. You have a link?
thanks
Litlebritdifrnt
@Raven:
Gotcha
jl
@Raven:
” @Litlebritdifrnt: Mastiff’s ”
I was going to describe them as ‘big jeeps’, but I guess that is not close enough, huh?
Suffern ACE
@Litlebritdifrnt: jeepers. You mean we had to do was convince them that it was their idea?
WereBear
@jl: Nope, sorry, watched it on TV. Will appear soon, I’m sure.
Raven
Pat Lang is having a fit that Obama used “handpicked troops” that will appeal to his voters and that this was as bad as Mission Accomplished.
Baud
@Raven: Who is Pat Lang?
Peregrinus
@Raven:
. . . Wait, seriously? I was JOKING when I told Peregrina that that would happen.
Roger Moore
@Litlebritdifrnt:
That would be a big step forward, in that it’s exactly the way things already are. Churches are free to make up their own rules about who they are and aren’t willing to marry; the Catholic Church’s rule on not marrying divorcees is a good example. If we can convince wingnuts to accept marriage equality by saying explicitly that churches don’t have to participate if they don’t want to, I’m all for it.
danielx
Nay, not so. If there is anything in this uncertain world of which I am tolerably certain, it’s that David Brooks can and will perform some feat of mental gymnastics that will turn this into a plot by the extreme left. And he’ll do it without breaking a sweat.
Hill Dweller
@Baud:
Clubber’s brother?
The Moar You Know
@General Stuck: She was never on “our side”, although she knows my name. She has a standing dinner invite at my neighbor’s house once a month.
She usually brings her good buddy, Pete Wilson.
She was never a liberal, she’s always been in it for the money, and she obviously thinks the money’s headed back to the GOP.
Baud
@Hill Dweller: I looked it up on Wikipedia. Essentially, he’s nobody.
Suffern ACE
@The Moar You Know: Remember, she became a liberal so she could protest Al Gore’s candidacy. Seing right from right winger to Naderite. She stopped at Go to collect her $200.
Raven
@Baud: Sic Semper Tyrannis, it’s a link over on the right. Ex SF and middle east expert, and a grumpy motherfucking officer.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Roger Moore: Strangely enough that is also the case for the Church of England, despite the fact that the Church was founded on the very notion that Henry VIII wanted to divorce his first wife. I think the very sensible notion is to have a nationwide law that says anyone can engage in a “civil union” which holds all of the legal rights of marriage (hospital visitation, inheritance issues etc), ONLY those services held in a church are considered marriages. How can atheists get married if not for a “civil union?”
Mnemosyne
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Which, again, is exactly the system we have now for hetero couples. Even straight couples aren’t allowed to force a church to perform their ceremony.
I guess I just find it hilarious that the RWNJs have shuffled and snuffled around so they could get to … adding gay couples to the exact system we have right now. I guess we had to let them figure it out for themselves, but jeez!
Ben Cisco
Ornstein just told Spitzer that his recent article with Thomas Mann is causing “serious” conversations in newsrooms (according to feedback he is getting).
Does one dare to dream that others may finally being on board with telling the truth instead of practicing stenography?
Baud
@Ben Cisco:
Nah. If they do that, great, but we can’t rely on them.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
That’s funny, I’ve never thought of Obama as being either on time or not on time. Clinton, yeah, he was always running on Clinton Time, i.e. 15-25 minutes late. But Obama strikes me as being about as punctual as any president in my memory. I’ll have to start noticing :-)
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: No. There needs to be a separate registry for these. It costs too much to make out the forms. A new public records system is needed as those certificates need to be quarantined on their own shelves, in their own cabinets and stored on special flash drives, not in the servers where they might infect the actual people’s certificates.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah we have to let them come round to our thinking, eventually they will get there, we just have to wait for them.
JPL
@Raven: I like Pat but when I saw the troops behind Obama, I thought that was a pretty accurate picture of troops today. Interesting..
danielx
@Baud:
Retired military guy who is actually fairly sane, not a Ralph Peters-style (all war all the time) wingnut. Although why he thinks this is worse than “Mission Accomplished” is beyond me, since this particular mission actually was accomplished, unlike some I could mention.
Blogs at…
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/
MikeJ
@Litlebritdifrnt:
If you go over to all civil unions you don’t say “only weddings in a church are marriage”. You say the state doesn’t recognize the concept of marriage, it recognizes people who have had a civil union. If you want a guy in a dress to say you’re “married” fine. If you want the bartender to say you’re married it will have the same legal weight, none.
Martin
There’s a bigger problem here for Romney.
Bush could have gotten away with a gay spokesperson, but the right doesn’t trust Romney nor his allegiance to their religion. That’s the real issue here. Romney is as moderate as they’ll tolerate and any efforts to tack to the left, no matter how superficial is going to get shouted down.
We’re going to see a lot of John Bolton. Mittens is fucked.
Suffern ACE
@JPL: so if the president isn’t going to appear to be pandering, are there certain people he isn’t supposed to appear with to make things seem more real?
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Wow. Them Log Cabin fellers sure do have a wide definition of what “hounding” is. I guess to them, wondering, “Why the hell would a gay guy be willing to work for a bunch of homophobic pharisees?” is pretty bad “hounding”.
Mnemosyne
@Litlebritdifrnt:
All marriages in the US are civil unions. Every single one. You can choose to have a religious person perform a ceremony for you and sign your paperwork, but that person has to be approved by the state you live in and not every church qualifies. There are cases where people discover that they’re not legally married because the minister they chose to do the ceremony did not have clearance from the state to sign the paperwork.
England is different because you guys have a state church and for several centuries only the Church of England was allowed to legally marry people. We never had that system in the US because we don’t have a state church, so instead all marriages are civil unions with optional church rites.
rikyrah
from the likes of Halperin:
(DiCK) Halperin’s Take
There are are lot of substantive questions begged by the President’s speech and the agreement, especially the extent to which Karzai will be a reliable partner. But the politics of what was announced is wicked smart, and almost certainly gets Obama through November without Afghanistan being a political liability for him. The Left gets to believe that the President is committed to ending the war (Look! He went half way around the world to say it.). And critics from the Right, like John McCain, don’t have much to grasp onto, given the new scheme’s long time horizon. Mitt Romney might try to make up some basis for criticizing the plan as too vague or weak, but with Karzai’s signature, the apparent support of the US military, and a something-for-everyone agreement, Obama has had a very good Tuesday. Happy anniversary, Mr. President. The President is taking a page right out of Karl Rove’s playbook. By saying the war is winding down while the continued troop presence protects his right flank, Obama can effectively carry the Afghanistan debate through November. It doesn’t help that Romney has no military service and no obvious position of strength from which to attack the incumbent. And now with Karzai’s signature, Obama has effectively checkmated the issue.
http://thepage.time.com/2012/05/01/obama-we-can-see-the-light-in-afghanistan/#ixzz1tfScSovC
slag
@jl: Damn that’s a ridiculous background. Someone should be fired. That said, the speech isn’t awful.
AA+ Bonds
@Roger Moore:
Big sports venues are always taxpayer-funded boondoggles that fuck over everyone and everything that doesn’t get paid out directly from the swindle
Jay C
@General Stuck:
What you said. Double.
So far the Republicans’ main talking-point regarding foreign policy has been a robotic repetition of the trite ” Obama is a failure” line — recited ad nauseam –without, one notices, ever actually specifying exactly what those “failures” might be, or what (outside of old Bush-era belligerent BS blustered out to the usual audiences) what a Romney Admin might do differently. Credibly different, that is.
Hopefully, the voting public will be able to note the difference – but I wouldn’t hold my breath….
Raven
@JPL: I wrote that to him but he hasn’t posted it yet. I piss him off.
Mnemosyne
@Suffern ACE:
You think you’re kidding, but I remember some whiny idiots here in California brought a lawsuit because (back when gay marriage was briefly legal) the forms were changed to say “Spouse 1” and “Spouse 2” but they wanted it to say “Bride” and “Groom,” damn it!
People, if you have to get emotional validation from the government form you fill out before your wedding, you have deeper problems than trying to decide if you’re “Spouse 1” or “Spouse 2.”
@MikeJ:
All marriages in the US are currently civil unions. Seriously. There is absolutely no requirement than anyone’s marriage ceremony be performed by a religious person. I know many people who were married by judges and other non-religous personnel.
I used to be all “oh, gay people can have civil unions and straight people can keep marriage for themselves,” but then I actually got married and realized that I was an idiot because I thought there was some kind of distinction between “civil marriage” and “religious marriage” when there’s not. It’s all civil, and always has been.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Rachel’s ripping Grandpa Walnuts a new one( along with the rest of the GOP) for their hypocrisy e’er bin Laden’s death.
Also, RomTron3000 for whining about it, then going on a firehouse tour with Rudy911.
Prophets, these people are stupid.
Citizen_X
@General Stuck: Gosh, he looks kind of…dark.
I love the ending. “I said we would get bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him, and I did/I did/I did/I DID.” Just to remind everybody, several times, that Obama got bin Laden. Nice own-goal, assholes.
Egg Berry
@rikyrah:
I’ve never seen someone butcher begging the question like that before.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Hill Dweller: Lulz.
MikeJ
@Mnemosyne:
I would never suggest that straight people could keep marriage for themselves. If the state stopped using the term marriage and used the term civil union, as you point out nothing would change. But if marriage wasn’t the legally recognized term straights wouldn’t “have it to themselves.” Anybody could call themselves married. I know lots of divorced people who claim to be married and it doesn’t bother them at all don’t believe it. Catholics haven’t kept marriage away from divorced people because nobody gives a shit what they think.
Mnemosyne
And, yes, marriage is kind of my hobbyhorse, if no one has figured that out yet. In the eyes of the law in the United States, there is NO difference between getting married by a judge and getting married by a priest. None. Zero. Zip. People who tell you that churches will be forced to marry gay couples are lying to you. Call them on it next time.
slag
@Anya:
That ad was made by wingnuts for wingnuts. It’s how they can still sleep at night knowing that it was a Christo-Muslim-Atheist-Fascist-Socialist Kenyan Usurper who got their bogeyman killed.
The Moar You Know
@Raven: Uh, yeah. I read that. I’m honestly grieved. He was doing so well at being sane and he’s succumbed to full on ODS. He knows better – I can assume he’s been on a base recently, right?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Obama is now receiving more campaign contributions from military personnel than Ron Paul is.
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: But the gazebo.
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: But the gazebo.
gaz
Being a log-cabin republican is sooo gay.
Mnemosyne
@MikeJ:
But why even bother to change the name from “marriage” to “civil union”? Seriously. It’s pretending that there’s some kind of distinction between the two in this country when there isn’t one.
Marriage is a civil institution. I’m not willing to change the name of an entire institution just to protect the delicate fee-fees of a few idiots who think that God personally blessed them when they stood in line at the county clerk’s office and got their computer-printed license.
We got copies of our marriage certificate from the state. It’s pretty much indistinguishable from my car’s title. It’s even printed on the same paper.
Mnemosyne
@Suffern ACE:
Yeah, yeah, that poor church, forced to rent their public, non-church gazebo to a gay couple because they were already renting it out to other non-church members. What’s next, being forced to let a mixed-race couple rent it?
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
K-Thug on Rachel ttalking about his new book out: FIX THIS DEPRESSION NOW!
Even his book titles are shrill.
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: Because as a hunch, the laws that govern marital things are inconsistent in how they use the words, so unless the law is change to state that the civil unions are marriages for legal purposes, we end up having to sue to get that wording changed.
jl
@Anya: One wingnut teaperson in my family has been peddling Seal Team 6 fantasies ever since Bin Laden was killed. He trots out a new one every few months. Just a few I remember are
Obama leaked classified info that Seal Team 6 existed, or was in the mission, or something
Helicopter crash with Seal Team 6 members on it was intentional, to stop Seal Team 6 members from revealing that in fact they did NOT kill Bin Laden and…
Helicopter crash with Seal Team 6 on it was to cover up many many suicides in Seal Team 6 because they in fact did NOT kill Bin Laden, and their honor did not… allow them to live
Bush II killed Bin Laden and he is on ice someplace, and Seal Team 6 killed a ‘fake’ Bin Laden
Seal Team 6 disgusted the killing of Bin Laden was made public.
I am not making this up. The wingnuts have been driven insane that another one of the wrong type of person (white trash, liberal, not nutcase, mixed race, Hawiian, Muslin.. whatever), is President again. That Obama has done stuff that was totally beyond the capability (or intention) of the Bush II team blows up their minds into tiny little pieces, which may never be put together again (though, I guess we can hope for miracles)
4tehlulz
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Don’t worry; Steve in DC will show up to tell us that this means a coup is imminent.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah:
Halperin misses, of course, another point. Rmoney not only has no military service, like most Republicans from 1992 on, he’s got a track record of being very enthusiastic about the various wars of his lifetime, but remarkably unwilling to actually put his own precious ass on the line in one.
PeakVT
@Roger Moore: That’s why I put “urban” in what I wrote.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
The gay couple’s money might turn them all gay, you know.
Hey, it could happen!
amk
Nice catch, dougj. mittbot is completely clueless on how to prevent or handle political fallouts.
Mnemosyne
@Suffern ACE:
IIRC, no lawsuits would be needed any more than lawsuits were required to force states to change their anti-miscegenation laws after Loving v. Virginia. Those parts of the law that are gender-specific become inoperative, or the legislature of the state re-writes them to be gender-neutral.
amk
@Villago Delenda Est: Disagree. mittbot had all his 30 something spawns fighting the eyerack war right from good ole amurika since 2001.
Darkrose
@Mnemosyne:
I thought about them when had to dig up my marriage license for something recently. It says “Spouse 1” and “Spouse 2”, and aside from us, our witnesses, the county clerk, and now the company processing the UC insurance verification stuff, no one sees that. If their psyches can’t handle something that small, how are they going to stay married?
Nicole
@Suffern ACE:
Teela was Captain of the Guard on account of being Man At Arms’ daughter. Plain old nepotism at work.
Jesus Christ, I am a fucking nerd.
And I thank you for giving a reason to post this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDHHYTCoLQU
becca
@The Moar You Know Ooh! If you can’t say anything nice about Arianus, come sit next to me!
Dish, please? I cannot imagine Pete Wilson has aged well. So beard , lovah or another prospective fortune?
4tehlulz
HAHA Mitt just committed political suicide:
I didn’t bother with the rest because the entire GOP stopped listening after that.
Cacti
This was Willard’s chance for a Sister Souljah moment with the Christ-ers, and he completely stepped on his dick.
He might as well have shouted with a bullhorn to independents that the God Squad will the call the shots in his prospective presidency.
Suffern ACE
@Darkrose: It’s kind of like the healthcare system that everyone uses, but no one pays attention to.
Peregrinus
@Mnemosyne:
See, I don’t know that it always has been. Marriage is my hobbyhorse as well – I was a liberal Republican a very long time ago and switched parties because of it, but in my defense, I was also like fourteen – but I got the sense that in the United States, marriage had originally been a religious institution and had only become civil later.
I say this because in some countries, with a stronger civil tradition, all marriages are civil unions, and “marriage” or “matrimony” have more religious connotations. I noted this in Spain, in particular, of all countries.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Raven:
For what?
mdblanche
@Cacti:
Where’s the evidence Romney even wants a Sister Souljah moment? Jennifer Rubin’s column on this whole debacle was purely matter-of-fact. Since her style is to just retype whatever press release the Romney campaign sends her way I think it’s fair to assume that they think this helps them, probably with the God Squad who never have warmed up to the Mormon cultist.
Roger Moore
@AA+ Bonds:
No, they aren’t. It’s more common for them to be publicly funded boondoggles, but some sports venues are actually privately funded. Both of the venues I mentioned specifically were privately built and funded.
Mnemosyne
@Peregrinus:
Pre-Revolution, marriage was religious because each of the states had a state religion so, similarly to England, you had to get married in that state’s church for the marriage to be recognized.
Separation of church and state was imperfect in the early days of the country (IIRC some states still had a state religion into the early 1800s), but once all the states came around to being secular, marriage became a civil institution because it was no longer tied to a specific religion or religious practice.
If you want to get really wacky, you can point out that, at least in Europe, originally marriage was strictly a civil institution and a marriage ritual was considered too secular to take place inside a church. Upper-class couples would sign their wedding contracts outside the church and then go inside for a separate mass. Eventually the two parts were merged, but for centuries the civil contract of marriage was kept separate from the religious blessing.
Peregrinus
@Mnemosyne:
Exactly (about the European part) – especially because it could protect you from nasty things like that Church that didn’t like divorces or annulments. About the part over here, marriage became a civil institution but it seems like no one told the civilians at large. I do think there’s something to be said for a kind of popular memory – the idea that “this is how it’s done” in a place.
That said, fuck that noise. I’m pro-marriage. For everyone.
RalfW
@Roger Moore: TO be clear, I do not support the Vikings stadium deal.
I was pointing out that the GOP can’t even successfully grift for rich people around here without stubbing their toes repeatedly and looking like jackasses.
xian
@JR: It means they won’t let him pivot toward the center.
xian
@Citizen_X: Lakoff must be happy.
David Koch
Thankfully Republicans can STILL be counted on to oppose the homosexual lobby.
Triassic Sands
Fixed.
gocart mozart
@jrg:
Robert Byrd was anti-gay. Just saying.
gocart mozart
@JPL:
The speech was live and he was three minutes late.(horrors)
Jason
The phenomenon of the out gay republican reminds me of the guy who’s secretly working for the Daleks in virtually every Dr Who serial. He’s absolutely convinced that he’s in tight with our new robot overlords, and that he’s going to be rewarded for his loyalty by being part of of the new ruling class , and inevitably, as soon as his usefulness to the Daleks is over, he discovers that they view him with the same contempt they view every other human when they exterminate him without a seconds hesitation.
Closet cases are different issue, of course.
gocart mozart
@Litlebritdifrnt: @JPL:
The speech was live and he was three minute late (horrors)
gocart mozart
@Litlebritdifrnt:
It’s a solution to a non-existant problem. Churches get to decide for themselves whether they want to perform gay marriages or not. You cant make them (it would be unconstitutional) The whole “how dare you force my church to gay marry!” is just an anti-gay shibolith. Nobody is advocating that.
gocart mozart
@Mnemosyne:
Also, when you say “I do.”, that doesn’t make you married. It’s just a symbolic ceremony. You only become officially married when the county clerk stamps the paperwork.