Maybe when Arizona gets done with their bake sale to build a fence to keep out the brown menace, they can chip in to help build a wall around Ohio.
Push it real good
There’s no way on earth that any kind of major immigration reform will pass between now and November, 2012. Democrats should push the issue anyway, though, because (a) it’s a big political winner and (b) if Republicans take enough of a beating among Latino voters in 2012, they may change their tune and help pass something in the next Congress or the one after.
I understand the rationale for not pushing it earlier. I don’t know if Democrats had 60 Senators ready to vote for it — Ben Nelson and Evan Bayh are cynical enough and dumb enough to have thought it would be a bad idea, for example — in the last Congress and if Obama had tried and failed with a Democratic Congress, it would have looked worse than not trying at all.
Now is a perfect time to try. Republicans will block it and they’ll pay a price at the polls for doing so. The only way to make progress on this issue right now is beat Republicans with it until they say uncle.
Gay-Married Seamen?
SHUTTHEFRONTDOOR
So you know how legions of folks were disappointed in Obama because he didn’t wave his magic wand and banish DADT by executive order, but rather waited for Congress to do whatever it is that Congress does, and then waited for the Pentagon to do its studies and whatever? Well, get a load of this:
Navy officials said Monday that they updated the training after questions came up about civil ceremonies for gay couples. Military training to apply the new law allowing gays to serve openly began earlier this year, and is expected to be complete by mid-summer.
In earlier training guidelines issued by the Defense Department and the military services, same-sex marriage ceremonies were not mentioned, and therefore not explicitly prohibited.
Brother Can You Spare Some Ratings
And Obama continues to kick Trump’s ass:
A supersized edition of Donald Trump’s competition series Celebrity Apprentice spanned three hours, going head-to-head against the rest of primetime on Sunday.
But, NBC’s three-hour telecast — which saw Star Jones and LaToya Jackson fired and NeNe Leakes quitting — didn’t fare so well: Celebrity Apprentice (7 million total viewers, 2.4 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic) was the lowest-rated spring telecast for the franchise, dipping 23 percent. Dateline (3.9 million, 0.8) served as a weak lead-in, down 33 percent. The Peacock placed fourth for the night in the key demo.
CBS won the night with 60 Minutes (13.8 million, 2.3) surging 43 percent, thanks to President Obama’s only televised interview about Osama bin Laden’s death. The two-hour finale of The Amazing Race (8.6 million, 2.5) was the lowest-rated in franchise history. CSI: Miami (9.7 million, 2.0), however, ended its season with a double-digit uptick, but still was one of the series’ lowest-rated episodes.
Poor thing. Racism just doesn’t sell the way it used to…
Big Gay
There have been a lot of arguments on this blog and elsewhere about whether or not Obama was doing enough for the gay community and so on. As an Obot, I always felt the criticism of Obama on these issues was overblown. At the same time, I think that nearly all of the progress made on gay rights has happened because the gay community fights like hell and puts its money where its mouth is. Repealing DADT was the right thing to do, but it didn’t represent a big gamble, because it’s good politics too: Obama will raise a lot of money in 2012 because of it.
President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign is banking on gay donors to make up the cash it’s losing from other groups of wealthy supporters who have been alienated and disappointed by elements of Obama’s first term.
Pleased by an all-out White House push to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” gay donors have surprised campaign officials with the extent of their support. And the campaign’s new fundraising apparatus appears designed to capitalize on their enthusiasm: Obama’s finance committee included one gay man in 2008; there are 15 this year, a source said.
[….]“It’s ironic – a year ago there was no constituency more unhappy. There was a sea change,” said David Mixner, a veteran New York gay activist, who said that White House actions during the past year had swayed restive gay donors. “You not only will see a united community that will contribute to Obama, but they will work their asses off.”
Campaign donations from the gay community are more important proportionally in New York than in most other states, which makes me wonder (a) why Republicans in New York State continue to oppose marriage equality and (b) why Democrats don’t push the issue harder. The politics work even better here, since the so-called “cultural conservatives” in this state are often Catholic, and Catholics are fairly supportive of gay rights. I’m sure Chris Matthews has a crazy cousin who devotes her life to opposing gay and reproductive rights (I have one myself), but those people vote Republican anyway and they aren’t big donors.
A lot of politics in this country is trapped in some Peggy Noonan view of the world, where the Reagan Republicans will ride again the moment that Democrats do anything to help anyone who isn’t white or straight. That’s bullshit, those days are gone.
In the 2012 election, I wish a motherfucker would try to start a “culture war”.
Yes I would give my heart gladly
The Supreme Court of Brazil has recognized gay civil unions (although not “marriage”) in deciding two lawsuits brought by the state government of Rio de Janeiro and by the Ministério Público, the Brazilian body of independent public prosecutors.
In a 10-0 vote, with one abstention, the justices said gay couples deserve the same legal rights as heterosexual pairs when it comes to alimony, retirement benefits of a partner who dies, and inheritances, among other issues. The ruling, however, stopped short of legalising gay marriage. …. Brazil’s ruling sets a judicial precedent that must be honoured by all public institutions, including notary publics [sic] where civil unions must be registered.
Oh, and the 11th justice apparently abstained because he had previously spoken in favor of same-sex unions when he was Attorney-General.
Of course, it’s not all caipirinhas and tighty-whitey undies:
Among the dead, [there were] 140 gay men (54%), 110 transvestites (42%) and 10 lesbians (4%). Brazil confirms its position as the world champion of murders of homosexuals: in the United States, which has 100 million more people than our country, in 2010, 14 murders of transvestites were reported, while in Brazil, there were 110. The risk of a homosexual being murdered in Brazil is 785% higher than in the United States.
Given its huge religious population, long history of internal conflict and torrid political divisions, it’s not surprising that it taken Brazil so long to catch up with the the Land of the Free and the Brave in granting its gay and lesbian citizens equal parity with all of its other citizens.
[Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) – Male Nude known as Patroclus]Edited for additional snarkiness.
Texas cheerleader kicked off squad for refusing to cheer for her rapist; Ordered to pay school $45,000
I hate people.
In yet another brick in the anti-women wall, last week, the US Supreme Court declined to review a case brought by a teenage girl (known only as “HS”) against her high school, after she was dropped from her high school cheerleading team for refusing to chant the name of a basketball player who raped her. (The player plead guilty to misdemeanor assault of the girl, but the rape charge was dropped.)
School officials told the young girl that she had no right to remain silent when her coaches told her to cheer.
That she was dropped from the cheerleading squad for refusing to cheer for her rapist is sickening in and of itself. But wait – it gets worse.
She has been ordered by the court to pay compensation of $45,000 for bringing the “frivolous lawsuit.”
Good times:
She was 16 when she said she had been raped at a house party attended by dozens of fellow students from Silsbee High School, in south-east Texas. One of her alleged assailants, a student athlete called Rakheem Bolton, was arrested, with two other young men.
In court, Bolton pleaded guilty to the misdemeanour assault of HS. He received two years of probation, community service, a fine and was required to take anger-management classes. The charge of rape was dropped, leaving him free to return to school and take up his place on the basketball team.
Four months later, in January 2009, HS travelled to one of Silsbee High School’s basketball games in Huntsville. She joined in with the business of leading cheers throughout the match. But when Bolton was about to take a free throw, the girl decided to stand silently with her arms folded.
“I didn’t want to have to say his name and I didn’t want to cheer for him,” she later told reporters. “I just didn’t want to encourage anything he was doing.”
Richard Bain, the school superintendent in the sport-obsessed small town, saw things differently. He told HS to leave the gymnasium. Outside, he told her she was required to cheer for Bolton. When the girl said she was unwilling to endorse a man who had sexually assaulted her, she was expelled from the cheerleading squad.
The subsequent legal challenge against Mr Bain’s decision perhaps highlights the seriousness with which Texans take cheerleading and high school sports, which can attract crowds in the tens of thousands.
HS and her parents instructed lawyers to pursue a compensation claim against the principal and the School District in early 2009. Their lawsuit argued that HS’s right to exercise free expression had been violated when she was instructed to applaud her attacker. But two separate courts ruled against her, deciding that a cheerleader freely agrees to act as a “mouthpiece” for a institution and therefore surrenders her constitutional right to free speech. In September last year, a federal appeals court upheld those decisions and announced that HS must also reimburse the school sistrict $45,000, for filing a “frivolous” lawsuit against it.
“As a cheerleader, HS served as a mouthpiece through which [the school district] could disseminate speech – namely, support for its athletic teams,” the appeals court decision says. “This act constituted substantial interference with the work of the school because, as a cheerleader, HS was at the basketball game for the purpose of cheering, a position she undertook voluntarily.”
The family’s lawyer said the ruling meanst that students exercising their right of free speech can end up punished for refusing to follow “insensitive and unreasonable directions”.
So, to recap: a girl was gang-raped by by three assailants at a party attended by dozens of students***, one of whom was a student athlete named Rakheem Bolton. Bolton plead to misdemeanor assault, received two years of probation, community service, a fine, was required to complete anger management classes, after which he was permitted to return to school and continue to play basketball. Rather than quit the team in shame, like all good little rape victims should, the girl decided to maintain her position on the squad. And when it came time to cheer for Bolton as he stood poised to shoot a free-throw, the girl thought “fuck that noise!” and stood silently, arms crossed.
And for her quiet dignified protest, she was thrown off the squad and has been ordered to scrounge up a cool 45 grand.
It’s fucked up, right?
First, in what world does a basketball game constitute “work of the school”? Seems to me the school’s job is to teach its students well, (or at least well enough, such that its student athletes will decide not to join a bunch of testosterone-fueled guys in a little weekend gang rape.)
Second, if I know anything about Texas high school sports (and I don’t, really – except for what I’ve seen on Friday Night Lights) this is one of many cases of a school attempting to protect its road to a national championship game, while abdicating entirely its duty to protect students from predatory meatheads.
And finally, irrespective of the circumstances, who the hell cares if one cheerleader decides not to participate in cheering for one basketball player? She stood there quietly. She didn’t start yelling about Bolton being a rapist. From what I can discern, she didn’t cause a scene or do anything that would have even drawn attention to her silent protest. She just didn’t want to cheer for this asshole while he was attempting his free-throw shots.
I’m at a loss. This story hurts my soul and explodes my brain. When did women cease being people? When did we become merely penis receptacles and baby incubators?
And more importantly, when did the media decide that these stories aren’t worth covering such that the only way I heard about it was through a commenter tip?
Shameful.
On the legal end (based upon about an hour of research), it seems to me that the court’s ruling is utter bullshit. If you want my cockeyed legal analysis, click page 2 (it’s just above the comment box, and right below related posts that you really ought to read.)
Buuut, if you’ve had just about enough out of me, thank me very much, then carry on! And be safe! Don’t get raped out there!
What with the increased Teabillification of these United States with their “Planned Parenthood is Evil/A Baby in Every Womb” philosophy, you’ll be screwed.
(H/T LoneOak!)
[image via Angry Little Girls]
(click “Next Page” for legal mumbo jumbo)