From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Add This to the Pile
It's been gratifying to see the blizzard of briefs that have flown in the direction of the Supreme Court regarding their upcoming cases involving DOMA and Prop. 8. Both measures, which were deemed unconstitutional by lower courts, deny same-sex couples the right to marry. The Supremes' will hear arguments later this month and should issue their rulings sometime in June.
Here in Maine, where same-sex couples have been getting legally hitched since late December, supporters are letting the Supremes know which side they're on. Like EqualityMaine, the state's largest LGBT advocacy group (via email):
“Hundreds of loving, committed same-sex couples in Maine are now married, but because of DOMA they face discrimination from the federal government every day. The people of Maine spoke, and we embraced marriage for all Maine families. We hope the court respects that,” said Betsy Smith, executive director for EqualityMaine.
EQME also added its name and support to a brief filed in the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, a challenge to the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. “We hope the court will strike down Proposition 8, restore the freedom to marry, and urge the equal treatment of all Californian families," Smith said.
As far as our congressional delegation is concerned, we're
batting a respectable .750:
Sen. Angus King (I-ME) is
all for marriage equality.
U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, and the state’s two U.S. House members, Democrats Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud, announced Friday in a joint statement that they are among 212 members of Congress filing an amicus brief in U.S. v. Edith Schlain Windsor, a case that challenges the constitutionality of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage for purposes of federal law as “only a legal union between one man and one woman.” The fourth member of Maine’s congressional delegation, Republican Sen. Susan Collins, did not sign the brief. No Republican did.
King, by the way, is a trailblazer on LGBT civil rights. In 1995 he became the first governor to appear in a TV commercial promoting equality in the areas of employment, housing, credit and public accommodation. I hope his Senate predecessor Olympia Snowe is enjoying her retirement. I'm enjoying her retirement very much, thank you.
Collins is a disappointment, considering she was a co-sponsor of the repeal of the military's "Don’t ask, don't tell" policy. Swirling inside her head is the idea that marriage is a states' rights issue, which I guess means she thinks the landmark Loving vs. Virginia case had no place in front of the Supreme Court and a ban on interracial marriage should still be permissible if a state so chooses. Senator Collins, meet Wrong Side of History. You two should get along famously.
To top it off, last week Maine Attorney General Janet Mills signed off on briefs supporting the repeal of DOMA and Prop. 8, saying, "Equal protection under the law is the bedrock on which America’s legal foundation is built,”
I'm not aware of any conservative groups in Maine who have filed briefs supporting DOMA or Prop. 8. But rumor has it the Christian Civic League sent a box full of locusts. That oughtta at least sway Scalia.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Note: Due to a scheduling conflict, this year C&J has moved the Ides of March up from the 15th to the 5th. [Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!] Thank you for your understanding and have a nice…[Stab! Stab!]…day.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Daylight Saving Time kicks in: 5
Days 'til the Durango Bach Festival in Colorado: 12
Number of driver deaths among 16- and 17-year-olds in 2002: 1,127
Number of driver deaths among 16- and 17-year-olds in 2012: 423
(Source: Governors Highway Safety Association)
Distance there will be between the old pope's quarters and the new pope's quarters: 550 yds.
Number of presidents since Time magazine debuted in 1923 who never made it on the cover while in office: 1 (Hoover)
Number of times Richard Nixon appeared on the cover (in or out of office): 47
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
America killer!
The Democratic Party and some Republicans are
supporting and practicing Fabian socialism upon
this country. Fabian socialism will destroy Culture,
Traditions and bring Economic ruin to America.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
is really a liberal democratic. A sheep in wolfs
clothing. Look at not what they say but what they do.
---Commenter oceen at World Net Daily
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Hippity hoppity…saved!
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CHEERS to the new kids in class. President Obama announced more energy-related nominees to his second-term cabinet yesterday. And the winners are…
Yes. Obama hired Andrew Lloyd
Webber to work in the Energy Dept.
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In a widely expected move, Obama selected agency veteran Gina McCarthy to replace Lisa Jackson as EPA administrator and scientist Ernest Moniz from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to take over from Steven Chu as Energy secretary.
McCarthy and Moniz round out the team Obama hopes will carry out his second term energy agenda. They join Sally Jewell, nominated last month to run the Interior Department.
The trio will be at the forefront of divisive issues surrounding the extent of U.S. natural gas exports and a possible move into crude oil exports, hydraulic fracturing and climate change.
Senate Republicans said they'd move as quickly as possible to block the nominations, but could make no guarantees since their blocking calendar was chock-full of pending blocks. A Democratic move to unblock the blocks was blocked, but then Republicans experienced a premature block which set off a chain-reaction of blocks after which they found themselves blocked by their own blocks and now it's a great big mess. Also too Benghazi.
CHEERS to today's boring correction. In his latest column, George Will says the Voting Rights Act can't be declared unconstitutional soon enough, and defends his view by citing Chief Justice John Roberts' assertion that the racial voting gap in Massachusetts is higher than Mississippi's. Here to set the record straight is Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin, responding to Roberts' original assertion:
I’m disturbed, first of all, that he is distorting information. You would expect better conduct from the chief justice of the United States. I’m a lawyer, he’s a lawyer, lawyers are not supposed to provide disinformation in the course of a case. It’s supposed to be based on truth. What’s really distressing is the deeper we looked into the facts, the more of a distortion his comments are. … [I]t’s deceptive, and it’s a slur on black voters in Massachusetts.
We hope this helps clears up any confusion in the minds of the Chief Justice and the conservative columnist. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about what they pull out of their ass.
CHEERS to backfiring bigotry. Man, I hate to rag on a larger-than-life legend like Lech Walesa, but he really should've kept his mouth shut instead of going off against gay and transgender members of the Polish parliament. I'm glad to see the Polish parliament thinks so, too:
Dude! Really???
Janusz Palikot, the leader of progressive party Palikot's Movement, reacted by promoting the party's gay lawmaker, Robert Biedron, and transgender lawmaker, Anna Grodzka, to the front row for a three-day session starting Wednesday. In Poland's Parliament, the front row, which is closest to the Speaker and gets the most TV attention, is generally for party leaders and senior lawmakers. The Cabinet sits in a separate section.
Palikot said he will also seek a resolution asking Walesa to "change his manner of speaking."
Yeah. Like shut up, old man, and go change some light bulbs. Ha ha ha ha ha!!! (Sorry. Low-hanging punchline. Had to grab it.)
JEERS to humans behaving badly. On March 5, 1946, prompted by the shennanigans of Josef Stalin in post-World War II Europe, Winston Churchill introduced the new "Iron Curtain" in a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. Or, as Bed Bath & Beyond later called it, "our worst-selling curtain ever."
CHEERS to a measured response. Here's my reaction to John Boehner and Mitch McConnell's defense of the sequester that landed on the porch via my local paper yesterday:
[Clips out article]
[Crumples up article]
[Sets fire to article]
[Dances on ashes of article]
[Laughs maniacally]
That's why I'll always subscribe to a dead-tree newspaper. Can't do that with a tablet.
CHEERS and JEERS to mixed results. The good news: despite some mechanical glitches, the SpaceX Dragon cargo shuttle docked safely with the International Space Station.
"No oxygen? Just hats???"
Musk and a team of engineers with private spaceflight firm SpaceX scrambled to save the robotic Dragon capsule after a glitch following its launch toward the space station on Friday (Mar. 1).
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket delivered Dragon to orbit just fine on Friday (Mar. 1), but three of the capsule's four thruster "pods" that allow it to chase down the space station initially failed to activate as planned, imperiling the company's second contracted cargo delivery for NASA.
The bad news: the only thing inside was a box of ladies' hats. The good news: if they can scounge up some mint juleps they're all set for the Kentucky Derby.
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Two years ago in C&J: March 5, 2011
CHEERS to the march of progress. Remember when laptops were, like, teh awesomest things? My, how time flies. A market research firm now says that sales of laptops are expected to fall off as sales of iPads and other "media tablets"---which don't require the enormous muscular effort of opening and closing---take off:
What a laptop looks
like to a teenager.
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Simply put, tablets are more portable than laptops and perform many of the same functions for consuming content---surfing, reading and e-mail---for which people once used laptops. Gartner said that the hit being taken by the laptop market is partially because of a shift in demand, but also because those on the fence about what device to buy are waiting to purchase anything at all.
Meanwhile, the iPad 2 was
unveiled this week to great fanfare. It'll be available March 11. Fans will snatch it up in droves. It'll give 'em something to play with while they stand in line waiting for the iPad 3.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the consequences of talking out of your ass. I admit it---I listened to Rush Limbaugh pretty faithfully back in the mid-80s. He was outrageous back then, too, but at least he tried to slather his slobber in a veneer of wit. But as more and more of his listeners became convinced that he was being serious, he ditched the ha-has and his moral compass so he could go Full Tilt Teabagger. Happily, his little tirade against Sandra Fluke one year ago woke his sponsors up, and now he seems to be in the process of making right-wing talk radio toxic. Angelo carusone at Media Matters says:
When advertisers began fleeing from his program, Limbaugh dismissed the losses as akin to losing a "couple of French fries" and insisted that "nobody is losing any money here." This position seemed less tenable after Limbaugh employed the services of a crisis manager to handle the fallout, and the right-wing talker's protestations were proven false once financial reports started rolling in. […]
Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey signaled the toxicity of Limbaugh's business model as well as industry adaptation in a recent interview with Bloomberg TV, saying: "We're sort of seeing a shift in spoken-word radio from political-based talk over to sports."
One year out from the attacks on Fluke, we see that Limbaugh's business model is not just bad for business, it's breaking talk radio.
If you need me this morning, I'll be out back tuning the world's smallest violin. I'm hoping I get to use it to play him off soon.
Have a nice Tuesday. And if you've been waiting to buy Rachel Maddow's book "Drift" in paperback, today's the day. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“Kim Jong-un loves Cheers and Jeers. And I said Obama loves Cheers and Jeers. Let’s start there, all right. Start there.”
---Dennis Rodman
3/3/13
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