LET MY PEOPLE MARRY

President Barack Obama today declared that his position has evolved and that he now is in favor of gays being able to marry.

Vice President Joe Biden made a similar declaration on Meet The Press on Sunday.

Voters in North Carolina yesterday approved a state constitutional amendment that bans gay marriage.

North Carolina was once the scene for  protests where four young black men sat at a lunch counter in a Woolworth’s store where it was illegal to for blacks to have a simple meal with whites.

North Carolina was on the wrong side of history in 1960.

North Carolina is on the wrong side of history in 2012.

Those young black men were my people.

I am not black.

Six million Jews perished at the hands of the Nazis in World War II.

The Nazis were on the wrong side of history.

Those Jews were my people.

I am not a Jew.

Until the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, in the nation as a whole and in most states, it was illegal for women to vote.

Our electoral process was on the wrong side of history prior to 1920.

Those women were my people.

I am not a woman.

The argument goes that marriage between same sex couples is not natural and undermines “acceptable” marriage.

I was married. I got divorced.

Did I undermine acceptable marriage?

I have friends or know of people—heterosexuals—who have been married and divorced more than once.

Mitt Romney, the putative Republican nominee for President, is a Mormon. The Mormons once permitted their male members to have multiple wives. He is against gay marriage

Newt Gingrich, who recently ended his campaign for President, has been married three times and divorced twice. He is against gay marriage.

Real estate mogul/blowhard Donald Trump, who last year tried to threaten America with the possibility he would run for President (his bluff was called), has been married three times and divorced twice. He is against gay marriage.

Former (9/11) Mayor of New York (9/11) Rudy Giuliani (9/11) has been married three (9/11) times and divorced twice.(9/11) He is against gay marriage. (9/11)

Noted radio bloviator and misogynist Rush Limbaugh has been married four times and divorced thrice. He is against gay marriage.

The Republic has survived these politicians’ cavalier attitudes towards marriage.

Many celebrities are famous also for multiple marriages.

The Killer, rocker Jerry Lee Lewis, once famously married his thirteen year old cousin. He was married twice before that and four times since. His latest wife, whom he married earlier this year, is the ex-wife of his cousin who is the brother of the other cousin Jerry once wed.

Movie stars such as Zsa Zsa Gabor, Mickey Rooney, and Elizabeth Taylor were married and divorced more than six times each.

The Republic has survived.

I have a close friend who has been with his partner for over thirty years. A few years ago they had to go to Canada to legally marry, to make official their loving, committed relationship.

There are several states where gays may legally marry and have been doing so.

The Republic has survived.

On Facebook or chain emails the exhortation is often made to honor our troops and veterans.

About eighteen months ago Congress voted to repeal the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy that forbade our troops from being openly gay, despite fighting and dying just as their heterosexual counterparts did.

The military, and thus the United States, was on the wrong side of history.

Those gays were my people.

I am not gay.

If these gay troops return home, most would not be able to legally marry depending on where they reside.

We seem perfectly willing to let gays DIE for us.

Why are we not as willing to let gays LIVE for themselves?

Let us be on the right side of history.

THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS

As frequently happens an online discussion in another forum inspired a new entry from me in my own blog.

Bingo!! Here we go again.

In today’s entry of Reg on Wry, the blog maintained by the erudite and witty and liberal Post Gazette editor, one fellow who uses the screen name Tourist (he’s currently living in Japan) made this interesting observation:

Here’s my sympathetic take.  When you learned Santa Claus’s secret identity, it was presented as trust.  You weren’t a child anymore.  You could handle the truth.

Debunking what an adult believes is trickier.  Children have room to learn and grow.  Adults are more locked in, fearful.  Expect panic.  Expect tantrums.  Expect cognitive dissonance.  Do not expect them to be good sports.

Sometimes they charge when they’re wounded.

This statement was partly in response to a link I provided on the site a day or so ago about libertarianism. The article I linked to is called “The Liberty Scam” and is on Slate.

http://www.slate.com/id/2297019/

The writer discusses libertarianism and the fact that its revivalist from the 70’s, Rober Nozick, later disavowed many of his own preachings on the subject. This is important because libertarianism is all the rage among GOP conservatives, especially the brand identified with Ayn Rand.

Rep. Paul Ryan, Boy Blunder of the deficit reduction idealists, is an Ayn Rand disciple, and her works, if I am not mistaken,  are required reading.

The problem is that many newer analyses of Rand as well as closer examination of her own words show that there is no Wizard behind the curtain (You go, Toto!).

Instead of a philosophy of free markets and individual liberties true libertarianism has been exposed as an immature, selfish approach to life where people have no responsibilities beyond grabbing all they can for themselves with no concern for the general welfare whatsoever. Naturally they gravitate towards little or no government interference.

Now that’s not to say a libertarian hasn’t any worthwhile ideas. Ron Paul, now becoming the Harold Stassen of the libertarian fringe, happens to have some notions I heartily endorse, such as ending the insane War on drugs, though I doubt our rationales for doing so are even remotely identical.

But Paul, and his son Rand, are the closest examples of true libertarians we have on the national scene. Moreso, what the conservative right promotes has libertarian elements economically but wildly veers from that ideal on social issues.

Getting back to the Tourist Santa analogy at the top of the page, there is a similar myth to telling kids that putting cookies and milk on the mantel will make Santa appear. That is the one that goes ” cut taxes on the rich and jobs will appear”.

It’s time for the conservatives spouting such nonsense to grow up and realize there is no Santa Claus.

I suppose there are liberal shibboleths of like ilk. But the difference between conservatives and liberals in this regard is that cons stick to their guns relentlessly while libs are willing to drop theirs like a hot potato when it is convenient to do so.

One would think that when David Stockman, the guru of trickle down economics under Reagan, the real god many on the right want to occupy the throne of theocracy, repudiates the theory, that more folks would pay attention to him.

But apparently there are too many doubting Thomases on the right who refuse to accept the rebirth of Stockman despite visible evidence of the wounds, not to Stockman’s hands and feet, but to the pocketbooks of the vast majority of Americans.

Likewise the right also attacks institutions and programs that are a nuisance to them, but not a danger to our American way of life, though their rhetoric would have you believe so.

Gay marriage will not kill the institution. If anything the thirteen wives of Trump, Giuliani, Gingrich, and Limbaugh are a testament to the resilience of the marriage ideal.

Abortion, while not desirable, destroys fewer babies and young lives, no matter the definition of when life begins, than does poverty and neglect and governmental policies pushed by conservatives that are designed to demean poor people and keep them beholden to the wealthy.

Foreign interventions are wrong period. Not just when a Democrat decides to follow in the steps of his predecessor who received nothing but kudos from the right for doing so. (My separate condemnation of Obama for his war-mongering is on record on this site.)

The government’s regulatory powers, though overreaching at times, far from discouraging business, instead level the playing fields so that the same players are not always up to bat.

So no, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus, just a plethora of conservative talking points that have been discredited on so many levels but that the faithful cling to even as they gradually surrender the other accutrements of chldhood.

POLITICAL KINDERGARTEN

Ever get fed up with the ways of many of our prominent politicians? You know, how they bicker back and forth while ignoring the lessons they have been taught and all the admonitions to “play well together”?

If you’re an Early Childhood Education specialist, surely you can see  traits of these politicians that are shared with kindergartners. You know, selfishness, fibbing, temper tantrums, bossiness or even bullying, cheap gossiping—well, you get the picture. Examples of these types are readily identifiable.

You have prissy little Mitt, after long anticipation,  finally getting the opportunity to address the class, to deny some alleged misbehavior. After all, when he played doctor he  never forced any other kids to play doctor with him, like that bad boy Barack did.

Just as he opens his mouth little Sarah pops breathlessly in, stealing poor Mitt’s spotlight while she says oh he’s just as bad as Barack and both should be banned from the class.

Meanwhile, John and Mitch, good friends of Paul, are trying to coerce all the other kids to play with  Paul even though few of the kids really like the same games as Paul. John and Mitch tell the others there will be no money for field trips if they fail to go along.

Ask Newt what happens when you don’t go along with what Paul wants.

Mike, the once pudgy toddler who still looks like he wants to eat everything in sight, just sits in a corner making nasty remarks about his classmates but still standing apart from them.

Nancy and Harry are often ostracized because they always want the teacher to make new rules to control everyone. Nancy can be found pouting when, even though Barack is her friend, he ignores her while actually doing what she wanted done in the first place.

Barack is the smartest kid in the room by far but sometimes talks down to his peers. The trouble then isn’t that this condescension is resented, but that none of the kids who sit on the right side of the room can understand what the hell he is talking about.

When Barack first came to the class he was not only shunned but some of the kids thought he was from a strange strange land far away. But little kids have a poor sense of distance so it turns out he simply resided in an adjoining neighborhood which he proved by showing his bus pass.

Then, last winter, when some other kids got into a little squabble that could have involved the neighborhood, Barack hurled a bunch of snowballs into their yard trying to get them to stop. Oh all the kids sitting on the right side of the class didn’t like that, even though George, who was kicked out of school, had once spread rumors that relatives of those kids had snowballs of their own and he had a buch of ruffian friends of his go into their yard and beat them up. No snowballs were found.

Barack’s best buddy in school is Joe, a slightly older kid who can talk about anything but will become completely mesmerized by trains.

The prissy kid in the corner is Donald, never to be found in jeans and sneakers and his hair always in place, even if the species of the source of the hair is unknown to modern day zoologists. He keeps printing his name on any surfaces he can reach.

The other day Sarah and Donald ate lunch together, barely having time to chew and swallow since neither shut up the entire time, producing a cacaphony that seemed overwhelming but Donald managed to unflappably eat his carrot sticks and cupcake with a fork.

To the disappointment of Herman, Donald wouldn’t try the pizza he had brought from home. But then again, Herman always has trouble getting his classmates to pay attention to him even if teacher frequently praises him.

Jon is new to the class but he’s considered an outsider because, instead of playing with all the kids on the right side of the room that he used to know, he helped Barack make friends with some Chinese kids from another neighborhood who had been accused of stealing all the marbles from the school and replacing them with cheaper ones coated in lead.

Everyone likes Timmy but he’s always the last one picked for any games. No hate or disrepect but they simply forget he is there. Tim does try to gain notice by denying all things he has been seen doing.

Michelle is pretty annoying. Whenever the teacher asks questions about lessons the class has had, Michelle wildly waves her hand until she’s permitted to answer then always, I mean ALWAYS, answers incorrectly.

Wonderfully, autistic children are mainstreamed into the school with excellent results. Rudy, one such child, has learned to socialize well (with three little girlfriends—the little devil). But he broke all the radio-controlled police cars and fire trucks and now he’ll occasionally just sit in the corner and mutter “nine eleven” over and over.

There is one former student who visits periodically. That’s Bill who inevitably tells all why the school was so much better when he was there.

Now it’s June and Kindergarten will soon be ending for the summer. I wonder if any of the kids will show more maturity in the fall. You think there’s a chance in hell?

RUNNING ON EMPTY—2012 GOP RACE—THE MOVIE

One difficulty with our Presidential election campaigns is that they are played out through sound bites and choppy appearances on TV’s small screen, either on the talking heads shows or during any debates. Even with today’s 50 inch screens and high definition pictures, what should be presented as a scenic panorama still seems confined by the limitations of the medium itself.

There are many potential candidates on the Republican side, all chomping at the bit at the chance to pull off the rare defeat of the incumbent, as President Obama will almost certainly be the Democratic nominee. Meanwhile,  behind the scenes,  some big time Hollywood producers have given the green light to a star-studded motion picture that will mirror all the ups and downs certain to be encountered by these candidates as they move through the primaries to an exciting denoument at the Republican Nominating Convention in Tampa, Florida.

I have uncovered some privileged information on the casting efforts for this film. Though not all the names currently being tossed about for the nomination excite the general public, the human beings behind the names are a singular lot, deserving of representative casting.

Here is what I have learned about the cast with the name of the candidate followed by the star chosen to portray him/her and a capsule explanation of the casting choice.

TIM PAWLENTY               JASON ALEXANDER

This choice doesn’t jump right out at ya but it makes sense. After all, which balding middle-aged man is more believable in his previous role…the one who claims to be the former Governor of a possibly non-existent state, Minnesota, or the one who claims to be the head of the non-existent Van De Lay Enterprises.

SARAH PALIN              WHOOPI GOLDBERG

I know, most folks would assume Tina Fey would reprise her fine depcition of the half-governor. But to show Palin and Goldberg have much in common I can reveal this little known fact.

Palin married a man whose first name begings with “T”, Todd, and whose last name ends with “N”, PaliN. Goldberg once had an affair with a man whose first name begins with “T”, Ted, and whose last name ends with “N”, DansoN.

To boot, although born Caryn Johnson, for stage purposes Goldberg took her first name from a whoopee cushion, while Palin’s every utterance reminds one of the same.

And they are both familiar with birthing babies out of wedlock.

HERMAN CAIN             SHERMAN HEMSLEY

For all anyone knows they may actually be the same person.

MITCH DANIELS            TOMMY CHONG

What in the world do the Indiana Governor (a real state by the way, I’ve been there) and a perennial, albeit, hilarious, stoner have in common? Have you not heard about Daniels’s May 1970 bust, while a student at Princeton, for having enough marijuana in his room to fill two size 12 shoe boxes?

If that doesn’t satisfy you, how about the fact that both have suspicious heritage, having descended from much-maligned ethnic groups in some ways considered dangerous to U.S. security. Daniels is Arab and Chong Chinese.

MICHELLE BACHMANN                 ROSIE O’DONNELL

Both are known for controversial pronouncements. As Bachman will need to fend off Donald Trump, who better to portray her than someone who has already traveled that road?

DONALD TRUMP                   CARROT TOP

Another no-brainer once you really think about it. Both have oddly colored strangely styled hair and sport too much makeup. Both are known for their props. Carrot Top pulls his out onstage while Trump plasters his name on his anywhere he can.

Trump is Chairman Of The Board while Carrot Top appeared in a movie with that name. Neither has distinguished himself with his knowledge of either domestic or foreign policy.

HALEY BARBOUR                   BUDDY HACKETT

Both are ruddy faced and chunky. Barbour has occasionally adopted a position or made a statement that one might associate with a member of the Ku Klux Klan, Hackett, as a Jew, would have been a target of the Ku Klux Klan.

No matter that Hackett died and was cremated in 2003. Barbour will be a pile of ashes alongside the campaign trail soon enough himself.

MIKE HUCKABEE                    KEN OSMOND (EDDIE HASKELL)

Obsequious to a fault when trying to impress. Dangerous mischief maker when not.

MITT ROMNEY                    ROBERT REDFORD

Pretty boy trying to escape his past, Romney as moderate Governor of Massachusetts, Redford as The Sundance Kid going to Bolivia.

RUDY GIULIANI                           DUSTIN HOFFMAN

Both have been characters mechanically spewing repetitions of the same phrase over and over with no substance. Giuliani’s was “9/11, 9/11, 9/11”. Hoffman’s was as Rainman , “Judge Wapner, Judge Wapner Judge Wapner”.

NEWT GINGRICH                   GEORGE C. SCOTT

Newt is a flim flam man. Scott portrayed one in the 1967 film of that name.

RICK SANTORUM                    JAMES WOODS

Woods specializes in playing shallow but superior acting characters who can at once be smarmy, petulant and ingratiating. MY GOSH!! They were separated at birth!

THE FIELD (All other candidates)             THE MUNCHKINS

One is a group of extremely small stature with no true ideas how to make the country better. The other is a group of performers in the beloved movie, The Wizard of Oz.

Though brief, there will naturally be a few scenes involving President Barack Obama. The GOP candidates were asked for their selection of an actor to accurately depict their image of our Commander In Chief. They unanimously chose Stepin Fetchit.

CANTOR’S (NOT COOGAN’S)BLUFF

Voters in D.C. City!
Heed the warning before it’s too late!
Watch for the tell-tale sign of corruption!
The moment your Rep enters the House,
Does he put his constituents on their knees?
Is there a bribery stain on his index finger?
A lobbyist hidden in the cloak room?
Is he starting to memorize jokes from the White House Correspondents Dinner?

Are certain words creeping into his conversation?
Words like ‘slash?”
And ‘bipartisan?”
Well, if so my friends,
Ya got trouble,
Right here in D.C. City!
With a capital “T”
And that rhymes with “B”
And that stands for Budget.
We’ve surely got trouble!
Right here in River City!
Remember Iraq, Medicare and the No Fly Zone!
Oh, we’ve got trouble.
We’re in terrible, terrible trouble.
That game with the fifteen trillion debt is a devil’s tool!
Oh yes we got trouble, trouble, trouble!
With a “T”! Gotta rhyme it with “B”!
And that stands for Budget!!!

With apologies to Meredith Willson and Robert Preston.

Yes, we got trouble. How can you avoid knowing that? The Budget! The Federal Budget!

It is on the lips of all.

Standard and Poors wants to downgrade the credit rating of The United States of America! Can you believe that? The same company that gave high ratings to all the investment schemes that brought on our Real Estate crisis?

Perhaps we need to check our nation’s credit rating by going through FreeCreditReport.com. Surely there must be mistaken information that needs to be corrected. I mean I know we don’t have any charge-offs or bankruptcies. We always pay the interest on our debts that other countries and our own citizens have never failed to extend to us.

I mean what’s $15 trillion in debt when you can just crank up the printing presses for a few days and churn out as many greenbacks as needed to satisfy any demand for payment. Try that when you get an overdue notice from VISA and see what happens!

Ah!! But the reckoning is fast approaching. Congress is serious about balancing the budget and beginning to pay down our debt.

The White House is serious about balancing the budget and beginning to pay down our debt.

Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has even introduced a plan that will bring about this desired outcome, even if it does sentence future seniors to unaffordable health care and cuts taxes for the rich who need that just about as much as Donald Trump, Newt Gingrich, and Rudy Giuliani need to get married a fourth time simply to keep up with Rush Limbaugh.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the GOP would not approve an increase in the debt ceiling without major spending cuts or a change in the budget process. Those close to Cantor say that he doesn’t want the nation to default, but rather seeks to make it clear that the GOP won’t be satisfied with small concessions.

http://slatest.slate.com/id/2291778/?v=1#3

Let us call that just what it is…Cantor’s Bluff.

There is nothing, absolutely no way to avoid running a deficit for the foreseeable future. Even if you accept that Paul Ryan has a miracle plan, albeit  an extremely difficult to implement one, that will eliminate deficits and eradicate the national debt.

Okay, so let’s take the tough approach, bite the bullet, and accept Cantor’s challenge by adopting Ryan’s budget proposal, right?

You fool. Careful analysis of Ryan’s “roadmap” reveals it does anything but balance the budget…at least not until most of us are dead .

Thanks to House budget chief Paul Ryan, it’s possible to measure the size of this fraud. And it’s colossal,” Miller wrote. “As can never be said often enough, Ryan is absurdly hailed as a fiscal ‘conservative’ for a ‘roadmap’ that doesn’t balance the budget until the 2060s and that adds an unthinkable $62 trillion to the national debt between now and then.”        

That’s a claim two months ago by Matt Miller in The Washington Post. Politifact examined Miller’s claim and rated it mostly true.

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/mar/03/matt-miller/matt-miller-blasts-deficit-debt-implications-paul-/

So you see, it’s all a sham. Cantor is trying to use his supposed leverage to get spending concessions from the White House and Congressional Democrats on the fear of the federal debt limit not being extended. As you can easily see, there’ no way the debt limit does not have to be raised even if Ryan’s budget is the best of all possible worlds. And it is not.

So I say call Cantor’s bluff. After all, he’s no Clint Eastwood arriving from the Southwest to save New York City. Send him home having neither captured nor killed the fugitive he is pursuing.

Oh…and as for Ryan?…Nah…I wouldn’t buy a budget plan or a used car from him.

PRESIDENTIAL FOLLIES 2012

HURRY HURRY HURRY!! Get ’em while they’re hot. We’ve got male Republican Presidential candidates. We’ve got female Republican Presidential candidates.

We’ve got strong men and bearded ladies. We’ve got Two-faced men. We got ’em in all sizes and shapes and colors. There’s something for everybody. HURRY HURRY HURRY!

There is a long list of potential GOP candidates for 2012. All candidates have flaws, but some of the ones in these Republicans, if part of a screenplay, would make the Three Stooges shorts resemble Chekhov’s Three Sisters.

1. Herman Cain

Businessman and radio talk show host from Georgia.
Yeah, I have no freaking idea who he is either.

2. Buddy Roemer

Former Louisiana governor.
Don’t Louisiana governors automatically draw a
Go Directly To Jail…Do Not Pass Go….Do not
Collect $200 Card upon leaving office?

3. Fred Karger

Political consultant and gay activist from California.
Wasn’t that the name of a Dan Ackroyd character
on SNL? You know Fred Karger-Male prostitute?

4. Newt Gingrich

Former Georgia Congressman. Former persecutor
of Bill Clinton for sex outside his marriage….while
Newt was having an affair with a woman on his
staff. While he was married to his second wife who
he announced to his first wife that he was leaving
her for….while said first wife was in the hospital
being treated for cancer.

And wasn’t Newt the one who made excuses for
his adultery by claiming it was due to his “Love of
Country”?

5. Haley Barbour

The man who acts like the White Citizens
Councils of Jim Crow days were the equivalent of
the Jaycees or The Welcome Wagon rather than
fronts for the Ku Klux Klan.

6. Donald Trump

The man whose ego exceeds the sum of the
egos of all the other candidates…not for 2012…
all the candidates who have ever run for office at
any level of government. He bragged in an interview
he has $600 million available to pay for his own
campaign but apparently doesn’t have $6000 cash
to join the Hair Club For Men. Considering how he
ran his casinos, his solution to deficit spending will
be to put the country into bankruptcy and fuck all
his creditors. TAKE THAT YOU DAMNED CHINESE!

7. Mitt Romney

The Ironic One. If nominated he will be forced to
run denouncing Obamacare which essentially is the
same as the health care law he passed in Mass. And,
as a Mormon, the church notorious for multiple wives
in its early existence and in some obscure pockets
even now, Mitt has only been married once where
many of his rivals have entered matrimony more
than once. And his father ran American Motors,
Rambler, which was so innovative it went out of
business when American autos ruled!

8. Rudy Guiliani

The King of 9/11 who depicts himself as a hero for
how he handled that tragedy in NYC when all he did
was attend funerals and talk big while his admini-
stration’s failure to provide better communications
systems for his police and firemen was directly
responsible for many of their deaths. Also a three
time entry in the marriage wars, he specialized in
moving his mistress into the Mayor’s mansion
while his then wife was still living there.

9. John McCain

The former Maverick who now denies he was ever a
Maverick which is certainly news to Bret, Bart and
Beau. Plus he’s had only two wives, making him
barely a contender among the GOP elite.

10. Michelle Bachmann

Boy I really miss her with Turner Overdrive. It’s
obvious the days on the road with the drugs and
ear-splitting music destroyed her sanity. Perhaps
able to draw some sympathy votes from aging
rock and rollers.

11. Mitch Daniels

Former Governor of Indiana…..yes that is a state,
not just an imaginary place where Dave Letterman’s
fantasy mother lives. Maybe he can hit Trump up for
a membership to The Hair Club For Men.

12. Tim Pawlenty

Former Minnesota Governor who hired a veteran
producer of videos on MTV to produce campaign ads
to enhance his charisma factor. No, you’re right, it
didn’t work to get Perry Como on MTV either.

13. Mike Huckabee

He is just further proof of what I learned after
losing a large amount of weight. You also lose a
great deal of your capacity for logical and critical
thinking and results in incompetent decision making.
My experience just resulted in a woman breaking my
heart. His led him to a spot on FoxNews. He preaches
family values and appears to back that up with only
one wife. But he is from Arkansas and how many of
your cousins can you realistically expect to be a
love match anyways?

14. Sarah Palin

A refreshing change. She’s only been married once
and her daughter Bristol, baby and all, has never
walked down the aisle. (Perhaps her alter ego is
Murphy Brown?) Two problems with her as President.
One is that when she receives a twenty-one gun
salute she will probably want to participate. But,
based on her TV show, when she hunts she needs a
small army to support her. How will she be able to
cut the pentagon budget? The second is that, if
elected, her VP better be more than competent.
After all she will be resigning in 2014 so she can go
on her next book signing tour.

There you have it…what I call the Dirty Baker’s Dozen Plus One. The Party Of Lincoln Indeed. Well, hell, Lincoln was a theater goer and his selection for the night of his assassination indicates a preference for comedy. Maybe he’ll also appreciate flat out farce.