First Door on the Left

The Republican line has always been that an issue such as gay marriage should not be decided by the courts. It should be decided by the legislatures, the elected representatives of the people.

The California legislature, earlier this summer, passed a bill legalizing gay marriage. The Republican governor of that state vetoed that bill today, saying that gay marriage is a constitutional issue and needs to be decided by the courts.

Okay, Republicans… which is it? You can’t really have it both ways, you know. Or perhaps in your world, you can.

Schwarzenegger vetoes Calif. gay marriage bill

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a widely expected move vetoed a bill on Thursday that would have allowed gay couples to marry.

The Republican governor had earlier this month indicated he would veto the bill passed by California’s Democrat-led legislature. The bill was the first of its kind approved by a state legislature.

Schwarzenegger said he would leave the contentious issue of same-sex marriage to voters and the courts. “I do not believe the legislature can reverse an initiative approved by the people of California,” he said in a written statement.

“This bill simply adds confusion to a constitutional issue,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “If the ban of same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, this bill is not necessary. If the ban is constitutional, this bill is ineffective.”

California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez sharply criticized Schwarzenegger’s veto.

“History will show that Gov. Schwarzenegger had a chance to end the last vestige of legal discrimination in our state,” Nunez said in a statement. “Instead of choosing the way of the future the governor has aligned himself with the enemies of equal rights for all.”

Perhaps they can share a cell.

    

The willingness of half the Senate Democrats to vote against a candidate of Judge Roberts’s ability, accomplishment, and temperament is a disgrace, and one that will likely change the “rules of engagement” with respect to the Supreme Court confirmation process for years to come.

So saith Paul.

Paul gets the Stuck on Stupid Award for today.

(Stuck on Stupid Award = SSA = backward ass.)

Update: A second SSA has been awarded! Ladies and gentlement, we give you Mark Noonan (his “work” has been featured here before)…

As our Sister Toldjah noted earlier, the “indictment” of Tom Delay is entirely bogus – from what I’ve read, Tom Delay didn’t know about the perfectly legal transaction he is accused of conspiring to make. We have now left entirely the field of normal political conflict and entered a twilight world where fantasy is presented as fact and the only standard of conduct is “will it work?”. This is not the actions of a political Party engaged in seeking a majority – it is the action of a Party determined to destroy its opponents entirely and sieze all power for itself…it is, in short, the stuff from which civil wars are made.

In a normal democratic society, the political parties argue it out, resort to the voters and abide by the results – in our very abnormal society, there is no argument. There is accusation and innuendo, and the count of the voters is considered null and void unless it comes to the “correct” conclusion as determined by one Party. The Democrats do not like Tom Delay – and that is natural and normal given that Delay is a senior leader of the other side, and a damned effective one at that. But this quest to destroy Delay goes beyond the pale – it is an outrage; a negation of all that America is about…a betrayal of American political institutions.

I really do urge our Democrats to step back from the edge – you are sitting in a lake of gasoline and you are playing with fire. We on our side will only put up with so much before we start to pay back with usury what we have received. If you can’t defeat Tom Delay in the electoral field, then you will simply have to accept him as Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives – and you’d better start accepting political reality before things get really bad.

Before things get really bad? Was that a threat, Mark? From where you’re sitting, I don’t think you have much room to talk about a betrayal of American political systems.

Update #2: Mark Noonan’s post was featured on Daily Kos, where it was thoroughly dissected. In retaliation, Mark decided to post on his site some comments which he says were posted on the Daily Kos site. Problem is, the comments posted by Mark were completely fabricated by him and never appeared on Daily Kos.

If Mark and Blogs for Bush ever had any credibility before, they do not now. I am surprised that Mark would be stupid enough to post something so easily disproven.

Update #3: Having been caught in their lie, Mark Noonan and Matt Margolis at Blogs for Bush are now claiming that the offensive comments to which Mark referred were actually comments received but never posted at their website. (They screen all comments and will only publish those from people who agree with them.)

Sad… truly, truly sad.

Even sadder is this post today (September 30th) in which suddenly Mark becomes the aggrieved party and the loving and forgiving Christian. Go read it, but try not to laugh too much. Here is just one paragraph…

As for me, I turn away from wrath – I am a Christian; I love my enemies, and I pray for those who hate me. No anger here – a great deal of dismay, but no anger…no hatred. It is, to say the least, alarming to be on the receiving end of death threats – but it seems to be in the nature of the left to issue such threats and use other hateful tactics and words. The left, after all, was born of a rejection of Judeo-Christian values…meaning, at bottom, a rejection of the divine love underlying the Judeo-Christian religious ethic. Born of a rejection of love, the left could do no other than disintegrate into a fanatic hatred of all things.

You could not make this stuff up even if you tried.

On April 6, 2005, Mr. Ann Coulter, Queen of the Rabid Right, wrote:

The escape and capture of Brian Nichols shows women playing roles they should not (escorting dangerous criminals) and women playing roles they do best (making men better people).

Nichols’ murderous rampage began when he took the gun from a 5-foot-tall grandmother who was his sole guard at the Fulton County Courthouse. It ended when an otherwise unremarkable 26-year-old woman appealed to the Christian conscience of this same violent killer holding her hostage.

At 2 a.m. one Saturday night, Ashley Smith went out for cigarettes while unpacking her new apartment, yet another victory for tobacco pleasure. Returning from the store, Smith was grabbed by a man at her front door, who put a gun in her side and told her not to scream. He asked if she knew who he was. When he removed his baseball cap, she saw it was Nichols, the dangerous fugitive all over TV who had escaped custody during his rape trial and had killed four people in the previous 48 hours. (Although he also looked a lot like of one the guys on “American Idol.”)

In Smith’s apartment, Nichols bound Smith’s feet and hands and put her in the bathtub. Later, at Smith’s request, Nichols allowed her to hop from the bathroom into the bedroom, where she began talking to him.

In short order, Smith was reading aloud to Nichols from the Christian book “The Purpose Driven Life” — in direct violation of his constitutional right to never hear any reference to God, in public or private, for any purpose, ever, ever, ever! For more on this right, go to the “People for the American Way” Web site.

After reading the first paragraph of Chapter 33 aloud, about serving God by serving others, Nichols — the man pundits were calling an “animal” — asked her to read it again.

Nichols listened to the passage again and responded by telling Smith he was already dead, saying, “Look at my eyes.” But Smith looked and told him God had a purpose for him, perhaps to minister to other lost souls in prison. Smith read to Nichols some more, both from the “Purpose” book and from another popular book that’s been dropped from all news accounts of this incident: the New Testament. (In the Hollywood version, Smith will be reading from the Quran.)

Smith knew all about Nichols’ violent depredations from TV. Yet she saw him not as a monster, but as one of God’s creatures. Most Christians — most people — have trouble seeing the humanity of people who take our parking spots. Smith could see God’s hand in a multiple murderer holding her hostage. By showing him genuine Christian love, Smith turned Nichols from a beast to a brother in Christ. This phenomenon, utterly unknown to liberals, is what’s known as a “miracle.” Top that, Paul Krugman!

Nichols told Smith she was “an angel sent from God,” calling her “his sister” and himself her “brother in Christ.” Nichols said he had come to Smith’s home for a reason, in Smith’s words, that “he was lost and God led him right to me to tell him that he had hurt a lot of people.”

This trampling of our Constitution — I mean this conversation — lasted long into the night. They watched Nichols’ shooting people on TV. Nichols said he couldn’t believe he was that man. In the morning, Smith made Nichols eggs and pancakes for breakfast. Then she walked out of the apartment to pick up her daughter and to call 911. The last thing Nichols said as Smith was leaving was to say hello to her daughter for him. When the police arrived, Nichols surrendered without incident, an utterly transformed human being. [link]

That’s a touching story, isn’t it? Did it leave you with a tear rolling down your cheek?

Now, what really happened…

Hostage Gave Meth to Atlanta Fugitive

ATLANTA Sep 27, 2005 — Ashley Smith, the woman who says she persuaded suspected courthouse gunman Brian Nichols to release her by talking about her faith in God, discloses in a new book that she gave him methamphetamine during the hostage ordeal.

Smith did not share that detail with authorities after she talked her way out of captivity.

In her book, “Unlikely Angel,” released Tuesday, the 27-year-old Smith says Nichols had her bound on her bed with masking tape and an extension cord. She says he asked for marijuana, but she did not have any, so she dug into her illegal stash of crystal meth instead.

Smith, who has been in a mental hospital and has flunked out of drug rehab programs, says the seven-hour hostage ordeal led her to stop using drugs. She says she has not touched drugs since the night before she was taken hostage.

So, did Nichols surrender peacefully to the police because he was “born again” or because he was stoned out of his mind. My bet is on the latter.

As for meth addict Ashley Smith, she’s doing quite well for herself…

Since Nichols’ arrest, Smith has received $70,000 in rewards and has been bombarded with offers for books, movies and speaking engagements. Her ordeal has been held up as an example of the redemptive power of faith.

Redemptive power of faith my ass. More like the debilitating power of crystal meth.

Back to Coulter…

Heaven help the average liberal if this ever happens to him! What would an urban secularist do?

We’d get him stoned out of his fricking mind, of course!

Damn, Coulter… you are such a pushover.

Later today, John Glover Roberts Jr. will be sworn in as the 17th Chief Justice of the United States of America.

John G. Roberts

One of the three branches of our government will finally be led by a gay man. It’s about time!

The Republicans just cannot catch a break today…

Frist Made At Least $2 Million on Insider Trade

New details of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s dumping of HCA stock just before it plummeted should give the SEC even more to chew over as it begins a formal investigation, with subpoena power, into Frist’s contact with insiders at his family-founded and -run company.

A new analysis by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights has found that Senator Frist made between between $2 and $6 million by selling his HCA holdings just before stocks plummeted in the face of a bad earnings report. In addition, overly rosy earnings projections made by HCA executives just as Frist and HCA insiders were disposing of the stock en masse, point to a coverup by insiders intent on keeping stock prices high until a disappointing earnings report surfaced.

most wanted

“I have done nothing wrong … I am innocent,” DeLay told a Capitol Hill news conference in which he criticized the prosecutor, Ronnie Earle, repeatedly. DeLay called Earle an “unabashed partisan zealot” and a “fanatic.” [link]

Tom DeLay calling another person an unabashed partisan zealot and a fanatic. That’s rich.

Fanatic, perhaps. Lots of prosecutors are. But unabashed partisan zealot?

While Earle is an elected Democrat, as Media Matters for America has previously noted, a June 17 editorial in the Houston Chronicle commended his work: “During his long tenure, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has prosecuted many more Democratic officials than Republicans. The record does not support allegations that Earle is prone to partisan witch hunts.” This assertion supports Earle’s own claim about his record; a March 6 article in the El Paso Times reported: “Earle says local prosecution is fundamental and points out that 11 of the 15 politicians he has prosecuted over the years were Democrats.”

It’s kind of funny, really. Whenever the Republicans are caught doing something wrong (which is happening with greater and greater frequency these days), they always blame it on “partisan politics.”

DeLay Indicted in Campaign Finance Probe

WASHINGTON (AP) – A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that could force him to step down as House majority leader.

DeLay attorney Steve Brittain said DeLay was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay’s national political committee.

The indictment against the second-ranking, and most assertive Republican leader came on the final day of the grand jury’s term. It followed earlier indictments of a state political action committee founded by DeLay and three of his political associates.

The grand jury action is expected to have immediate consequences in the House, where DeLay is largely responsible for winning passage of the Republican legislative program. House Republican Party rules require leaders who are indicted to temporarily step aside from their leadership posts.

Tom DeLay

You can sure tell that this guy and George W. Bush are buddies. Neither of them is willing to accept responsibility for their actions.

Ex-FEMA Director Brown Blames Others

WASHINGTON (AP) – Former FEMA director Michael Brown blamed others for most government failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday, especially Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. He aggressively defended his own role.

Brown also said that in the days before the storm, he expressed his concerns that “this is going to be a bad one” in phone conversations and e-mails with President Bush, White House chief of staff Andy Card and deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin.

And he blamed the Department of Homeland Security – the parent agency for the Federal Emergency Management Agency – for not acquiring better equipment ahead of the storm.

Just like George… it’s always somebody else’s fault.

Mr. Brown should not be speaking before a committee of the House of Representatives. He should be in front of jury defending himself against murder charges.