The Massachusetts Legislature has rejected the proposed state constitutional amendment that would have banned gay marriage but legalized civil unions. Now check this out:
Quote #1: "Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry,” said state Sen. Brian Lees, a Republican who had been a co-sponsor of the amendment. "This amendment which was an appropriate measure or compromise a year ago, is no longer, I feel, a compromise today."
Quote #2: “The union of two women and two men can never consummate a marriage. It's physically impossible," said state Rep. Phil Travis, a Democrat. "The other 49 states are right and we are wrong."
So, a Republican is being reasonable and acknowledging not only that gay marriage didn’t bring the state to its knees, but also that moving backwards toward civil unions at this point would be unfair to those who are already married. Meanwhile, a Democrat is being a total irrational homobigot dick. Goes to show you, neither party has the market cornered on reason or assholiness.
Congrats, MA queers. The war isn’t over, but you won this battle. Keep on fighting the good fight.
Good News for MA Queers
Judge Rules School Pledge Unconstitutional
A federal judge declared the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional Wednesday in a case brought by the same atheist whose previous battle against the words "under God" was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on procedural grounds.Here’s the solution:
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that the pledge's reference to one nation "under God" violates school children's right to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God."
[…]
The Becket Fund, a religious rights group that is a party to the case, said it would immediately appeal the case to the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If the court does not change its precedent, the group would go to the Supreme Court.
It was a later addition to the original pledge, which was originally "I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." So how about just taking the phrase back out again? I guess that just makes too much sense.
The Wrong Fall Guy?
Looks as though Chertoff might have sacrificed Brownie to save his own ass—and perhaps President Sideshow’s ass as well. Emphasis mine; not blockquoted due to length.
-------------------------
The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show.
Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials. Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown had only limited authority to do so until about 36 hours after the storm hit, when Chertoff designated him as the "principal federal official" in charge of the storm.
As thousands of hurricane victims went without food, water and shelter in the days after Katrina's early morning Aug. 29 landfall, critics assailed Brown for being responsible for delays that might have cost hundreds of lives.
But Chertoff - not Brown - was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government's blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by President Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.
But according to a memo obtained by Knight Ridder, Chertoff didn't shift that power to Brown until late afternoon or evening on Aug. 30, about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. That same memo suggests that Chertoff may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department.
[…]
That same day, Aug. 31, the Department of Defense, whose troops and equipment are crucial in such large disasters, activated its Task Force Katrina. But active-duty troops didn't begin to arrive in large numbers along the Gulf Coast until Saturday.
White House and homeland security officials wouldn't explain why Chertoff waited some 36 hours to declare Katrina an incident of national significance and why he didn't immediately begin to direct the federal response from the moment on Aug. 27 when the National Hurricane Center predicted that Katrina would strike the Gulf Coast with catastrophic force in 48 hours. Nor would they explain why Bush felt the need to appoint a separate task force.
Chertoff's hesitation and Bush's creation of a task force both appear to contradict the National Response Plan and previous presidential directives that specify what the secretary of homeland security is assigned to do without further presidential orders.
[…]
The Chertoff memo indicates that the response to Katrina wasn't left to disaster professionals, but was run out of the White House, said George Haddow, a former deputy chief of staff at FEMA during the Clinton administration and the co-author of an emergency management textbook.
"It shows that the president is running the disaster, the White House is running it as opposed to Brown or Chertoff," Haddow said. Brown "is a convenient fall guy. He's not the problem really. The problem is a system that was marginalized."
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Right to the top, this goes. Right to the very tippy top.
Steve Soto notes:
It is interesting that hours before Knight Ridder goes with a story that places the blame not on local officials but the Bush Administration, Bush sorta fessed up for the federal government's failings, almost as if the White House knew this was coming. It is also interesting that the day after former FEMA chief Michael Brown fell on his sword, the memo showing that Chertoff for some reason delayed and failed to act timely makes its way into Knight Ridder's hands. Obviously Brown has some friends who are going to set the record straight.Hmm. Interesting indeed.
(Hat tip to The Left Coaster.)
Sideshow George Pouts and Shrugs
…and expects America to applaud him for it.
Jeezy Creezy. Watch this video of Bush “taking responsibility” for the Katrina debacle. He might as well just have said, “Karl says I’ve got to say the buck stops with me, so … whatever … it stops me with me or something I guess. Even though it wasn’t my fault, or any of my buddies’ faults, either. Whatever. This sucks.”
Go to your room until you can behave maturely, young man, and don’t come out for another three years.
(Check out The Heretik on this subject, too.)
Vroom
Do you hear that whooshing noise? It’s the sound of ten million pro-war, Bush-voting NASCAR dads simultaneously creaming in their pants over the Ultra AP, “a concept combat vehicle that combines new blast-deflection technology with the safety features of a [Ford F-350] truck and NASCAR engineering.” Yup, NASCAR and the war machine are hooking up, and although that particular marriage of interests, when experienced in the form of one of my good ol’ boy, confederate flag-flying neighbors, makes my skin crawl, it actually looks to be a promising combination in terms of developing a vehicle that will better protect the troops. I just hope a non-combat version of this thing doesn’t go on the market. I don’t think my blood pressure can handle dealing with Hummers and Ultra APs on the country roads around here.
Question of the Day
Which gulf will be the final nail in the coffin of disgrace in which Bush will one day find himself?
A. The Persian Gulf
B. The Gulf Coast
C. The gulf separating the la-la land in which he lives from reality.
Random Thought
Canada spends a little over $2,500 a year per capita to provide healthcare for its citizens. What if instead of giving the victims of hurricane Katrina $2,000 credit cards, which will help for a week or two, we had instead given them free health care for an entire year?
I’m not suggesting, of course, that national healthcare would have prevented the hurricane that warranted the emergency credit cards, but it would have helped alleviate some of the poverty that, by any account, contributed to the scope of the disaster.
Now think of the tens (hundreds?) of billions of dollars that will be spent rebuilding. If that money had been spent on the recommended environmental improvements, with the remainder going to improving education, providing healthcare, and all those other nasty things liberals are always going on about, we’d be looking at a very different situation right now, wouldn’t we?
An ounce of prevention…
Add Silver (Fox) to the Rainbow
Just another reason why Shakespeare’s Sister should be your primary source for all the really important news. Looks like Anderson Cooper is gay. Well hell, we reported that last week, our primary source being the highly efficient collective gaydar of Shakes’ exclusive staff of well-trained cocksuckers.
Roe: An Interesting Point of Clarification
Care of Le Mew:
So, to return to my original point, anybody who says that overturning Roe will "return the issue to the states" doesn't know what they're talking about. … Abortion is not a "state" issue, and it's not going to become a state issue.Read his whole post for a detailed explanation. I’ve never bought into the argument that abortion could (or should) be a state issue, and I’ve always argued on general principle against those who suggest it wouldn’t be such a big deal—no one should have to travel hundreds of miles for an abortion, and many women might not be able to, considering that poverty is often a main consideration in opting for an abortion. That said, the whole argument is moot from a legal perspective, and Scott really helped me wrap my head around that.
And, of course, these arguments are a subset of the bizarrely frequent "Overturning Roe is no big deal" arguments, which are wrong with varying degrees of sillyness. In the wake of Roe many states will ban abortion, and both states and the federal government will pass all kinds of bad regulations. Don't believe the ludicrously implausible alternative scenarios ("[Kos]We just need a constitutional amendment entrenching the right to privacy! Because none of the many reactionary legislators who would have to vote for such a thing will figure out that abortion rights have been framed as privacy rights in both constitutional law and public discourse since the Nixon Administration! If those silly NARAL people would just read this cutting-edge AMA position paper from 1966, they'd understand something about abortion activism!"[/Kos]) Overturning Roe will 1)not "send the issue back to the states", and 2)will have very, very bad consequences.
I’ve drawn no concrete conclusions about Roberts from the little bit of his confirmation hearing I’ve been able to listen to, which I realize basically leaves me straddling the fence on him as I’ve been all along. I’ve read liberals who are going apeshit about how horrible he is, and I’ve read liberals who seem to be taking a pragmatic line about how we could have been stuck with a lot worse, and I genuinely respect both opinions. But so far, I’m leaning toward pragmatism; he seems to be meeting my first impression fairly head-on, which is that he’s nowhere near as bad as I would have expected from Bush. I certainly wouldn’t cast a vote for him, but I’m not sure that filibustering him will garner us someone we like better. That’s why winning elections is important, etc.
Any thoughts on the hearing so far?
Bush Takes Responsibility for Blunders
Damn, he is desperate.
Who knew that sense of accountability was just hiding under 40% this whole time?
Losing Ground
In what many of his commenters seem to be dubbing the worst post of all time, Kevin Drum draws what I agree are some rather curious conclusions, the primary one being that the Bush administration is in any way conservative. I also don’t think that “Big spending increases, both in defense and nondefense spending… Sarbanes-Oxley…McCain-Feingold…[and the] Medicare prescription bill” are intrinsically liberal; in fact, big defense spending increases and a corporate giveaway under the guise of Medicare expansion both seem decidedly illiberal to me. And I would argue that simply because something like the Patriot Act had bipartisan support doesn’t necessarily make it neutral or not conservative—there are none too few Democrats who are willing to support illiberal policy initiatives.
That said, in truth, I almost agree with the overall conclusion of his post (“The fact is, conservatives haven't won much of anything in the last 10 years except a PR triumph”), because time after time polls still show the majority of Americans being in favor of the liberal agenda (especially when laid out in a questionnaire not associated with a political party, indicative of what poor communicators the Dems are), and because Mencken (as one example of many) was bitching about the same shit a billion years ago. Reading cultural essayists from just about any point in American history will inevitably give one the sense that the more things change, the more they stay the same—and yet the most evident changes are the expansion of rights and opportunities for women, ethnic minorities, and the LGBT community; the margins aren’t as populated they used to be, and the center of the page is more so. Liberals have ever looked ahead while conservatives peek under their beds in search of demons, yet the PR struggle, and which side has the bragging rights over the popular ideology at any given time, is indeed always ongoing with different victors at different times. Right now, Bush-brand conservatism undoubtedly has the upper hand in that tug-of-war, and has little to celebrate in terms of what they’ve managed to win as Drum defines it, but it is in that definition where I also differ with him.
I’m not convinced that a list of bills, wars, and judicial appointments really encompasses everything they’ve done. Some of their accomplishments are not “wins” by the same kind of horserace definition. Failing to adequately fund and enforce existing liberal programs and legislation isn’t something they’ll put on a record of success, but if the hard-fought protections for civil rights, labor rights, and the environment aren’t adequately enforced, that’s a blow to liberalism, and a “win” for Bush-brand conservatism.
Media deregulation and the resulting consolidation is symptomatic of the corporatism for which Drum registers disdain, and is, of course, part of a coordinated effort also including the associated attacks on media standards, such as tossing out the Fairness Doctrine. By allowing (and encouraging) monolithic media interests, conservatives have ensured that the conduits through which flow messages and ideas—the shells and mortar of a PR war—have a vested interest in favoring one side’s victory over the other’s. That’s a “win” for Bush-brand conservatism.
And not only that, it increases the likelihood that they’ll have more to celebrate than just winning a PR war. That the Dems are poor messagemakers makes navigating increasing hostility from the media that much more difficult—and helps explain why many Dems are no less likely to be in the pockets of corporations than their conservative counterparts, viewing “joining ’em” as infinitely easier these days than “beating ’em.” The rightward, pro-corporate lean of those elected ostensibly to represent liberals is a big fat “win” for Bush-brand conservatism.
When the Democratic VP candidate who ran against BC’00, Liebertwat, in a sickening display kisses President Sideshow after his SOTU address, I don’t think that we can consider that anything but a “win” for them.
Drum isn’t wrong that Bush & Co. have precious little to boast by his limited definition. I just think his definition needs work—expansion. Winning on those terms isn’t everything; hell, many of us will argue they’ve not even won the two presidential elections they claim. But it doesn’t matter if they can’t claim victory by a particular definition if we end up getting trounced in the long run anyway.
You Can't See It...
...but I'm doing that "rubbing two fingers together representing the smallest violin in the world" thing.
It would appear that Bush has finally been pushed into putting in *gasp* a full work day. I have to say, I feel for his staff. He's probably missing his daily afternoon nappy-poo, and you know how cranky he gets when he's tired.
Bush Balancing Agenda with Storm Response
See if you can read this without welling up with tears:
WASHINGTON -
President Bush is balancing a harried schedule of diplomatic duties — from Iraq to China and the United Nations — while working to stay on top of hurricane recovery efforts that most Americans say should be his No. 1 priority.
"I can do more than one thing at one time," the president assured Monday on the first of two planned visits this week to the Gulf Coast. He's fitting those in between meetings with world leaders who came to the United States for a gathering of the United Nations in New York
My heart bleeds for him. He's actually being forced to do the daily duties of a President! How tuckered out he must be. I'm sure he's glad he got that huge vacation in; he's going to need that energy to make it through an 8 hour work day.
Here's the kicker (Bold mine):
But Americans seem to have shifted their focus away from Iraq and terrorist threats to problems at home. For the first time since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. four years ago, a majority of Americans responding to a poll by the Pew Research Center last week said it is more important for the president to focus on domestic policy than the war on terrorism.
Or, "Americans finally woke up to the fact that the WOT is all smokescreen and mirrors, and was simply a pack of lies to get the Child-in-Chief re-elected. After Hurricane Katrina showed them that the Department of Homeland Security hasn't done a damn thing to keep them more secure, and that an actual attack on American soil would leave the Government that pledged to protect them impotent and reeling, Americans finally shook off their apathy and began to demand that their President concentrate on the needs of his citizens, rather than the salad dressing at his next fund raiser."
Uh, well, that's what I would have written.
The president sharply disputed suggestions on Monday that the military is stretched too thin to help Iraq and the Gulf Coast rebuild.
"We've got plenty of troops to do both," Bush said after his first on-the-ground tour of cleanup efforts in the streets of New Orleans. "It is preposterous to claim that the engagement in Iraq meant there wasn't enough troops here, just pure and simple."
Oblivious, In Denial, Dangerous. The one thing Bush should have learned from his hurricane lesson is that all the swagger and bluster in the world will not make fantasy into reality. *cough*WMDs*cough* The fact is, and this has been said time and again, that there are not enough troops in Iraq to get the job done, let alone at home to deal with disasters like this. Insisting that we have enough troops is just so much pissing in the wind. Someone's getting a little touchy:
"By the time I'm finished (being) president, I hope you'll realize that the government can do more than one thing at one time and individuals in the government can," Bush told reporters Monday as he wrapped up a tour of New Orleans and Gulfport, Miss. "If I'm focusing on the hurricane, I've got the capacity to focus on foreign policy and vice versa."
Yeah? Prove it. You've shown us is that you have the capacity to blink like a deer in the headlights when danger threatens America. You've shown us that your only response to a national disaster is to look out for your own self-interests. You've shown us that your capacity to fail at yet another job is simply limitless.
No nap for you! Three years!
(Believe it or not, cross-post isn't at home...)
Hail to the King, Baby
The King of Zembla is off on one, and it’s good:
As you already know, ex-FEMA chief Michael "Heck-of-a-Job" Brown has become the first bindlestiff thrown off the Bush gravy train. Back in the year 2000 it was widely and inexplicably assumed by many voters that Mr. Bush, an inexperienced cretin with no qualifications for the Presidency, would surround himself with "the best people"; instead he surrounded himself with the likes of Brown, an inexperienced cretin with no qualifications for the job of FEMA chief. (Although we have not had a chance to confirm our theory with the First Lady, we strongly suspect that Mr. Brown won the post by teaching Mr. Bush how to "milk" an Arabian stallion.) You will sleep more soundly tonight knowing that FEMA will henceforth be run by the helpful chap who advised, some years back, that Americans prepare for a biological attack by stocking up on duct tape.There’s lots more—check it out.
Misplaced trust in his fellow dimwits has unfortunately exposed the President to press grillings like the one described today by Editor & Publisher, in which it becomes painfully apparent that the Chief Executive is either unwilling or unable to read a newspaper, and reluctant (though presumably able) to turn on a television in times of crisis; has less "situational awareness" about current events affecting the lives of millions of Amercians than the average sports fan who sees an occasional news crawl at the bottom of his ESPN screen; and is therefore woefully unfit to govern. Quizzed by reporters about Brown's resignation, Mr. Bush professed mystification: "Maybe you know something I don't know." Well, let's hope so; God help anyone who doesn't.
And in case you missed the press grilling to which the King refers, read it here. When one reads Bush’s rambling, nonsensical, spintastic answers, it’s not hard to understand why it takes a moment to realize this is satire.
Get these guys out of office NOW!
The Washington Post reported Sunday that the Pentagon has drafted plans to use nuclear weapons preemptively against countries or terrorists with suspected WMD stockpiles:Could there be a more wrong-headed idea that developing a doctrine of nuclear preemption, no less while we are still in the midst of a war that was launched on the “unassailable certainty” that Iraq had WMDs, which turned out, of course, to be entirely fucking incorrect? A doctrine of nuclear preemption is vile, reckless, and insane on its face, but in light of the egregious Mesopotamian mistake we’re not even finished making, it’s mind-blowingly hubristic as well.
The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
A few obvious questions to ask before Rumsfeld approves this doctrine: would the Bush Administration be capable of gathering accurate intelligence before launching our nuclear weapons? Would a nuclear strike do more harm than good by sending deadly chemical and biological agents into the atmosphere? And would this new policy push North Korea and Iran to develop nuclear weapons more quickly?
We’re sure Donald Rumsfeld will provide some clear, concise answers.
Of course, all of that presumes that WMDs are of genuine concern to the current architects of our foreign policy, but, as with everything that the Bush administration does, the public rationale isn’t exactly, uh, the same as their real motives. When the real motive is imperialism in the interest of resource procurement—or, if you prefer, 21st century rape and pillaging—I suppose a doctrine of nuclear preemption isn’t so much stubbornly and stupidly arrogant as it is just willfully evil.
WSJ Reveals Federal Response to Katrina a Disaster
The Wall Street Journal (subscription only, though I’ll heavily excerpt for those who aren’t subscribers) has reviewed internal government communications dating back to Aug. 31 and issues a report under the headline “Documents Reveal Extent of Fumbles on Storm Relief” that truly makes one realize the Keystone Cops are running the country.
The documents highlight serious deficiencies in the Department of Homeland Security's National Response Plan, a post-Sept. 11 playbook on how to deal with catastrophic events. Mr. Chertoff activated the National Response Plan last Tuesday by declaring the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina an "Incident of National Significance."A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Valerie Smith, explained, "This is the first test of the [National Response Plan] and we will have lessons learned.” All righty then.
The plan, which was rolled out to much fanfare in January, essentially enables Washington to move federal assets to the disaster without waiting for requests from state officials. It then funnels help from all federal agencies through a single point of contact -- usually the secretary of homeland security -- a reform demanded after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
In one instance, federal environmental health specialists, who were charged with protecting both rescue workers and evacuees, weren't called in by the Department of Homeland Security until Sunday -- 12 days after the Occupational Safety & Health Administration announced it had teams from various agencies standing by ready to assist. Even now, with mounting evidence of environmental problems, the deployment is being held up by continuing interagency wrangling, according to officials at the National Institutes of Health, which also is involved in the effort.
[…]
In addition, FEMA's official requests, known as tasking assignments and used by the agency to demand help from other government agencies, show that it first asked the Department of Transportation to look for buses to help evacuate the more than 20,000 people who had taken refuge at the Superdome in New Orleans at 1:45 a.m. on Aug. 31. At the time, it only asked for 455 buses and 300 ambulances for the enormous task. Almost 18 hours later, it canceled the request for the ambulances because it turned out, as one FEMA employee put it, "the DOT doesn't do ambulances."
FEMA ended up modifying the number of buses it thought it needed to get the job done, until it settled on a final request of 1,355 buses at 8:05 p.m. on Sept. 3. The buses, though, trickled into New Orleans, with only a dozen or so arriving on the first day.
Hours before FEMA realized that it needed buses, Jonathan L. Snare, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, said he was prepared to offer the full resources of the agency to help protect the safety and health of workers responding to Katrina.
Health and safety experts play an important role by testing the environment at a disaster for toxins, disease and pathogens. They then advise rescue workers about needs for protective clothing for themselves as well as for the people they are trying to move from harm's way.
The National Response Plan gives OSHA responsibility to coordinate efforts to protect and monitor disaster workers and victims from environmental hazards.
But the part of the plan that authorizes OSHA's role as coordinator and allows it to mobilize experts from other agencies such as NIH wasn't activated by FEMA until shortly before 5 p.m. Sunday. The delay came despite repeated efforts by the agencies to mobilize.
Attempts by officials at NIH to reach FEMA officials and send them briefing materials by email failed as the agency's server failed.
"I noticed that every email to a FEMA person bounced back this week. They need a better internet provider during disasters!!" one frustrated Department of Health official wrote to colleagues last Thursday.
By Friday, experts and officials from NIH, the Department of Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency began to make frantic calls to the Department of Homeland Security and members of Congress, demanding that the worker-safety portion of the national response plan be activated.
No reason has been offered by either FEMA or the Department of Homeland Security for the delay in activating OSHA's role.
Don’t you feel safe knowing that they’ll have lessons learned?
You Cannot Resist Josh Kornbluth!
If after reading that headline, you’re thinking, But Shakespeare’s Sister—I don’t even know who Josh Kornbluth is!, then I’ve got two words for you: Haiku Tunnel. Just see it. (Especially—heaven help you—if you’ve ever worked as a temp.)
At the moment, this is really a post just for San Francisco Shakers, who have the opportunity to watch The Josh Kornbluth Show, a half-hour interview show which debuts tonight at 7:30 on KQED-TV, Channel 9, San Francisco's public-television affiliate. However, with any luck, it will also soon be made available by the magic of streaming video for those of us who live in Shitsville (or a nice town that just isn’t San Francisco). You can get more details at Josh’s new blog.
Josh says via email: “I think it's safe to say that I already combine the pixie-ish sparkle of a Katie Couric with the aquiline features of a Charles Kuralt and the professional credibility of a Jeff Gannon.” Now who the fuck could resist that?
Bush Administration Great Idea #12,381
David Paulison has been named as Brownie’s replacement. This is the numbnuts who recommended buying plastic sheeting and duct tape because they might be “helpful after a biological, chemical or radiological attack.” Superb decision.
Blue Dress
When I read that LA had suffered a major power outage, my first thought was, What the hell is going on?! Patrick from Yelladog seems to have a good answer, provided in a comments thread on an earlier post:
I was listening to This American Life last night, thinking about what has happened in New Orleans and what has happened to the country and its infrastructure (there are blackouts in LA as we speak and my hosting company appears to have gone down with it) and it occurs to me that the gods of karma are rewarding us with the life we have exported to the people of Iraq: failure of basic services of government, chaos, looting and death.Yeah. Except, of course, on a much lesser scale than what we delivered.
We're all wearing the blue dress, now.
Tangentially, Shaker Deborah sent me the link to this article in The New Statesman that examines how America’s insistence on maintaining a deluded self-image makes much of this inevitable. Interestingly, the author seems to envision a similar fate for Britain.
