The Commentariat -- March 31, 2015
Internal links removed.
Afternoon News:
Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "U.S. officials said Tuesday that they might continue negotiating a preliminary Iran nuclear deal past a midnight deadline as they struggled to resolve key issues."
Nicholas Kulish of the New York Times: "The co-pilot at the controls of the German jetliner that crashed last week had informed Lufthansa in 2009 about his depressive episodes, the company said Tuesday. In a statement, Lufthansa said the co-pilot had conveyed the information when he sought to rejoin the airline's flight school after a monthslong pause in his studies. Lufthansa said that it had shared with prosecutors email correspondence between the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, and the flight training school, which included medical records about a 'deep depressive episode.' Lufthansa is the parent company of Germanwings, the operator of the Airbus 320 on which Mr. Lubitz was co-pilot."
Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) vowed Tuesday morning that the state would alter a religious liberties bill that has drawn widespread criticism, even as he defended the law and insisted it was being unfairly portrayed in the media. Pence urged lawmakers to pass legislation making it clear 'that this law does not give businesses the right to deny services to anyone.'... He did not support a repeal of the legislation, nor did he say that language would be added explicitly protecting gay or transgender people. He also spent a significant portion of the news conference defending the bill and criticizing the media, insisting that the current legislation did not allow for discrimination. 'This law has been smeared,' he said."
Jack Gillum of the AP: "Hillary Clinton emailed her staff on an iPad as well as a BlackBerry while secretary of state, seemingly contradicting her explanation that she exclusively used a personal email address on a so-called 'homebrew' server so that she could carry a single device, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press." ...
... AFP: "A US congressional panel investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks has called for Hillary Clinton to testify by May 1, following a scandal involving her exclusive use of private emails while secretary of state."
*****
CW: I've been called a lot of things, some I had to look up on account of their, um, vernacularity, but this is the first time I've been called a Nazi (or maybe a Nazi intern; hard to tell), as far as I recall. So from now on, I'll be the "Blog Nazi." Seriously, if you don't like it here, there are LOTS of other options out there on the Internets. Slamming me is sort of a waste of your time. The best you're going to get is that I'll shut down in disgust for a few days, & that doesn't seem a big enough reward for revealing your assholedness. I've got a lot to do, & an unpaid vacation would be welcome. Heads I win, tails you lose.
Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico: "Inside the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, there’s an exact replica of the chamber. Outside, beneath a plastic tent shaking in the chilly wind coming off Boston Harbor, the Washington political world descended Monday, laughing and tearing up, telling their tales of the Massachusetts senator they remembered as the embodiment of a Senate now all but gone." ...
... Eric Levenson & Meagan McGinnes of the Boston Globe: "Kennedy died six years ago, but judging by speeches from a who's who of political leaders on Monday, the 'Lion of the Senate' remains the chamber's platonic ideal." ...
... President Obama speaks at the dedication of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute:
... Vice President Biden remembers Ted Kennedy:
Niels Lesniewski of Roll Call: "Having won the backing of the entire leadership team, New York's Charles E. Schumer might become the next Senate Democratic leader by acclamation. Conference Secretary Patty Murray, D-Wash., has joined in endorsing Schumer for the top job when Nevada Democrat Harry Reid retires at the beginning of 2017, according to a Murray aide." ...
... Manu Raju & John Bresnahan of Politico: "... senators on both sides of the aisle will be watching Schumer -- closely -- to see how he responds to any deal. As a leading pro-Israel voice among Senate Democrats, Schumer is at odds with the White House on Iran, yet he also needs to maintain good relations with Obama. He has to balance his own views on the negotiations with those of a Senate Democratic Caucus that is, by and large, eager to avoid conflict with Iran and stand with the president. Further complicating the matter is a home-state constituency with very strong feelings about Israel and the threat posed to it by Iran.... Schumer is widely seen as a barometer of whether the White House will have enough support on Capitol Hill to sustain a veto on a bill by Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) requiring that Congress review any Iran agreement."
Mean Obama Trolls Birthers. Tracy Walsh of CNN: "Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu (R) said on Monday during an appearance on Fox News that President Obama is 'inciting' birther conspiracy theorists by planning a trip to Kenya this summer.... 'I personally think he's just inciting some chatter on an issue that should have been a dead issue a long time ago,' he said.Obama announced Monday morning that he plans to travel to Kenya in July to attend the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit." CW: Thanks, Guv, for upping the Ridiculous Quotient. ...
... Laura Clawson of Daily Kos: "... Sununu — who was not just a governor but a White House chief of staff under President George. H.W. Bush ... feels that the president should plan his travel to avoid doing anything that will cause far-right nutjobs to embarrass themselves and their party."
Mafia Hit Job, Ctd. CW: The other day, I laughed off a confederate conspiracy theory that Harry Reid's recent injuries were the result of a mob beating. But Matt Yglesias does some serious reporting on the theory: ... "for the Vegas mob -- which was largely crushed in the 1980s -- to break into the house of a United States senator, evade or overpower his security detail, and rough him up would be quite the trick. It would also be quite peculiar.... It would presumably be more effective ... to threaten his family, or to simply threaten to release evidence of Reid's relationship with the criminal underground to the press." Yglesias also finds evidence that the type of elastic band exercise device that Reid was using has led to numerous serious injuries. "The right's larger frustration stems from the sense that people should be looking more closely at Reid's finances. But the truth here is that the media has looked into this. Extensively.... Reporters just haven't found the kind of career-destroying smoking gun that conservatives want to find."
Basta! Lawrence Hurley of Reuters: "The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a new challenge to President Barack Obama's healthcare law that took aim at a bureaucratic board labeled by some Republicans as a 'death panel' because it was designed to cut Medicare costs. The high court left intact a ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that threw out the lawsuit."
Lawrence Hurley: "The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left intact an appeals court ruling that school officials in California did not violate the free speech rights of students by demanding they remove T-shirts bearing images of the U.S. flag at an event celebrating the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo. The court declined to hear an appeal filed by three students at Live Oak High School in the town of Morgan Hill, south of San Francisco. School staff at the May 5, 2010, event told several students their clothing could cause an incident. Two chose to leave for home after refusing to turn their shirts inside out."
Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Gay Americans simply have too much political power to be afforded equal rights under the Constitution, according to a brief filed by the state of Ohio asking the Supreme Court to permit that state to continue to practice marriage discrimination. Ohio's claim comes as part of a greater effort to convince the justices that laws which discriminate again gay men, lesbians and bisexuals should not be treated with skepticism by courts applying the Constitution's guarantee that everyone shall be afforded 'the equal protection of the laws.'" Millhiser argues that laws discriminating against blacks & women, for instance, received "heightened scrutiny" even after the federal government had passed laws designed to protect the groups.
Michael Gordon & David Sanger of the New York Times: "Negotiators from the United States, Iran and five other nations pushed into the night on Monday to try to reach a preliminary political agreement on limiting Iran's nuclear program. But with a Tuesday deadline, it seemed clear that even if an accord were reached some of the toughest issues would remain unresolved until late June." ...
... Scott Clement & Peyton Craighill of the Washington Post: "By a nearly 2 to 1 margin, Americans support the notion of striking a deal with Iran that restricts the nation's nuclear program in exchange for loosening sanctions, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds. But the survey -- released hours before Tuesday's negotiating deadline -- also finds few Americans are hopeful that such an agreement will be effective." ...
... CW: Huh. So the GOP War Machine hasn't convinced everybody to bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Looks like Tom Cotton served up a dish only the Republican base finds tasty. If there were any chance Democrats would use the warmongers' preferences against them, we could take a tiny step toward democracy. I'm not counting my chickens. And I mean chickens.
Nicholas Kulish & Melissa Eddy of the New York Times: "The co-pilot of the Germanwings jetliner that crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday had been treated for 'suicidal tendencies' before receiving his pilot's license, the office of the public prosecutor in Düsseldorf said Monday. The co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, had been treated by psychotherapists 'over a long period of time,' the prosecutor's office said, without providing specific dates. In follow-up visits to doctors since that time, the prosecutor said, 'no signs of suicidal tendencies or aggression toward others were documented.' Mr. Lubitz's medical records show no physical illnesses, the prosecutor said, an apparent reference to vision problems that Mr. Lubitz had been experiencing, which officials said may have been psychosomatic in nature."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd., O'Reilly Edition. David Corn & Daniel Schulman of Mother Jones: Bill "O'Reilly claimed [as recently as 2013] he rescued his bleeding cameraman during a riot in Argentina. But the journo who shot O'Reilly's video says this didn't happen." Corn & Schulman have the details. O'Reilly responded, "... This is nothing more than yet another coordinated attack which predictably comes on the heels of my appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman." CW: Yeah, everybody's picking on Billo. And it's totally not his fault.
Presidential Race
Steve Kornacki of MSNBC: "Hillary Clinton will be opposed by a real, actual, credible Democrat for her party's presidential nomination. That's the takeaway from Martin O'Malley's Sunday appearance on ABC's 'This Week.'... As a former two-term governor of a major state -- and someone who cultivated extensive national fundraising contacts while chairing the Democratic Governors Association in 2012 -- he brings serious credentials to the race."
The First Amendment says keep government out of religion. It doesn't say keep religion out of government. -- Rand Paul, to a group of religious activists
... ALSO, gay marriage is the bitter fruit of a "moral crisis." AND what this country needs is more "tent revivals." Charles Pierce disputes Aqua Buddha Man, the part-time Constitutional scholar. CW: I myself would pay to attend an Aqua Buddha tent revival. I hope the worshippers do not ban representations of Aqua Buddha as I have wanted to know since the Beginning what His (or Her!) Holiness looks like.
Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "Also Monday, two Republican White House hopefuls, Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz, defended the [Indiana religious discrimination] law. 'I think Governor Pence has done the right thing,' Mr. Bush told the conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt. 'I think once the facts are established, people aren't going to see this as discriminatory at all.'" Eckholm writes a brief history of the evolution of the RFRA. The federal law passed in 1993 was intended to protect minority religions. New state laws, not so much. ...
... Michal Mishak & Patrick Reis of the National Journal: "Sen. Marco Rubio on Monday partially defended a new religious-freedom law in Indiana that critics say sanctions discrimination against same-sex couples." CW: Since Marco spoke with his own brand of mush in his mouth, it's impossible to say what his position might be. But of course that's what Marco finds so tasty in Marco Mush. ...
... Alex Roarty of the National Journal: "With the exception of the libertarian-minded Rand Paul, lockstep support from the rest of the Republican field -- most of whom are courting evangelical voters -- now looks all but guaranteed. (Sen. Ted Cruz already had introduced legislation in the Senate that would repeal laws in the District of Columbia that force religious institutions such as Georgetown University from recognizing gay and lesbian groups.) The question now is whether the candidates can sell the public on the idea that these laws ward against discrimination rather than facilitating it.... And if they can't, it could pose a problem in the general election, much like the questions of gay marriage that the party was hoping to avoid." ...
... CW: Um, Alex, I don't think teh gays should be counting on "the libertarian-minded Rand Paul." See Charles Pierce post, linked above.
Paul Waldman assesses Carla Fiorina's presidential qualifications & her brilliant ideas, like forcing federal workers to do something more productive than watching porn. Waldman is of the impression that Hewlett-Packard employees watch porn, too. He find's Fiorina's potential bid as ridiculous as that of every other businessperson who has no political experience. CW: Actually, Fiorina's candidacy will be good for people who watches the Sunday shows, because it will preclude her being on those insufferable "round tables" where she is often the most insufferable participant. ...
... Charles Pierce seems equally unimpressed, although he too is bedazzled by the porn thing: "Carly Fiorina, who has failed spectacularly at business and even more spectacularly at politics, is now thinking of running for president based on her staggering career success. She's already the most entertaining harpy the Republicans have produced since Jean Schmidt 's slandering of John Murtha's military service."
Catherine Thompson of TPM: "Tea party darling and retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson on Monday connected backlash against Indiana's anti-gay 'religious freedom' law to acts of religious persecution across the globe. 'It is absolutely vital that we do all we can to allow Americans to practice their religious ways, while simultaneously ensuring that no one's beliefs infringe upon those of others,' Carson told Breitbart News."
Senate Race
Kyle Cheney of Politico: "In a YouTube video posted Monday morning, Illinois Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth announced her bid for Senate against incumbent GOP Sen. Mark Kirk. The two-minute clip describes Duckworth's hard-luck childhood and her family's reliance on food stamps. She also describes in detail the injury that cost her both legs in Iraq -- when a rocket-propelled grenade tore through the U.S. Army helicopter she was piloting during a combat mission.... Duckworth is the first Democrat to declare for what could be a crowded race against Kirk. Several other members of the Illinois delegation -- including Reps. Robin Kelly and Bill Foster -- are eyeing candidacies in what is likely to among Democrats' best pickup opportunities of the 2016 cycle."
Beyond the Beltway
** We Do Not Have to Bake You People a Wedding Cake. Garrett Epps on Indiana's "religious freedom" law: "... sincere and faithful people, when they feel the imprimatur of both the law and the Lord, can do very ugly things.... The Indiana statute has two features the federal RFRA -- and most state RFRAs -- do not. First, the Indiana law explicitly allows any for-profit business to assert a right to 'the free exercise of religion.' ... rights matching those of individuals or churches.... Second, the Indiana statute explicitly makes a business's 'free exercise' right a defense against a private lawsuit by another person, rather than simply against actions brought by government.... Of all the state 'religious freedom' laws I have read, this new statute hints most strongly that it is there to be used as a means of excluding gays and same-sex couples from accessing employment, housing, and public accommodations on the same terms as other people.... So -- is the fuss over the Indiana law overblown? No. The statute shows every sign of having been carefully designed to put new obstacles in the path of equality; and it has been publicly sold with deceptive claims that it is 'nothing new.'" ...
...When Baking a Cake Was Such a Simple Gesture of Hospitality:
Katie Sanders of PolitiFact on Mike Pence's assertions in his "This Week" explains the context of the Indiana law.
... Ed Kilgore: "The more they talk about it, advocates of broad-based 'religious liberty' laws sound like those conservatives back in the day who offered to accept the Civil Rights Act of 1964 if the public accommodations section was removed. That was, in fact, the position of the 1964 Republican nominee for president, Barry Goldwater, and that's largely why he became the first Republican since Reconstruction to carry the Deep South, even as he lost catastrophically just about everywhere else." ...
... Brian Eason of the Indianapolis Star: "Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard on Monday called on the Indiana General Assembly to either repeal the divisive Religious Freedom Restoration Act or add explicit protections for sexual orientation and gender identity in state law. Ballard also issued an executive order that anyone who receives money from the city government must abide by its human rights ordinance, which has had such protections in place for a decade." Ballard is a Republican. With video. ...
... Tom Davies of the AP: "Republican legislative leaders said they are working on adding language to the religious-objections law to make it clear that the measure does not allow discrimination against gays and lesbians." ...
... CW: That's sweet, but it doesn't make sense. The whole purpose of the law was to facilitate discrimination against gays. Oh, wait. And women. So Indiana isn't going to be anti-gay anymore, but anti-woman is A-Okay. Because Jesus. ...
... The Indy Star Editors wants "Gov. Mike Pence and the General Assembly ... to enact a state law to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, education and public accommodations on the basis of a person's sexual orientation or gender identity." Women? Meh. You might have to go to Chicago to exercise your reproductive rights.
... Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: "In a classic case of 'unintended consequences,' the recently signed Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in Indiana may have opened the door for the establishment of the First Church of Cannabis in the Hoosier State. While Governor Mike Pence (R) was holding a signing ceremony for the bill allowing businesses and individuals to deny services to gays on religious grounds or values, paperwork for the First Church of Cannabis Inc. was being filed with the Secretary of State's office, reports RTV6."
Abby Phillip of the Washington Post: "A month after [Missouri state auditor Tom] Schweich died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound amid an alleged political smear campaign focused on his faith, a top aide appears to have committed suicide by the same means, police said. Robert 'Spence' Jackson, who served as Schweich's media director, was found dead in his bedroom Sunday, Jefferson City police said in a statement." ...
... CW: Sounds to me like the sad end to a star-crossed lovers' affair. No hint of a romantic relationship in Phillip's story, however. I'm just guessing.
Days Inn Fires Employee for Talking to WashPo after Introducing Employee to WashPo Reporter. Chico Harlan of the Washington Post: "Shanna Tippen was another hourly worker at the bottom of the nation's economy, looking forward to a 25-cent bump in the Arkansas minimum wage that would make it easier for her to buy diapers for her grandson. When I wrote about her in The Post last month, she said the minimum wage hike ... wouldn't lift her above the poverty line.... After the story came out, she says she was fired from her job for talking to the Post." Tippen worked for Days Inn. The Days Inn manager had introduced Tippen to Harlan & allowed him to interview her. After Tippen reported the manager fired Tippen, someone at the motel (who, um, sounded like the motel manager who fired Tippen) claimed he'd never heard of that manager & threatened to call the police if Harlan "kept bothering" him. The same manager threatened to sue the Post if it published Harlan's original story. Also, the manager opposed the 25-cent hike in hourly wages. Just a class act all around. ...
... Digby: "Maybe if she had a union...." ...
... CW: No such luck, digby. Arkansas has been a "right-to-work" state for all of my long life. Still the Service Employee International Union does have a local in Little Rock. I'd recommend they picket the Pine Bluff Days Inn.
News Ledes
Los Angeles Times: "Andrew Getty, an heir to the Getty oil fortune, was found dead at his Hollywood Hills home Tuesday. Los Angeles police are investigating.... Just two weeks ago, Getty had sought a restraining order against a woman, according to court records.... A woman who was present at the time of the death was escorted from the residence by police for questioning...."
Washington Post: "Iraqi forces claimed to have seized the city of Tikrit from Islamic State militants on Tuesday after U.S.-led airstrikes cleared the way for ground operations, an advance that would mark the government's most significant victory over the extremists since their summer blitz. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced in a televised address that Tikrit had been liberated after security forces and 'popular mobilization' units, a grouping of pro-government fighters that includes Iranian-backed Shiite militias, made rapid inroads into the city. However, military officials said some areas of the city were yet to be entered...."
New York Times: "With anger swelling over corruption, inequality and a devastating Islamist insurgency in the nation's north, Nigerians chose a former general who once ruled with an iron hand to be their next president, according to election results on Tuesday. The election was the most competitive presidential race ever in Nigeria, one of the largest democracies in the world. Now, if power is handed over peacefully, it will be a major shift for the nation -- the first transfer of power between civilians of different parties in a country that has spent much of its post-colonial history roiled by military coups."
The Unfortunate Death of a Fool. Washington Post: "What had first appeared to be an attempt to breach security at the [NSA] ... now appears to be a wrong turn by two men who police believe had robbed their companion of his vehicle and perhaps didn't stop because there were drugs inside. A spokeswoman for the Baltimore office of the FBI, Amy J. Thoreson, said early in the investigation that authorities 'do not believe [the incident] is related to terrorism.' A law enforcement official said: 'This was not a deliberate attempt to breach the security of NSA. This was not a planned attack.'"
Share Article
Reader Comments (20)
Regarding having to become a Nazi, Marie, I just don't think you have the necessary humorlessness.
We all have a limited capacity to empathize: we are human. We have empathic "fails" every day.
We all struggle with less than conscious defense mechanisms: I'm specifically thinking about the paranoid projection of our own unwanted bad characteristics onto others. It can be a "joke" to place "defects" on one or another group, and to ignore the fact that those specific defects are ours. Less than conscious means we can't catch ourselves at this. We do it, then feel like fools when our primitive thought pattern is pointed out to us.
Projection and denial may be the chief characteristics of Confederates, but given the content and qualities of the posts here, I am sure Projection and denial are not prominent characteristics of commenters on Realitychex.
Forgive us.
Just finished an instructive and very emotional two hours watching the first chapter of Ken Burns's documentary on cancer. The most salient point in the Sisyphean struggle against "the emperor of all maladies" came at the joining of the vast empirical and experimental possibilities of serious science with the societal and monetary support of the federal government. At the start of this first installment, it was clear that a diagnosis of leukemia was a death sentence for children. 50 years after Sidney Farber began treating afflicted children with various chemo therapies outcomes were dramatically different . Survival rate when he began his research was not much better than zero. Towards the end the narrator declares that today, survival rates are over 90%.
It struck me how lucky we--and the children who are still living, having survived their dance with what was once sure death--are that the struggle for victory over cancer is not commencing today, is not reliant on the necessary monetary and PR support that only the government can provide.
Republicans and their media dogs would never allocate or allow the kind of investment the federal government made in the early 70's, not to mention the baleful effects of their hatred of science.
That 90% survival rate would be back to zero. Their only answer to cancer, as it is for so many other problems, is to pray.
No money for research but plenty of money for bullets , bombs, war, and death. Because that's the Confederate Way.
Just wondering how you "clarify" a law enshrining bigotry?
"Oh, wait, we didn't mean Christians could legally discriminate against gays and lesbians! No...we would never say that. We meant Gayes and Lesbyans. Okay? Clear?"
And now I'm waiting to see if this law protects all religions, not just Christians. I think we all know the answer to that. No clarification needed. In fact, some years ago Nino set the record straight when the original law, which was drafted, in part, to protect certain Native American religious practices came before the legal gods. Nino's answer as to whether all religions are protected?
Nyet.
@Akhilleus: The confederate Christian supremes' hypocrisy is something to behold. It was, as you suggested, their decision to deny native Americans the right to use peyote during religious ceremonies, that inspired the federal RFRA. In the 6-3 decision, Scalia wrote, "it would be 'courting anarchy' to create exceptions every time a religious group claims that a law infringes on its practices." (The Court later ruled that the federal RFRA did not apply to the states, inspiring a host of state RFRAs, culminating in Indiana's mini-atrocity).
Should Indiana's or any other state's RFRA be challenged in court, I'm sure we would suddenly find the confederate supremes self-righteously laughing said challengers out of court, a la Hobby Lobby. Because denying women means to obtaining legal contraceptive healthcare is the Christian thing to do.
Marie
I've tried submitting two opinions, one long, one short, to the Brooks auditors. Neither seems to have made the cut. The second makes the point that Christians in America have never had to settle for equal rights. Why should they start now?
@Jack Mahoney: Sounds as if you wrote a recitation of pesky facts. Evidently such facts can't get past the Brooks filter. The Times monitors may be particularly sensitive to comments on Brooks' columns, because -- like the one today -- they're mostly stupid.
(In today's column, Brooks argues that religious freedom & gay marriage can co-exist if only everybody would be more polite. In traditional Brooks, makes neat misstatements about religious discrimination laws that would get him a half-truth reading from PolitiFact, then goes on to use his half-truths as the basis for his polite argument.)
Marie
Seems to me, playing devil's partner, that if the Indiana law allows discrimination because of one's "strongly-held religious beliefs" against something or someone, then it should also allow discrimination based on one's strongly-held non-religious beliefs.
No prayers before eating in my restaurant, no priests with collars allowed, no nuns in habits, no cross-shaped necklaces, no yarmulkes, etc., etc.
What's fair for one group to do should be fair for the other as well. It may not be good for business, but at least their conscience would be clear.
One other consideration (okay, a couple) about the Indiana Religious Bigots' Law.
Usually laws are created to address a problem. There aren't any laws against argyle socks (at least that I'm aware of--but maybe in Texas) because there doesn't seem to be any pressing public need for a legal corrective for diamond shaped patterns originating in the Scottish highlands.
There are laws against things like speeding, shoplifting, oh, and, at one point, discrimination of any kind, because those actions were considered either a danger to public safety or an infringement of rights.
So here's my question. Where are all the examples of egregious infringement of religious rights that prompted the Indiana Religious Bigots' law? The original law, which we have cited above, was written to address the problem of government officials disallowing the use of peyote as part of a centuries old religious practice. I want to know what prompted this attempt to place the rights of Indiana's Christians above everyone else?
We'll leave that for a second, because really, there are none. But let's follow through on their logic, such as it is. They want to be held legally blameless for discriminating against certain citizens because what those citizens do is against their religious beliefs.
Okay, fine. What about baking cakes for adulterers? For thieves? For blasphemers, those who take the lord's name in vain? For those who don't honor their father and mother? If I walk into a bakery owned by one of these LGBT haters, pull out my wallet and say "Jesus Christ, I left my credit card at home!" are they going to refuse to take my money?
Whatcha think?
So really, this all about hatred of LGBT citizens, nothing else.
Their religious freedom is not in jeopardy, never has been, never will be. They are the Chosen People in this country: evangelical Christians. No one gets special treatment like they do. Also, if they were serious about not serving any potential customer whose actions go against their religious beliefs, they'd probably never be able to pay the rent, so that reason is bullshit too.
It's bigotry, pure and simple.
Anyone who says differently is lying and because I'm a Ninth Commandment sort of guy, if they come in to my store, I'm gonna refuse their business on the basis of false witnessing.
So there.
Think Nino and Mike Pence will have my back on that one?
Jack,
You're in good company. Marie and I and a number of others who used to submit regular comments to the Times have forsworn that activity for some time after being routinely dissed for no apparent reason. I never submitted anything unseemly or laced with bad language (hard to believe, I know), but at some point the Times hired new trolls fresh out of the reform school who decided to pick off comments they either didn't like or didn't get. Or maybe it was the name. Who knows?
Then they began the express lane for certain select commenters. That was it for me. I'm sure even commenters as astute and polite as Gemli get tossed every now and then. I get why comments that begin "Dear Douchebag" will be tossed, but barring incivility, bad language, or out and out unhinged rants, insults, and threats, I never got why some comments made it but others didn't. They never offered an editorial rationale to clear that up, either before or after the fact.
Besides, if it's a comment to Brooks or Douthat, they'll never read it anyway, even if (especially if) Socrates himself were to submit it.
As of an hour ago, Jack's comment is up on the Brook's column.
But, speaking of Socrates not getting in, 'Socrates' from Verona, NJ whose comments often compare to Gemli isn't to be found (yet)!
The Times can be frustrating (and am puzzled why they now wait until the late morning hours to post columns) Used to be you got to read Krugman by ten or ten-thirty the on Thursday for his Friday column. Similarly for all the others. Now it is delayed, which obviously means commenters can't start to voice in until much later. Despite this complaint, what I do like about the Times is that their monitoring and controls keep out most of the trolls.
WaPo comments are terrible. They'll have thousands attached to a column replete with insults and worst. Jonathan Chait at New York magazine gets some awful posts. I have suspected there is a certain control in place for Charles Pierce...most commenters are a fairly regular group, speak to the point with one-sentence brevity (usually), and offer up great snark in honor of the Master! And you don't get hundreds or thousands of obnoxious remarks.
P.S. to Akhilleus, I remember you from the Times comments sections of years past, always well written!!! You always got my 'Recommends' over the years!
A movie to pass over.
Poor Bill O'Reilly. It's fitting that his tragedy and passion go on and on, this being Easter week. Speaking of which, I see that another in O'Reilly's long line of "Killing" books--purportedly "history" but it's O'Reilly, so, you know--has been turned into a made for TV thingy.
Anyway, his latest Killing extravaganza, "Killing Jesus" has been shown, weirdly enough, on the National Geographic channel. I guess there must have been some travelogue type footage in there somewhere "Oh look! A palm tree. How authentic."
The show has been panned as trying to pass off gospel stories as factual history but more damagingly, as boring. This isn't entirely O'Reilly's fault because he didn't direct it. But the script comes from his book which, if it was as inspirational as a story about a man-god coming down from heaven to save humanity should be, would have provided equally inspirational source material for a much better film. I mean, how do you make a story about the redemption of humanity by the willing death and resurrection of a god boring? He also seems to forget that Jesus' disciples were Jews not Christians.
But as much as O'Reilly is always needing and craving respect (lying about his "war" experiences and his Kennedy connection and death squad connections, the IRA stuff, and who knows what else) his chops as an historian are laughable in the extreme, more mala fide than bona fide. History, at least decent history, based on factual documentary evidence, is a painstaking pursuit. Real historians like Robert Caro can take 10 or 12 years to write a single book. Same with more popular historians like Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough. O'Reilly spits out new pap every 10 to 12 months which doesn't even qualify as history lite.
I haven't seen it so I have to rely on the various reviews I've read, but "Killing Jesus" seems like it might share some of the same faults with Mel Gibson's S&M exercise from a few years ago, "The Passion of the Christ", which I did see (oh...spoiler alert: the Jews really did kill Jesus. Mel proves it! So there). It was excruciatingly detailed in the torture and death scenes, completely understandable coming from the mindset of a conservative Catholic who shares the same sense of victimization with other right-wing Christians (and with O'Reilly, apparently), but almost totally bereft in what it all meant.
What struck me about the Gibson film (and seems to be the case with O'Reilly's book) is the complete lack of interest in the best part of the Christ story: the resurrection, the victory of love and light over hatred and darkness. The promise of salvation. These are given short shrift. In fact, Gibson mentions them not at all. He and O'Reilly are more interested in the gore, in the torture, in the demonstration that Christians really ARE persecuted. I mean, look what they did to Jesus, fer chrissakes, (so to speak).
Here's what O'Reilly has to say about Jesus's (and presumably his own) persecution:
“'A movie like ‘Killing Jesus’ is a noble endeavor, even if you didn’t like it — even though some conservatives didn’t like it either,' he said. 'But to see what actually happened to a good man, Jesus, who preached loving your neighbor and loving God above all, to see how he was abused and murdered historically, right before your eyes, is a powerful use of the motion picture concept.'"
Okay. Now I grew up Catholic so let me just stop Loofah Boy right there. The whole idea, numbnuts, was for all of this to happen. You buy the premise, you buy the joke. Jesus is basically given the option to avoid all of this punishment and he takes it on. This is one of the great moments of his story, if you're a believer. Even if you're not, it's a vital part of a wild narrative. If he doesn't undergo that punishment, Christianity doesn't exist. So much for the War on Christmas. O'Reilly's comment about "what happened to a good man" points out his essential puerility, his immaturity and lack of depth. They guy isn't just a dilettante, he's an idiot.
But there's a lot more gore in O'Reilly's story. There apparently is an extended scene of violence and graphic bloodshed showing the Slaughter of the Innocents. More victimology. The persecuted innocents in the film were, I believe, all played by evangelicals from Indiana, while the killing hordes were played by the original members of the Village People.
And why all the bad reviews of O'Reilly's great work? Persecution of a Christian, natch.
Why harp on a discredited boob like O'Reilly?
Because he's an asshole. And he deserves it.
Happy Easter, dickhead.
P.S. Did you catch O'Reilly's comment about how his work is a "noble endeavor"? The self aggrandizement never stops.
MAG,
Kind words. And thanks for those recommendations. I do miss the old Times sometime.
The troll problem is epidemic on some sites. I hadn't thought about it, but you're right about the Esquire stuff. I have read comments that disagree with Charlie, but they're usually polite, thoughtful, and well written. A lot of the other regular commenters are a hoot.
The trolls, especially right-wing trolls, infect enough sites for these sorts of onslaughts to qualify as pandemic. This isn't to say that there aren't left-wing trolls, but most of the lefty comments, even the more pointed ones, tend to have a sense of humor. The winger comments are almost universally vicious, ad hominem attacks, most of which have not the merest connection with rationality or the real world.
And they're everywhere. I'm guessing if there was a film recording of Lincoln's address at Gettysburg on Youtube, the comments section would pulsate from all the ferocious attacks from TP kooks and standard issue tinfoil hat droolers screaming about states' rights and discrimination against the Confederates and about how Lincoln worshiped Satan (when he wasn't torturing Confederate women in the basement of the White House).
But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln...
It appears that Kentucky is trying to out do Indiana.
http://news.yahoo.com/kentucky-argues-brief-gay-marriage-ban-
not-biased-165105394.html
Reasoning being per Gov Beshear is because their law bars
everyone from same-sex marriage, straight or gay, it isn't
discriminatory. ????? IQ anyone???
@Akhilleus. Sadly, with no Internets, confederates did not have the chance to troll Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
Howevah, as David Edwards wrote in the Raw Story Nov. 13, 2013, "Conservative websites on Tuesday expressed outrage after President Barack Obama read an original version of President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which did not include the words 'under God.' In celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, filmmaker Ken Burns asked dozens of public figures to read the speech. According to Media Matters, Burns specifically asked the president to read from the “Nicolay Version,” which was written before the phrase “under God” was added.”
So kind of an outrage do-over for aggrieved confederates. Nice.
Marie
@Forrest Morris: Aw, I think you have to give Beshear credit for originality. I could not have thought up that one. Beshear, BTW, is a Democrat, or as Joe Scarborough likes to say, Dimocrat. I'll go with Dimocrat for Beshear. Still, the logic is a beaut.
Marie
Wait, wait.
So the Kentucky ban on same sex unions is not discriminatory because it bans straight people too? What about aliens? And fictional characters? How 'bout action figures? You know how frisky those GI Joes and Transformers can be.
I'm not sure if it's worse if Beshear really believes this bullshit or that he's rolling over for the knuckledraggers. Either way this reasoning is particularly preposterous. I'm reasonably well versed in the many variations of logical fallacies but I don't even know where to begin with this one.
We'll have to call it argument from stupidity.
Marie,
My favorite new Obama Outrage (there's a new one every day!) is his plan for visiting Kenya.
Holeeeee shit...the marbles in those cob-webbed birther domes must be whizzing around like protons in a particle collider. Can't you just picture John Sununu's beady eyes spinning in contrary motion like a cartoon character who's just been conked on the head?
The noive 'a that guy! There oughta be a law.
It's simply amazing that Confederates in Indiana, including the Confederate guv are trying to say that they will "fix" the Religious Bigots' Law just passed, that was created for the sole purpose of discriminating against the state's LGBT citizens. Fix how? Seriously. How will--how CAN--you fix something that's unconstitutional and illegal?
The only fix is repeal. It's like saying that prohibition laws were not meant to stop people from purchasing alcohol. Of course they were, jackass. That's why they were passed.
Republicans like to strut their stuff and pretend that they're tough and manly and stick to their guns, but when they're called on their bigoted, racist, economic inequality support, they either pretend they were misquoted, or didn't say that, or didn't mean it, or are the victims of a predatory press, that they're victims and everyone's out to get them and boo-hoo-hoo.
To which I say, have the courage of your bigoted convictions, you roiling fucking douchebags. You want to stick it to minorities, women, gays, lesbians, immigrants, poor people, progressives? Then just fucking say so, you pansy-ass motherfuckers. Don't whine and mewl and assume the fetal position, like you always do, and cry that you're misunderstood. No one misunderstands. You hate us. You want us to drop dead. You want to be able to legally discriminate.
Just FUCKING SAY SO, YOU ASSHOLES.
If you don't, you're just admitting that you're dead wrong. You're admitting that the vast majority of Americans, of decent people anywhere in the world, would spit on you if they knew what you're really up to.
You're wrong.
About everything.
Douchewads.
Can someone explain why it's ok for Ted Cruz (born in Canada to an American mother) to run for President, while someone born in Kenya to an American mother can't? Let be said that I know of no one who fits the latter category.
I often hear wingers assert that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is not the same as racial discrimination, because sexual orientation is "a choice".
Rest of the conversation goes like this:
Me: "Oh, than you are saying that you are bisexual."
Winger: "No I'm not."
Me: "Sure you are, If sexual orientation is a choice to you, then you are by definition bisexual. It's not a choice for me. I could never enjoy relations with someone of my sex, the thought is repellant".
Winger: "Well, it's not a choice for me either."
Me: "Then how could you possibly know that it's choice for anyone? Besides, I thought you were all about freedom of choice. So come out of the closet, you'll feel better. Hey everybody, R.W. just told me he's bi..."