I'm all out of quips. Say, is saying you're all out of quips considered a quip?
- David Atkins at digby's place on the fact that Wyoming gets two members in the US Senate, while the more populous District of Columbia gets zero:
But if we're gong to grant statehood for Wyoming's 570,000 people, then shouldn't the 632,323 citizens of the District of Columbia also get two Senators?
If the tiny population of Wyoming gets to advocate for policies that destroy the environment, shrink government, harm minorities and denigrate those who live in big cities, shouldn't the larger population of Washington, D.C. be allowed to advocate for the opposite view?
Granting two senators to 90% white Wyoming while denying two senators to the larger, nearly 70% minority population of the District of Columbia may be one of the worst forms of institutional racism in America today.
That's not a bug, dude—that's a feature.
- Inevitable? Virginia voters now favor marriage equality by a 50-43 margin. Contrast that with what happened just a few years ago:
In the 2006 general election, an amendment to the state Constitution that bans gay marriage in Virginia passed 57 percent to 43 percent. Since the Supreme Court rulings, gay rights organizations such as Equality Virginia have begun preparing long-term efforts aimed at eventually repealing the amendment.
Rapid evolution.
- That same poll also showed Democrat Terry McAuliffe with a narrow lead over his Republican opponent, Ken Cuccinelli, in the race to become the Commonwealth's next governor. Maybe this has something to do with that:
Virginia gubernatorial hopeful and state attorney general Ken Cuccinelli launched a website on Wednesday to promote his ongoing effort to enforce a law banning oral and anal sex in the state. Earlier this year, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals declared Virginia’s “Crimes Against Nature” law unconstitutional, but Cuccinelli has pressed on, trying to keep the law alive with a series of appeals.
Now, he’s taking his crusade to Virginia voters, and trying to use it against his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe.
And they say Virginia is for lovers. So apparently, Cuccinelli thinks that the only way to stop predators is to have a blanket ban on anything that isn't, well, on the straight and narrow. I don't think most people are going to go for that. I mean, shouldn't McAuliffe be able to win this election with a simple campaign slogan of "I do not want to ban oral!"? Might work.
- A few months ago, reports surfaced of a drastically inaccurate sex education seminar that was given to students at a particular high school in Tennessee. Here's what the principal of the high school had to say about that incident:
The principal of the school simply brushed aside the inaccuracies that his students heard and told USA Today, “Fortunately, I believe the Hillsboro High School kids are smart enough to separate fact from fiction and that some of the opinions and scare tactics used in the presentation they will know are incorrect.”
This principal should be fired forthwith. There is no possible universe in which any high school principal should consider it acceptable to lie to students.
- Bold stand, Governor Scott:
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) was whisked away by his aides on Thursday after a reporter asked him a question about the state's controversial "Stand Your Ground" law.
According to Central Florida News 13, Scott was in Tampa to meet with representatives from the entertainment industry when a journalist queried him on the Stand Your Ground law during a media availability.
"Scott responded that he did not support getting rid of the law, but before he could elaborate, he was rushed out by his media relations team," the station reported. "No follow-up questions were allowed."
- I very much enjoyed this short video from the Roosevelt Institute about imagining a progressive future.
- Former Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has been confirmed by the Regents of the University of California as the next president of the UC System.
- Helen Thomas, a trailblazer remembered fondly by many of us for being a reporter rather than a stenographer during the Bush administration, has died at 92:
She covered John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1960, and when he won she became the first woman assigned to the White House full time by a news service.
Ms. Thomas was also the first woman to be elected an officer of the White House Correspondents’ Association and the first to serve as its president. In 1975, she became the first woman elected to the Gridiron Club, which for 90 years had been a men-only bastion of Washington journalists.
(Laura Clawson)