Several Republicans said they were upset with Leahy for scheduling the hearing without much GOP input and indicated they may use delay tactics in committee and on the floor to give themselves more time.
“I’m not sure we’ll be ready,” said Coburn, who sits on the Judiciary Committee. “If I’m ready to attend, I will attend. If I’m not, I won’t.”
[...]
Republicans argue that they would need to read 76 cases a day to get prepared for the hearings.
“She has 10 times as many decisions as Roberts did,” said Kyl, who is also on the Judiciary Committee.” “It takes a long time to go through that material. We’ll simply have to wait and see how that review goes. I’ve checked, and it’s not going really fast. It’s hard to do.”
As a law student, I realize that I am ill-prepared to weigh in on the proper way to pore over a Supreme Court nominee’s record, but I do have one thought…maybe you could, you know, get more people? I’m sure there are several dozen conservative lawyers and law professors who’d be happy to make a convincing case that Sonia Sotomayor opened every hearing with a ceremonial eating of babies.
Our democracy is served by an adversarial system with two or more strong advocates for clear, defined positions. The Democratic Party barely qualifies as one, and the GOP is somewhere between the Ayn Rand School for Tots and the parts of Pardon the Interruption where both of the hosts shout gibberish over each other.
Liberty University has revoked its recognition of the campus Democratic Party club, saying “we are unable to lend support to a club whose parent organization stands against the moral principles held by” the university.
“It kind of happened out of nowhere,” said Brian Diaz, president of LU’s student Democratic Party organization, which LU formally recognized in October.
Tim Kaine is asking the university to reconsider, and the lame response to pretend they respect freedom of speech and assembly is to claim the students are still allowed to be in the club and have meetings, they just have no formal recognition and all the benefits that come with it. What’s nice about this is that Jerry Falwell Jr. is making it clear that “morality” is a partisan thing, and doesn’t even try to hide that “family values” and other such code words are ways of suggesting that only those who believe in one-party rule under the Republicans are real Americans, going to heaven, and quite possibly deserving admission into the human race.
“They are good, Christian kids who sit with me at ball games. I just hope they find a pro-life family organization to affiliate with so they can be endorsed by Liberty again.“
I’m sure this would be violating some kind of federal laws, but then again, I don’t know that Liberty U. is really accredited. But what’s really interesting to me is that comes on the heels of a widely-publicized attempt by wingnuts to force Notre Dame to throw all its academic and social standards out, and declare themselves and god for the Republicans. The excuse for protesting Obama’s speech was abortion, but since this was the first time this happened, I’m forced to conclude that “Democrats handed Republicans an ass-whuppin’ during the election” was the real reason. That someone whose ass was personally whupped by Obama—-Alan Keyes—-was all over the coverage confirms this to me. Of course, the possibility of Notre Dame capitulating was next to nil, but it was sickly entertaining watching our mainstream media assume, against all evidence to the contrary, that any affiliation with a religion requires a university to embrace the torture-loving, war-mongering, economy-destroying Republican party in a blatantly partisan manner. Granted, this isn’t the worst assumption, since religion is about power, but what they failed to understand was that the university was a university.
This post by Digby chronicling the psychology of the Republican faux outrage machine is a must-read, and I try not to say that lightly. It’s a tactic they use routinely at this point—-maybe not quite daily, but at this point, more than weekly. At any point in time, your average wingnut has to juggle a shocking number of pretend offenses, from being pretend shocked that Pelosi criticized the CIA to fake outraged that Notre Dame routinely invited a President to speak at its graduation without checking with Alan Keyes first. In fact, I’d say that on top of what Digby is saying, another function of the hissy fit is base control. By pumping conservative followers with one pretend scandal after another, and occupying all of their minimal brain space with it, you effectively prevent them from actually thinking about real issues that matter. Which is critical, because actual thought is fatal to conservatism, especially the way that it’s practiced now.
Of course, the whole Digby post really got to me, because (not to pick at old scabs) I was the center of exactly such a faux outrage. The way wingnuts were carrying on when Melissa McEwan and I got jobs with the Edwards campaign, you would have thought no one had ever even thought to suggest that there’s something immoral about the way the Catholic Church oppresses women and gay men, and how they are promoting the spread of AIDS, particularly in developing countries, because they’re so scared that someone might prevent a pregnancy while also preventing HIV. But what I witnessed at the time was this: The whole faux scandal became a real lightening bolt for how the netroots would like to deal with this routine outrage machine the Republicans have built up. Which is that we think that you should throw them the finger and get on with your lives. And I tend to agree with the rest of the netroots on this, but sympathize with the fact that Democrats fear doing this. Digby:
In a political context this translates to a fear by liberal politicians that they will be rejected by the American people—and a subconscious dulling of passion and inspiration in the mistaken belief that they can spare themselves further humiliation if only they control their rhetoric.
President Barack Obama’s promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison suffered a blow Tuesday when his allies in the Senate said they would refuse to finance the move until the administration delivers a satisfactory plan for what to do with the detainees there…While allies such as No. 2 Senate Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois cast the development as a delay of only a few months, other Democrats have made it plain they don’t want any of Guantanamo’s detainees sent to the United States to stand trial or serve prison sentences.
“We don’t want them around,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
REID: Well, the decision to close Guantanamo was a right one.
I agree with President Bush. I agree with John McCain . I agree with Barack Obama . Guantanamo makes us less save [sic].
However, this is neither the time nor the bill to deal with this. Democrats under no circumstances will move forward without a comprehensive, responsible plan from the president. We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States…
If people are—if terrorists are released in the United States, part of what we don’t want is them be put in prisons in the United States. We don’t want them around the United States.
I’m not just casting around for excuses for the party as a whole, but Reid sounds fucking confused. If Obama doesn’t have a sensible plan, whatever. The bill itself was written to not release the money until a plan was approved. Moreover, in trying to justify himself, Reid sounds like he doesn’t actually know what his opinion was. It’s not often you get to hear a Senator triangulate in real-time. Later, his spokesman clarified what Reid meant to mean:
“He’s not going to do anything until we get a plan from the president.” [Reid spokesman] Manley said. He said “the leader is leaving the door open to detainees being transferred to American prisons, should the administration put forward a plan to do so.”
Damn, Reid is just a disaster. No matter what his intentions were, he’s providing political cover for DINOs like Jim Webb:
We’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars building an appropriate facility with all security precautions in Guantanamo to try these cases. There are cases against international law. These aren’t people who were in the United States committing a crime in the United States. These are people who were brought to Guantanamo for international terrorism*. I do not believe they should be tried in the United States.
From the Fox News article, Webb sounds awfully familiar:
“We shouldn’t be creating artificial timelines,” Webb said.
Hey! He stole Republicans’ catchphrase! Man, they’re gonna be pissed.
I don’t even know what to do with all this. At this point, we could give them 99 Senators and the sole Republican Senator could be a wallaby openly taking bribes from the tobacco industry**, and Dems would still be “sick of getting walloped by Republicans over…phony, made-up issue[s]***.”
Seriously, Dems? You’re supposed to be doing the walloping. It’s not a made-up issue, it’s a central promise made by your President. Get your shit together.
* Yanno.
** I promise I thought of the analogy first, then found the picture. Well, sort of. Originally it was a wallaby smoking a corncob pipe, but damn, I’m still pretty good.
*** Somebody totally said that.
Were you aware that not-so-secret Kenyan Muslim Barack Hussein Obama is also the evilest man alive?
I will bet you were not, because you were too busy tracking down a good source for organic tofu and gangbang pornography for your alternative Fourth of July, which will be held on the graves of American soldiers. Naked. Being a liberal is so awesome.
The 65th Anniversary of D-Day is fast approaching. Barack Obama will attend the events on June 6th as George Bush did in 2004 for the sixtieth memorial service. Here is the rub, as of now Obama’s State Department has asked (read demanded) the French government not allow tour guide services to operate that day. It is a big day for Normandy tourism. Yet, the king will not allow those not connected with government to enjoy the day. Obama is very important you know. This is an unprecedented request. I hope the French come to their senses and deny it.
Note that there’s no link in that excerpt, no source for the story. My initial assumption was that this was just so well-known in the land of patriotism and Quarter Pounders that the source didn’t need to be linked. So, I did what any burgeoning statist would do - I Googled the story in a transparent attempt to destroy the author’s life.
Every single blog or source talking about this links back to Big Hollywood. Now, far be it from me to impugn the journalistic integrity of a man whose major talent seems to be looking like a constipated Kiefer Sutherland, but, uh, really? Can I just write that John Boehner has instituted “Swimsuit Thursdays” for all of his young staffers?
Wait, John Boehner is misappropriating campaign funds to force his staffers to go-go dance on his newly installed office poles? Man, I’m glad I told myself this thing on the Internet that I will now treat as gospel truth. Thanks, me!
If you’ve been following this non-starter of a controversy over President Obama’s commencement speech at Notre Dame—-and I say non-starter, because the students, faculty, and staff all want it, with the exception of a small minority of right wing wankers pretending their objection is religious in nature—-you’ve been witnessing a first class example of how religion is used as a rationalization for whatever you wanted to believe in the first place. Former Vatican ambassador Mary Ann Glendon is turning down some big award from Notre Dame to protest the fact that they’re honoring President Obama, as they have every other President since Eisenhower. The ostensible reason that Obama is being protested is that he’s pro-choice, and that implies—-quite falsely—-that Notre Dame is changing some tradition of rejecting pro-choice Presidents, even though they’ve done it before. It does make you think about what it could be that’s different about Obama that is causing this reaction, but of course speculation of this sort will just result in a bunch of pearl-clutching faux outrage of the sort we’ve seen from Donna Barstow or Byron York.
Anyway, the direct claim, however facetious, that Notre Dame has some sort of obligation to shun pro-choice Presidents starting the day that we elected a
black
Chicago-based
Democrat in the era when most Notre Dame students first came into the age of the majority doesn’t make sense even by the stated standards of the protesters. As many people have pointed out, Notre Dame honored President Bush, and the Iraq War was singled out specifically by the Pope as a violation of god’s will. Cathy Lynn Grossman pointed out this huge and obvious error in consistency that makes the protesters look, at best, like they’re motivated by nothing more than base misogyny (true enough), but also like they are, to use Pam’s awesome coinage, easily race-aroused. Which is somewhat surprising, because fetus worshipers tend to be mindful of putting up a consistency front to obscure that loathing for female sexuality motivates them by acting like they just really, really, really love microscopic life. But of course, if you make it clear that you love microscopic life more than the lives of human beings who have brains and skeletal systems, then people are going to be skeptical of your claims to be “pro-life”. She’s just trying to help, nuts!
People who keep attempting to somehow equate Obama’s support of abortion with Bush’s decision to invade Iraq are missing one key point. Abortion is clearly defined by the Catholic Church as an “intrinsic evil” with no redeeming qualities and no room for negotiation. War and the death penalty do not fall under this category and heads of state are given some leway in these matters. War, good catholics can and do disagree on. Abortion has no such status, according to the Church.
Of course, even if you do think that fetuses are morally superior not just to women, but all sentient life, you have to admit that fetuses die during war. So why is that okay? Is it because the pregnant woman usually dies along with her fetus, making it okay? That doesn’t make sense—-after all, anti-choicers get behind laws increasing penalties for people who kill pregnant women, so clearly they think killing a woman in the process of killing a fetus actually doesn’t make it okay.
I’m forced to conclude that the rule is that It’s Okay If You’re A Patriarch. Of course, being a Republican is now a bare minimum for being a patriarch. But if you’re a Republican President, you’re the biggest patriarch of all, and you get to kill whoever you like, fetal or not. I’m forced to conclude that it’s irrelevant if you think it’s “life” or not in the womb—-whether or not it’s right to terminate it depends entirely on your social status, and women aren’t accorded enough to even control their own bodies.
I, for one, object to letting Spitzer get off by pretending to be too stupid to know what this is about. He’s a smart man, and I’ve read his writing. He’s good at understanding systems, and puncturing through certain sacred cows of our culture. Which means he’s got the chops to realize that the sacred cow of fucking women and then viciously punishing them for the crime of being sexual* isn’t cool. Isn’t cool at all. But he’s going to play dumb.
Among the many odd traits of political animals is that while they tend to find themselves fascinating, they have little aptitude for, and less interest in, analyzing themselves. Spitzer is no exception. I asked him recently if he’d read any of the theories about why he was so reckless with Ashley Dupré. “No,” he said, clearly not wanting to say anything more. I started to recite some of the most common ones—that with the chaos of his governorship, his illicit sex life was a last refuge he could control; that he had been reckless and risked punishment because a part of him felt a need to be punished for never measuring up.
His face flattened, as if in great pain. “One thing I’m very bad at is being publicly introspective … The human mind does, and permits people to do things that they rationally know are wrong, outrageous … We succumb to temptations that we know are wrong and foolish when we do it and then in hindsight we say, ‘How could I have?’ “
Those are some theories, but not the ones I subscribe to. My theory is that it’s something even darker than most people want to admit—-I think, and said at the time, that Spitzer is a sadist. I think many to most men who hire prostitutes are on some level, and the rationalization is that the money makes fucking someone who really doesn’t want to fuck you okay. And in a sense, it does, on the rare occasion that the prostitute is fully consenting to this lifestyle and not driven by violence or poverty into it. But the problem with Spitzer is that his sadism wasn’t limited to getting off by having sex with a woman who is technically consenting but wishing she didn’t have to be at work right now. (Sex as a form of snapping your fingers at the waiter.) Awash in the sexualized misogyny of our culture, he also had to make sure that prostitutes were tossed in jail for having the courtesy to fuck douchebags like him.
“As long as you need me, there will be no gay marriage.” —NY State Senator Rubén Díaz, a Democrat who knows his party won’t challenge him on his bigoted views.
This is a perfect example of why the Democratic party needs to check itself—just because someone has a (D) behind their name does not mean they hold Dem principles, or even engage in rational thought—a lack of understanding of the separation of church and state should at least be a baseline for god’s sake.
“We will bring out thousands and thousands of Hispanic evangelical Christians in the city of New York to ask Governor Paterson to step aside.”
What kind of Democrat is this? And worse, no person of color has any business discriminating, yet the Democratic party lets people like Diaz get away with this bigotry. Why? They need his vote. (NYT):
Mr. Díaz, a conservative Democrat and a Pentecostal minister, is one of the staunchest opponents of same-sex marriages in New York. Democrats took control of the State Senate in November, but they hold a slim majority, 32 to 30, and their leaders are fearful of alienating Mr. Díaz and others by holding a vote on same-sex marriage.
The fear is something I’ve been talking about for ages here on the Blend. White pols are afraid to hold POC bigots accountable for fear of losing the socially conservative (read religion-based homobigot) votes of those who otherwise are staunchly loyal Dem votes. They don’t want the race card to be played (and those POC Dems know it), and thus the white pols—and advocacy leaders of quite pale organizations—feel rendered helpless—and feel its left to minority LGBTs to do the dirty work of calling these homophobes of color out.
The bottom line and the reality is that too many LGBTs of color who feel unwilling or unable to decloset to do so, and those who are aren’t in positions of power in the LGBT establishment and thus the continued illusion people see is gay=white. More below the fold.
NOTE: I don’t usually blog about North Carolina issues on Pandagon, but this post represents a good illustration of the gulf between black elected officials and those fighting for LGBT rights, particularly those of us who are black and gay. The fact is, most of them don’t know many, if any out black LGBTs, and it’s pretty clear that they don’t like dealing with the issue—even though some may vote the right way on some of our issues.The encounters I had when visiting my state’s legislators provided a reality check on just how wide that gulf is.
It was a wonderful sunny and crisp day in Raleigh on Tuesday, and there was a great turnout for the Equality NC Day of Action. It drew 250 people from across the state—that more than doubled the attendance at prior lobby days. We had people come from as far away as Duck (that’s on the Outer Banks) and to the mountain town of Hendersonville to meet with the legislators to discuss pro-LGBT legislation in the queue and to urge them to oppose the marriage amendment. (ENC):
“We are thrilled to see so many North Carolinians, both LGBT and allies, who took time off of work to travel to Raleigh and make do the hard work of building support for fair and equal treatment of everyone, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity,” said Ian Palmquist, Executive Director. “We know that face-to-face conversations are the single most effective tool we have to get more legislators to support our issues.”
It was my first time participating in the Day of Action, and it was also the first opportunity for longtime activist Mandy Carter. We got together with other black LGBTs and allies in attendance to meet with members of the legislative black caucus. Things got very interesting during those meetings. More on that later.
But gives us something much better in return. And let’s face it, he’d be almost 70 before he got a chance to run again anyway.
“Regardless of my personal opinion about the death penalty, I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime,” Richardson said in a statement Wednesday.
He noted that more than 130 death row inmates have been exonerated in the past 10 years, including four in New Mexico.
“Faced with the reality that our system for imposing the death penalty can never be perfect, my conscience compels me to replace the death penalty with a solution that keeps society safe,” he said.
Little known fact about U.S. Representative Bart Stupak (D-MI): he is the Congressional Godhead, a tripartite being who is the Alpha, the Omega and apparently speaks for any number of other Democrats at all times. He is thought made flesh and flesh made eternal, and his district has more shoreline than any district in the nation except Alaska. Thus, he speaks for all as he speaks as one:
Some Democrats have started to worry that voters don’t and won’t understand the link between economic revival and Obama’s huge agenda, which includes saving the banking industry, ending home foreclosures, reforming healthcare and developing a national energy policy, among much else.
[...]
Democrats from states racked by recession say Obama needs to produce an uptick by August or face unpleasant consequences. Others say that there is more time, but that voters need to see improvement by the middle of next year.
The most optimistic say Obama and Democrats in Congress will face a political backlash unless the economy improves by Election Day 2010.
“We’ve got to see an uptick by August or the Democratic majority is in jeopardy,” said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), whose state had an 11.6 percent unemployment rate in January.
Stupak doesn’t fault Obama for pursuing healthcare reform, because high medical costs are intertwined with the economic difficulties, he said.
But Obama must move quickly, he added, saying, “By summer there is no more honeymoon. Period.”
The only other currently elected Democrat directly quoted in the article is New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who gives Obama six months “before the attack dogs come out”.
Coupled with the “Is Obama doing too much?” articles that have been peppering various esteemed insider publications, the narrative of the next year’s already set - Obama was overambitious, overextended and unfocused, and even Democrat(s) agree.
If this sounds like Obama being “uppity” all over again, it’s because it is. And John McCain will gladly Tweet the fuck out of it when it happens.
I really, really like the idea of making Rush Limbaugh the head of the Republican Party, largely because it’s true.
So, when Peter Daou writes an insanely high-minded pooh-poohing of the tactic, it really rubs me the wrong way. The idea that governing is nothing more than principled leadership with an eschewing of political considerations until such point as our greater angels must sully their robes with the filth of the political earth upon which they are forced to trod every few years is ridiculous. It was the great lie of the Bush years - every time he’d make a political move, it would be with the tacit admonition of Democrats for daring to be political in the face of his great conservative principles. I prefer not to be governed by sanctimonious bullshit.
What it ultimately comes down to for Daou is the fact that he was a Clinton staffer, and the Clintons never figured out Limbaugh:
The myth of a technological, grassroots revolution, of prodigious strategic and tactical brilliance, of a do-no-wrong campaign, perhaps the greatest ever run, that myth sounds good, but it’s not what happened. The reality was that the 2008 election was the age-old battle of character-building and character-destruction. Obama’s team won that battle against Hillary Clinton not just because of Obama’s abundant positive traits but because people like Rush Limbaugh gave him a 15-year head start against her. He won it against John McCain because McCain squandered years of character-building by enabling the excesses of George W. Bush and by running an erratic, unfocused campaign that served to highlight the best of Obama’s character and the worst of his. Character versus character.
This is a fundamental misread of the entirety of The Longest Election In Human History. Obama’s team won against Hillary Clinton because her team forgot to run a campaign in February. Yes, Clinton had firmly established negatives, but Obama’s victory had more to do with smart, coordinated tactics being employed with consistent messaging mixing strong positive and negative messages coherently. By the time Clinton went on the attack, it was too late - and lest we forget, the main reason she was considered viable well past her point of defeat was because she ran an increasingly negative campaign against Obama.
McCain’s problem was that he never had a message past Labor Day, and had everything thrown off by Saint Sarah’s insistence on speaking without thinking. The closest he and Obama ever were was when he was pushing the “celebrity” meme in the summer, and it fell apart when he decided that he would (but actually wouldn’t) call Obama a socialist, and then attack him for hating the country, and then attack him for taking the pudding from the lunch line…all in the same day.
The secret to the Limbaugh line is that it’s a consistent message that’s reinforced when the head of the Republican Party apologizes to Limbaugh for insulting him, and then tacitly agrees with Limbaugh’s statement that the head of the RNC isn’t the head of the party at all. It disrupts and destroys the entire Republican message, and forces everyone from the chair to contenders for 2012 to spend days, even weeks, debating over who’s actually in charge.
It’s incredibly smart politics. And it allows for smarter, more effective policy. Of course, we can always stop and whine about how it’s not fair when the next six weeks of news coverage is about whether or not Obama hates productive Americans, too. That was fun for the past two decades.
Now that Burris is pretty much confirmed as the asshole we all thought he was, the selfsame Chicago Tribune is asking why Democrats are silent on the issue, and why they have no moral compass to oppose the most terrible man who’s ever held any office…ever.
I’m not the biggest fan of Harry Reid, but the guy steadfastly opposed Burris taking the seat, as did Obama. It’ll be interesting to see how the media handles this, by which I mean it’ll be interesting to see how long it is until we get a special segment on how Harry Reid let the fox walk into the henhouse and even pointed the way to the tastiest hens.
It seems to me that a popular Democratic president pushing through legislation after intensive good faith negotiations with the opposing party during which it is made absolutely clear they will not support the legislation in any form in which it is likely to be passed would, in fact, be a change in tone in Washington.
The entire problem with the bipartisan-worship crowd is that it views the act of agreement as more vital to governing than actual governing.
Whatever it will do for the economy, the legislation that passed Friday will clearly not do anything to create long-term, sustained bipartisan reconciliation. Not one Republican voted for Mr. Obama’s plan in the House and just three voted for it in the Senate as it headed to final passage on Friday night. The party-line schism, coupled with the withdrawal on Thursday of a Republican senator, Judd Gregg, as a nominee to Mr. Obama’s cabinet, made clear the futility so far of the president’s effort to move Washington toward post-partisanship.
Their unrequited overtures to Republicans over the past several weeks taught Mr. Obama and his aides some hard lessons. Advisers concluded that they allowed the measure of bipartisanship to be defined as winning Republican votes rather than bringing civility to the debate, distracting attention from what have otherwise been major legislative victories. Although Mr. Obama vowed to keep reaching out to Republicans, advisers now believe the environment will probably not change in coming months.
Rather than forging broad consensus with Republicans, the Obama advisers said they would have to narrow their ambitions and look for discrete areas where they might build temporary coalitions based on regional interests rather than party, as on energy legislation. They said they would also turn to Republican governors for support — a tactic that showed promise during the debate over the economic package — even if they found few Republican allies in Washington.
“Post-partisanship” is fundamentally incompatible with democracy; it’s like wanting a post-temperature refrigerator. The goal should be post-bipartisanship, wherein we’re mature enough to realize that in the adult world, the goal isn’t merely having everyone agree, but going forth with the best possible plan - and understanding those two things aren’t always compatible (and, in fact, rarely are). The fetish for believing that there’s some secret policy agenda that can make 95% of elected representatives happy and lead the nation down a glorious path without argument or avarice has always been bone-stupid, but the first step Obama needs to take after this stimulus bill is what’s detailed above - get what support he can in pursuit of a functional agenda, with the emphasis on the agenda rather than the support.
As Fauxbama said yesterday, there is absolutely no reason to trust the Republican Party right now - none. I think that it’s an assumption that’s safe to run with right now.
Republicans are angered beyond belief, friends, because they only have five weeks to read over all of Sotomayor’s opinions. 
Were you aware that not-so-secret Kenyan Muslim Barack Hussein Obama is also the evilest man alive?
If you’ve been following this non-starter of a controversy over President Obama’s commencement speech at Notre Dame—-and I say non-starter, because the students, faculty, and staff all want it, with the exception of a small minority of right wing wankers pretending their objection is religious in nature—-you’ve been witnessing a first class example of how religion is used as a rationalization for whatever you wanted to believe in the first place. Former Vatican ambassador Mary Ann Glendon is turning down some big award from Notre Dame to protest the fact that they’re honoring President Obama, as they have every other President since Eisenhower. The ostensible reason that Obama is being protested is that he’s pro-choice, and that implies—-quite falsely—-that Notre Dame is changing some tradition of rejecting pro-choice Presidents, even though they’ve done it before. It does make you think about what it could be that’s different about Obama that is causing this reaction, but of course speculation of this sort will just result in a bunch of pearl-clutching faux outrage of the sort we’ve seen from 
It was a wonderful sunny and crisp day in Raleigh on Tuesday, and there was a great turnout for the Equality NC Day of Action. It drew 250 people from across the state—that more than doubled the attendance at prior lobby days. We had people come from as far away as Duck (that’s on the Outer Banks) and to the mountain town of Hendersonville to meet with the legislators to discuss pro-LGBT legislation in the queue and to urge them to oppose the marriage amendment. (
Little known fact about U.S. Representative Bart Stupak (D-MI): he is the Congressional Godhead, a tripartite being who is the Alpha, the Omega and apparently speaks for any number of other Democrats at all times. He is thought made flesh and flesh made eternal, and 
It seems to me that a popular Democratic president pushing through legislation after intensive good faith negotiations with the opposing party during which it is made absolutely clear they will not support the legislation in any form in which it is likely to be passed would, in fact, be a