Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

I really should read my own blog.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Books are my comfort food!

This fight is for everything.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Open Thread: Good News for Military Spouses

Open Thread: Good News for Military Spouses

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Via Mr. Charles P. Pierce, official DoD statement from Secretary Hagel:

The Department of Defense welcomes the Supreme Court’s decision today on the Defense of Marriage Act. The department will immediately begin the process of implementing the Supreme Court’s decision in consultation with the Department of Justice and other executive branch agencies. The Department of Defense intends to make the same benefits available to all military spouses — regardless of sexual orientation — as soon as possible. That is now the law and it is the right thing to do…

Pierce adds, “It really matters that this Secretary Of Defense started out in the military as an infantry grunt. I truly believe that.”

***********
What’s on the agenda for the evening, as we catch our breath between bouts?

Reader Interactions

131Comments

  1. 1.

    piratedan

    just the sound of hammer in nails in the neighborhood as the fundies are all building backyard arks in anticipation of the coming apocalypse.

  2. 2.

    the Conster

    Nine years of gay marriage in Massachusetts and not one fucking thing has changed. The news here today is Aaron Hernandez is charged with murder and he’s in the pokey without bail.

  3. 3.

    Omnes Omnibus

    The DoD appears to be handling all of this quite well. DADT ending and now DOMA. This is not to say that there won’t be problems with homophobic soldiers, but the word from he top seems pretty damned clear. Good.

  4. 4.

    Amir Khalid

    Will monetary benefits to same-sex military couples be backdated, or will they only apply going forwards?

  6. 6.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @Omnes Omnibus: I think the DoD is handling it well for two reasons:
    1. The guy at the top, above Hagel.
    2. The real military, not the wingnut imaginary military, knows how to follow orders.

  9. 9.

    Botsplainer

    Had Obama just issued an executive order on January 21, 2009, this could’ve been policy for over four years now. Through his ineptness and inaction, he has deprived a multitude of servicemembers of this benefit, and is thus History’s Lesser Monster (History’s Greatest Monster being Jimmy Carter, of course).

  11. 11.

    BGinCHI

    So for the right is this Gay Welfare or Creeping Sodomy?

    I can’t follow all this.

  12. 12.

    WereBear

    I am pleased that at least this is progress; though I wonder why, when they did something as brazen as render pointless the Voting Rights Act, they would turn around and support LBGT rights when that was Wingnut-Thermonuclear not so long ago.

    But then, the Voting Rights Act was outright In Their Way…

  14. 14.

    IowaOldLady

    Same sex marriage has been legal for over four years here in the heartland. It still looks like the same boring place to me.

  15. 15.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @WereBear: The justices didn’t split in a real logical way between these cases, but Kennedy seems to be somewhat consistent on people being in your bedroom. They also didn’t end any of the state’s DOMA laws.

  17. 17.

    Corner Stone

    @IowaOldLady:

    Same sex marriage has been legal for over four years here in the heartland. It still looks like the same boring place to me.

    Ever thought about some window treatments? Or maybe do the backsplash in a vertical pattern instead of passe horizontal subway tile?

  18. 18.

    KXB

    Well, in Illinois, which has a Dem governor, and Dem control of both state houses, they could not get it done. They also could not get a budget done, or addressing the $100 billion pension bill that no one paid for.

  20. 20.

    IowaOldLady

    @Corner Stone: I’m having so many home repairs done that I have no room for optional decorative stuff. Water is coming into my house through the windows, floors, and walls. The roof? It’s fine.

  22. 22.

    BGinCHI

    @IowaOldLady: I live in an extremely gay neighborhood and the biggest difference between mine and others is that people are a whole lot nicer and better dressed/groomed. I go to Lakeview and I think: who are all these sloppy flabby assholes?

    The homophobes are driving away the most fabulous neighbors you can have.

    YMMV.

  25. 25.

    Corner Stone

    @IowaOldLady:

    Water is coming into my house through the windows, floors, and walls. The roof? It’s fine.

    Why did you build a house in the middle of a lake?

  28. 28.

    Soonergrunt

    @Amir Khalid: They NEVER backdate things like that.
    If there’s any truism about the army, it’s that when Finance Office owes the Soldier money (official travel, etc) they take their sweet time paying it, but if they determine that the Soldier owes the Government, they move like lightning to seize that Soldier’s pay.

  29. 29.

    BGinCHI

    @KXB:

    addressing the $100 billion pension bill that no one paid for

    You mean “that was raided by the legislature and not paid back,” right?

  30. 30.

    The Moar You Know

    “It really matters that this Secretary Of Defense started out in the military as an infantry grunt. I truly believe that.”

    It does with the enlisted guys. It’s a different story with the officers, I’m sure they resent him in a way that civilians can’t imagine.

  31. 31.

    Baud

    @IowaOldLady:

    Water is coming into my house through the windows, floors, and walls.

    And you just finished saying that gay marriage hasn’t affected the heartland.

  32. 32.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    DoD has REAL issues to worry about…like peak oil and climate change and the political/security ramifications of same.

    They don’t have time for this social issue trivia. They’ve got a fucking job to do.

  34. 34.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @MikeJ:

    Good times on the confidence course.

    Oh, dear, I just startled the cat sleeping several rooms away…

  36. 36.

    ? Martin

    @The Moar You Know:

    It does with the enlisted guys. It’s a different story with the officers, I’m sure they resent him in a way that civilians can’t imagine.

    So, you’re saying it’s even better than we thought?

    FWIW, my grandmother was an army officer and I suspect she would have liked Hagel quite a bit.

  38. 38.

    Soonergrunt

    @Villago Delenda Est: It would be surprising to outsiders just how much pragmatism there is. For a lot of troops and leaders the only real question is “can this person fight?”

  39. 39.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Pierce adds, “It really matters that this Secretary Of Defense started out in the military as an infantry grunt. I truly believe that.”

    I think that’s helpful, mainly because he can draw on personal experience at the bottom when making decisions at the top. Something that say Feldmarschal von Rumsfailed didn’t have going for him.

    Also, it lends credibility with his decisions with the troops. The troops respond better, most of the time, to OCS officers, simply because they’ve got a commonality of experience that ROTC or Academy grads lack. OCS guys tend to get the “respect must be earned” aspect of leadership much more readily than officers from other sources.

  40. 40.

    beltane

    Vermont has had marriage equality for a while now. I can’t even remember how long we’ve had it because it didn’t change a single thing in my life. The wingnuts seem to confuse allowing gay people to marry with allowing gay people to exist, not realizing that a certain percentage of the population is going to be gay no matter what stupid hate laws are on the books.

  41. 41.

    different-church-lady

    @Soonergrunt:

    …the only real question is “can this person fight?”

    They should be recruiting at Kos’ joint then: that’s all those people know how to do.

  42. 42.

    ruemara

    @WereBear: To make the appeal to right wing gays to return to the fold. They do exist. Plus, the decision as written is a very nefarious undercutting of Federal oversight of State. The consequences could be interpreted in negative ways to other decisions.

  44. 44.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    No, see I think gays cause earthquakes and terrorist attacks but promiscuous women cause flooding.

  45. 45.

    Hungry Joe

    Update re 1) my wife’s being injured by the car that plowed through the wall of her office, and 2) the guy who vandalized my car because he thought I parked too close to his truck:

    1) My wife was hospitalized for six days and was released minus her gall bladder and a slice of her liver. The road’s been a little rocky, but she’s expected to make a full recovery. Best guess about the driver is that he hit the gas instead of the brake and then, thinking the brakes weren’t working, doubled down. It happened fast — he only traveled about 30 yards. (It started in a parking lot. Before he hit the wall, he managed to hit just one car: hers.) Medical bills will top $100K, easy, but because she was on the job Worker’s Comp picks up everything. We took some BJ-ers’ advice and retained an attorney, and we may end up with a little pain & suffering $$ … but not much. (Long, not very interesting story.)

    2) [Separate incident] Some of you may ream me — and I have to admit, with cause — but I did not press felony vandalism charges. The guy has already demonstrated that he’s violent, crazy, and stupid (he climbed up on my car and stomped the roof in, in front of witnesses. At REI!), and by turning the matter over to my insurance company and backing off I’ll prevent him from knowing who I am. He admitted to the police that he did it, so the insurance company’s got him dead to rights. And even though my car is a 16-year-old Camry with paint flaking off, I green-lighted complete, top-of-the-line repairs, to the tune of $2,467. So the guy’s going to get hit hard.

  46. 46.

    beltane

    @ruemara: Non-white people having the right to vote presents an existential threat to the Republican party in a way that gay people having the right tomarry does not.

  48. 48.

    lamh35

    I haven’t even been to Sulivan’s site since the paywall, but I did happen to come across this bit on Bill and Hillary’s statement on SCOTUS striking down DOMA, and I gotta say, I found myself saying basically the same thing in response.

    From The Annals Of Chutzpah

    “By overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, the Court recognized that discrimination towards any group holds us all back in our efforts to form a more perfect union. We are also encouraged that marriage equality may soon return to California. We applaud the hard work of the advocates who have fought so relentlessly for this day, and congratulate Edie Windsor on her historic victory,” – former president Bill Clinton, who signed DOMA, insisted it was constitutional at the time, double-crossed the gay activists who originally funded him, ran ads in the South bragging of passing DOMA, doubled the rate of gay discharges from the military and signed the HIV travel ban into law.

    I will now go back to ignoring Sully.

    Oh and not for nothing, but I don’t think a joint statement was released on SCOTUS gutting the VRA. Although I do think either Chelsea or Bill may have tweeted about it, so there is that.

  49. 49.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @Soonergrunt:

    It would be surprising to outsiders just how much pragmatism there is. For a lot of troops and leaders the only real question is “can this person fight?”

    That was our only criterion in 1971. Me, I’m hoping that some of the currently homophobic troops have their minds opened up a bit by serving with gays. No, not all of the bigots will change their minds. Maybe some will and that’s a start.

  51. 51.

    Cacti

    @MomSense:

    No, see I think gays cause earthquakes and terrorist attacks but promiscuous women cause flooding.

    9/11 was a combination of pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the ACLU, People for the American Way, and secularists.

  52. 52.

    patroclus

    @Omnes Omnibus: Indeed, considering where we were just a few years ago with DADT and the military actively seeking out gays and lesbians in order to hound them out of the military and the general perception amongst gays that the military was no place for them to an active pro-gay policy is stunning to behold. Gays and lesbians serve openly, march in Pride parades openly, gay couples get benefits equally and discrimination is no longer officially sanctioned. Together with the end of the federal benefit proscription under DOMA generally as a result of today’s ruling, the demise of Prop 8 and the gradual expansion of marriage equality, this is one of the positive achievements of recent years. Thanks to all who have helped make this happen. Now, we need ENDA for non-military employees – the military is actually ahead of society these days. Who’d have ever thunk it?

  53. 53.

    BGinCHI

    @Served: Maybe get some Ben Sherman accessories or a small but scrappy dog. A scooter wouldn’t hurt either.

    One day at a time.

  55. 55.

    different-church-lady

    @lamh35: “…but you fuck just one goat …”

    (OK, to be fair, Clinton fucked more than one, but still…)

  56. 56.

    geg6

    Well, I am personally still steaming mad because our crazy wingnut staff assistant threw out my beautiful lunch of last night’s leftover pork roast. Garlic roasted potatoes and sautéed zucchini. When I asked why, she said she opened it and there was green on it. I actually had to explain that zucchini IS green. When I asked why she didn’t ask people in the office if it was theirs before tossing it, she said she had noticed similar containers all week. And I said that was because they were mine. Guess I have to put my name and the date on all my Tupperware from now on.

  57. 57.

    Cacti

    @patroclus:

    the military is actually ahead of society these days. Who’d have ever thunk it?

    Racial integration of the Armed Forces started 6-years before Brown v. Board of Education.

  59. 59.

    ? Martin

    @Hungry Joe:

    Best guess about the driver is that he hit the gas instead of the brake and then, thinking the brakes weren’t working, doubled down.

    Watched a mom do that at my daughter’s elementary school. She jumped the curb and stopped about 2′ shy of the main doors. This was just as kids were arriving for school. How she didn’t plow over 5 first graders is a fucking miracle as the path to those doors is usually pretty busy. Nobody hurt, but mom never drove her kid to school again.

    And even though my car is a 16-year-old Camry with paint flaking off, I green-lighted complete, top-of-the-line repairs, to the tune of $2,467. So the guy’s going to get hit hard.

    And no doubt he’ll blame Democrats for his taxes which are obviously the reason he has no money.

  61. 61.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @geg6:

    Set a box trap for her and bait it with a Krispy Kreme. You can let her out at your leisure.

  62. 62.

    patroclus

    @Cacti: That’s a good point and Truman deserves a lot of credit for the original orders, but racial discrimination across a whole lot of Southern (and other)bases didn’t really stop until Adam Clayton Powell started visiting all the bases and talked to the grunts there and started taking letters from all over and then complained to Ike and through channels and then the racist officers started obeying the orders. That process took well over a decade. This process, by contrast, is taking place at lightning speed.

  63. 63.

    JPL

    @the Conster: Are you saying that the arrest of a Patriot player has more to do with those who are married that gay’s getting married? Actually it’s probably true, especially among those pissed off fans, that recognize Tebow is not ready for the tight end position.

  64. 64.

    Trollhattan

    Speaking of military folks, can I give a shout-out to Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D, Awesomeland)?

    Iraq war veteran and double amputee Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., angrily heaped scorn Wednesday onto an IRS contractor who used a military prep school injury from 27 years ago to qualify for disabled veteran status, accusing him of misrepresenting his injury to game the VA system and obtain preferential treatment for his company’s bidding on IRS contracts.

    The contractor, Braulio Castillo, is the president and CEO of Strong Castle Inc., which has recently drawn scrutiny over hundreds of millions of dollars worth of questionable IRS contracts it has received. Investigators with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have said that Castilllo claimed the injury and intentionally located the company in a government-designated “hubzone” to make his company’s bids for IRS contracts more competitive.

    “I’m so glad that you would be willing to play football in prep school again to protect this great country,” she said. “Shame on you, Mr. Castillo, shame on you. You may not have broken any laws…but you certainly broke the trust of this great nation. You broke the trust of veterans. Iraq and Afghanistan veterans right now are waiting an average of 237 days for an initial disability rating. It is because people like you who are gaming the system are adding to that backlog that young men and women who are suffering from post-traumatic stress, who are missing limbs cannot get the compensation and the help that they need.”

    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57591160/duckworth-shames-irs-contractor-for-questionable-disability-status/

  65. 65.

    Soonergrunt

    @geg6: Or she’s just fucking with you because she threw out your food. The wingers do loves them some passive-aggressive bullshit.

  67. 67.

    Hungry Joe

    We’re in San Diego. And yeah, that’s everybody’s reaction: “At REI???!”

    I should have added that the main reason for not pressing charges was that my wife was freaked out that the guy would learn who we were, and I figured she’d been through enough drama for a while.

    I called the man who witnessed it and left me a note with all the info. He said it was incredible, the anger in the guy’s eyes. He also said that the guy was in his forties and was pretty big. “He looked like he’d worked construction but he had a layer of fat, like he’d been the boss for a few years now,” he said. “I’ve worked construction, and he looked like the kind of boss you really don’t want to have.”

  70. 70.

    ? Martin

    @JPL:

    Actually it’s probably true, especially among those pissed off fans, that recognize Tebow is not ready for the tight end position.

    I just sent that suggestion off to my mom.

    I must admit, it’s just glorious fun having a Pats fan for a mom to troll.

  73. 73.

    Roger Moore

    @Soonergrunt:

    It would be surprising to outsiders just how much pragmatism there is. For a lot of troops and leaders the only real question is “can this person fight?”

    I suspect this attitude is directly proportional to the (perceived) likelihood of being in combat. One of the reasons it may work today when it didn’t back in the Clinton era is that a much larger fraction of today’s military are combat veterans than when DADT passed.

  75. 75.

    Anne Laurie

    @WereBear:

    I wonder why, when they did something as brazen as render pointless the Voting Rights Act, they would turn around and support LBGT rights when that was Wingnut-Thermonuclear not so long ago.

    The SCOTUS scrotes support the Permanent Money Party. There are rich white men who want to be married to each other, not least to keep questions of inheritance & property rights in good order. These men deserve a voice!

    Poor people, only some of them men & even fewer of them white, are not of interest to the Permanent Money Party. In fact, their promicuous use of ‘votes’ are an ongoing annoyance to the rich white men and their corporate persons.

    Follow the money!

  77. 77.

    Violet

    Heard on the radio that Rick Perry has called a special session of the Texas legislature. The abortion bill will be back on the table. I think I heard it’s starting Monday.

  81. 81.

    beltane

    @Anne Laurie: The only reason the GOP has fought gay marriage is that they needed to rile up the working-class evangelical portion of their base in order to get them to the polls. Now, with voter suppression being given the blessing of the SCOTUS, the GOP may not have to cater quite as much to the fundie crowd on this issue anyway.

  83. 83.

    ? Martin

    @Anne Laurie: I disagree with that. If SCOTUS wanted to kill the VRA, they would have gone after Section 5. They didn’t and they could well have. They left pre-clearance and invited Congress to apply it to every state, which is what I think is most likely to end up happening.

    I’m not exactly hopeful on this, but there’s a big rift between the state legislatures and the GOP Senate, with the House in between. The voter ID shit is all in the states, with not much evidence that even the GOP House is willing to go as far as the states are.

    There’s just not enough R votes in the south to stop this, and there are some R votes in the north to fix it. It’s a tough spot – at the same time the national party is trying to win back minorities, the states are trying to lose them, and that leaves Congress where? Not sure, but I’d think it leaves Congress on the right side of this – if just barely. It’ll come down to whether or not Boehner will permit it, and I think he will, but he’ll demand a concession from somewhere else, like immigration, to get it done.

  85. 85.

    Hungry Joe

    Texas lege will surely convene another special session for the anti-abortion bill. They’ve got the votes; the bill will pass. But will it be constitutional? And what long-term price will the GOP pay?

    The short-term price, of course, will be paid by thousands of women — mostly poor women — in Texas. Forced birth for many. Some of them will die.

  86. 86.

    Gozer

    @Soonergrunt:
    Heh…I was once ordered to submit a travel reimbursement for 6 bucks…5 months later I got the 6 bucks.

    It was more hassle to do the paperwork than to be out of 6 whole dollars.

  88. 88.

    Hungry Joe

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate: I first came across that joke in a baseball book called “Low & Outside,” by Jerry Kettle, about his life as a minor-league pitcher in the Phillies organization in the 1950s. Written in about ’62. Terrific book. His first assignment was to a Class D (!) team in Mattoon, Illinois. “If I wanted to give the United States an enema,” he wrote, “I’d put the tube in Mattoon.” I was 12 and had no idea what an enema was. So I looked it up. Then I laughed for about an hour and a half.

  90. 90.

    burnspbesq

    @Anne Laurie:

    Didn’t you get the memo? You were supposed to bring deviled eggs, not industrial-strength stupidity. Now our picnic is ruined, and it’s all your fault.

  93. 93.

    Hungry Joe

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate: It was marketed as a teen book, but I re-read it years later and it held up. Some hilarious stuff in there. When “Ball Four” came out it seemed to me like a logical extension of “Low & Outside,” but nobody ever mentions it.

  94. 94.

    eemom

    @? Martin:

    They left pre-clearance and invited Congress to apply it to every state, which is what I think is most likely to end up happening.

    With all due respect, can you pass whatever you’re smoking this way, plz?

  95. 95.

    BGinCHI

    @eric: See? It’s getting gayer already.

    When the hair salons are hard to distinguish from the bars you’ll know you’re getting somewhere.

  96. 96.

    Brachiator

    Since this is an open thread, just wanted to not the craziness down under:

    Kevin Rudd returned as Australian prime minister on Wednesday, executing a stunning party room coup on Julia Gillard almost three years to the day after being ousted by his former deputy and less than three months out from a general election.

  99. 99.

    Violet

    @Brachiator: Heard on the radio (I was in the car a lot today) that part of the agreement is that Gillard leaves politics. That sounded so weird. What’s that about?

  100. 100.

    beltane

    @? Martin: Who are these mythical sane northern Republicans? The ones in Pennsylvania and Ohio who have done everything in their power to keep “undesirables” from voting? The ones in New Hampshire who tried to prevent college students from voting? Where are these decent, civic minded Republicans?

    The only time a Republican is not passing crappy laws is when that Republican is not in a position to pass crappy laws. There are no good guys or gals in that party.

  103. 103.

    beltane

    @Violet: She committed no crime and did nothing to disgrace herself or her country and yet she has to be barred from politics forever? I can see losing a vote of confidence, but when you look at the crop of bad apples who perennially resurface in our vaunted “western democracies” it does make you wonder if simple misogyny is at play here.

  104. 104.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    I always thought it would be inserted in Biloxi, Miss. That’s where my USAF tech school was, and I left with a very poor opinion of “the Southern Thing”

  106. 106.

    Darkrose

    @Hungry Joe: Dude, if the guy’s as crazy as it sounds, I don’t blame you a bit for letting insurance handle it–especially with what you already had on your plate. Glad you wife is doing reasonably okay.

  107. 107.

    PsiFighter37

    @Violet: Very simple (I tangentially follow Australian politics on a national level): Kevin Rudd swept the existing Liberal-National (the conservatives) coalition out of power in 2007. Because he was a dick (at least from what I can tell), as well as the fact that he was actually not terribly good at governing, Gillard kicked him out in 2010. He remained as foreign minister for the next couple years, but resigned from the cabinet after he lost a vote early last year to retake the leadership.

    For whatever reason, Gillard called snap elections early this year to take place in September. While she’s accomplished quite a lot from the governing side (and mostly good, from what I can tell) on the policy front, she’s absolutely shat the bed when it comes to the politicking and campaigning. You definitely have to throw in some sexism as well, given she’s single, childless, and an atheist (the wingnuts here probably would say Australia is destined for hell because she’s been in charge), but she’s done a really bad job campaigning, as well as throwing back some very awkward jabs on the whole sexism front. In polling, Labor is way behind and is basically going to get smashed with her in charge…but polling shows they would be even money if Rudd was in charge.

    Rudd denies the whole time that he’s going to make another go for it, but wake up this morning, and he squeaked around Gillard by a 57-45 margin (he had lost 71-31 last year). Strange how electoral politics will get people to change their mind.

    That said, even if he manages to salvage the election, unless Rudd can figure out what he did wrong the last time around, he’s not going to be around for that long.

  109. 109.

    ? Martin

    @beltane:

    Who are these mythical sane northern Republicans? The ones in Pennsylvania and Ohio who have done everything in their power to keep “undesirables” from voting? The ones in New Hampshire who tried to prevent college students from voting? Where are these decent, civic minded Republicans?

    You’re confusing the state legislatures with those in national office, which I specifically addressed. Look, VRA was just renewed with support from every member of Congress. Sensenbrenner is calling for a new formula. Other republicans have indicated the same.

    The calculus for state legislatures is very different from national office and I think there are a number of House Republicans who don’t want to be dragged down to the level of Alabama state legislature’s idea of civil rights. This is an issue that can really hurt them. Now, that doesn’t mean there’s anywhere near enough to carry this, but there’s likely enough to carry this along with the Dems. And if the Senate puts a new formula out, and the House GOP stops it in the leadup to the 2014 midterms, how’s that going to play with damn near every race north of the Mason-Dixon? These guys are already scared that they’re losing women and minorities. How does this help them?

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @? Martin:

    Really disagree, Martin. The one and only reason Republicans haven’t done more at the federal.level to supress voting is 95% of election law is state law.

    We have to sue GOP governors to get them to comply with the few federal.laws we have; HAVA or motor voter.

    If you look at the sum total of their actions, state and federal, this is bigger and more ambitious than “minority voters”

    It includes minority voters AND young people AND sporadic voters (low income are sporadic voters).

    Some of these targeted groups take a double hit; they’re minority AND low income so sporadic, for example.

    I think.it’s great politics to push this at the federal level, but I don’t have any illusions about some “split” between national conservatives and state level conservatives.

  111. 111.

    Trollhattan

    @PsiFighter37:

    I will never understand the parliamentary system. But here’s a snippet from the Beeb.

    Kevin Rudd has exacted revenge on Julia Gillard, his one-time friend and deputy who ruthlessly deposed him in 2010. Ever since he was removed from the prime minister’s office, he has sought to destabilise her leadership. This has been a very personal feud.

    For Ms Gillard, it’s a dramatic reversal. Three months ago, when she last called a leadership election, her rival could not muster enough support to mount a credible challenge.

    In the meantime, the Labor government has slipped even further in the polls. Labor is not only one of the most brutal political parties in the world, but also one of the most calculating and pragmatic.

    Its parliamentarians might not necessarily believe they can win the forthcoming election against the conservative opposition. Many already believe that’s a lost cause. But many calculate Mr Rudd will at least prevent an electoral wipe-out, and maybe help save their own seats.

    Also, too, “Labor” not “Labour”?

  113. 113.

    Kay

    @? Martin:

    Because they’re not really talking about “women”.
    They slice and dice. When they say “women” they mean “push up our totals of white, married, middle class women”
    80% of 40% instead of 60% of 40%
    All the shit they pull at the state level is directed to one group made up.of a lot of different people: sporadic voters. They can be Latino or they can be single working mothers or they can be low income or students or any combination thereof but turning out sporadic voters is how Democrats win. They know that.

  114. 114.

    Bobby Thomson

    @MomSense:

    No, see I think gays cause earthquakes and terrorist attacks but promiscuous women cause flooding.

    Only some of them.

  115. 115.

    ? Martin

    @Kay:

    We have to sue GOP governors to get them to comply with the few federal.laws we have; HAVA or motor voter.

    Right. And who passed those federal laws? HAVA and motor voter were carried by a significant number of Republicans, as were the VRA renewals. I’m hard pressed to find a national voter law that didn’t carry significant majorities in both parties. That’s my point. And while I would agree if it seemed the national party was aligning themselves with that effort, I see no evidence that they are. In fact, the evidence is that the national party recognizes the danger of being forever cast as discriminatory, which is why we saw a shift on gay marriage among conservatives at the national level, why we see a shift on immigration, and why I think we ultimately saw a shift on bills like VAWA passing 286-138.

    This presents a fundamental split between the state parties and the national tea party who are sort of the GOP id, and the more movement conservatives that occasionally have to step up into the ego role and stop the party from launching itself over the cliff. The national party has not in recent years supported the state direction (not particularly opposed it either) but when there’s enough pressure applied by a Democratic President and Senate, they will yield for the betterment of the party. It’s not like whites in the south are going to stop voting [R] just because a new Section 4 formula arrives.

    I’m not saying it’ll be easy or automatic, merely that I think there’s enough Republicans that disagree with the shadow confederacy to help Dems carry a bill through the House. And I think there are very few Republicans in the Senate interested in blocking it. Fucking with voting only hurts them as they don’t benefit from gerrymandering, which is the tool needed to make modern voting laws work in the way they want. So I expect to see a reasonable Section 4 formula leave the Senate with a very strong majority and the House squirm and struggle until they are forced to yield.

  116. 116.

    Bobby Thomson

    @? Martin:

    They left pre-clearance and invited Congress to apply it to every state, which is what I think is most likely to end up happening.

    You are smoking some primo shit. Republicans “care” that they are losing non-white votes but aren’t going to change their own behavior to reverse the trend. They’ll just continue to berate others and rig the game as best they can for as long as they can.

  117. 117.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Gozer: Years ago my boss and I had a long layover in Raleigh-Durham and decided to go to dinner. We took a taxi from airport to restaurant, and after dinner, from restaurant to airport. I paid taxi one direction, he paid coming back. We each submitted our travel claims and receipted the respective taxi fares.

    Three years later, our office was audited by HQ. In their typical OCD fashion, they couldn’t STAND that I had taken a taxi TO the restaurant but not back (“How did you get to the airport? Huh?”) or that my boss got TO the airport although there was no paperwork in his claim showing how he got to the restaurant in the first place.

    Each of us was interviewed at length by the audit team, and each of us had to file an amended affidavit explaining the entire situation. I can’t even begin to calculate how many resources in four salaries, plus time and energy and aggravation, were consumed.

  119. 119.

    Kay

    @? Martin:

    I agree on the bipartisan past. It broke down 13 years ago, though. HAVA was an absolute shit-show. Hillary Clinton used to tell this horror story at campaign events about HAVA. I don’t remember, her aide frantically blocking things and on and on.
    We used to do “persuasion”, Martin, Democrats. IMO, it never really worked, I think “swing voters” are a bit of a myth, but we don’t really do that anymore. Instead we find people who would vote our way if they vote AT ALL. It’s up to the candidates to persuade. We’re essentially just finding our voters. The sporadic voters!
    Republicans don’t do that. They just try
    to stop.our voters and bring out their reliable voters. I haven’t seen any indication of “outreach” at all, other than press releases that are dutifully regurgitated.
    I’m all for a big push at the federal.level, but mostly for awareness and because it’s good politics.

  120. 120.

    JWL

    Ex- VP & Secretary of Defense Cheney dodged the military draft with the best of them, as he continued to support America’s War in Vietnam. And why not? The man is a coward, and his ass was safe and sound.

    Bill Clinton did too, of course, but still possessed the pride to oppose a war he knew to be unjust. Unwilling to risk his own neck, and unlike Cheney, he still possessed the sense of decency to oppose that others die in his stead.

    Age did pervert him, however, and both he and his wife each endorsed the 2003 Iraq War. Each unapologetically stand by their infamous decision. Each knew better.

    On the other hand, Hagel risked his life and limb during those years of the great tragedy.

    Pierce is right. Experience counts.

  121. 121.

    Kay

    @? Martin:

    Here’s what I would like. For Democrats to draft a bill, accept no compromises on the bill, and pin gutting the VRA on the GOP like a badge.
    The last thing we need is a conpromise with the lunatics in the House that codifys their crappy state election law into federal.law. They’ll be insisting on iris scans and “vault copies” of birth certificates. Long form! Whatever the hell that means.
    Then we’re really screwed.

  123. 123.

    Ruckus

    @beltane:
    Haven’t you heard? You can pray away the gay. Wait is that right? You can pray away the stupid? No I don’ think that’s it either. You can pray away crime? No…

    You can pray away not a damn thing. OK now I think I’ve got it.

  124. 124.

    ? Martin

    @Ruckus: You can pray me away. Ms Martin turned on the silly tightwalk over the Grand Canyon which turned into a stream of Jesus. Wasn’t particularly interested in the idea of some guy falling 1500′ to his death. Without that, it was just a guy passing a field sobriety test while proclaiming Jesus to be his king. Uh, okay. Is there a Top Gear on?

  126. 126.

    jake the snake

    I think the antigay people are discriminating against necrophiles. They mention zoophiles, pedophiles, but what about man (or woman) on corpse. They are clearly prejudiced.

  127. 127.

    RaflW

    @patroclus:

    the military is actually ahead of society these days. Who’d have ever thunk it?

    Well, a lot of conservatives have thunk it, which is why they fought tooth and nail for as long as they did to slow the end of DADT. I even think they knew that Hagel was the sort of guy to carry on gay-ifying the troops, added to all the other reasons they hate him.

  128. 128.

    CanadaGoose

    Well, if loose women cause flooding, some of you guys should head up to Calgary.

  129. 129.

    Nina

    Thanks to our transgender friends, Social Security’s computer systems have been thoroughly tested and we have no worry about their ability to handle distributing same sex marriage benefits.

  130. 130.

    lojasmo

    @patroclus:

    When DADT ended, I predicted that was the lynchpin for the end of DOMA.

    ETA because gay servicemembers can marry. Dunno if my logic was sound, but that’s how I saw it.

  131. 131.

    Soonergrunt

    @RaflW: well, once you have people fighting and dying for you, it seems churlish to not let them have some basic rights. Most Americans generally don’t consider themselves churlish.

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