Month: January 2014

A federal judge ruled last week that Oklahoma’s ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional. But that doesn’t mean that Okie Republicans are taking the news lying down. They have a brilliant idea.

OKLAHOMA CITY – State lawmakers are considering throwing out marriage in Oklahoma.

The idea stems from a bill filed by Rep. Mike Turner (R-Edmond). Turner says it’s an attempt to keep same-sex marriage illegal in Oklahoma while satisfying the U.S. Constitution. Critics are calling it a political stunt while supporters say it’s what Oklahomans want.

“[My constituents are] willing to have that discussion about whether marriage needs to be regulated by the state at all,” Turner said.

Other conservative lawmakers feel the same way, according to Turner.

“Would it be realistic for the State of Oklahoma to say, ‘We’re not going to do marriage period,'” asked News 9’s Michael Konopasek.

“That would definitely be a realistic opportunity, and it’s something that would be part of the discussion,” Turner answered.

This is near-perfect example of taking-your-ball-and-going-home. If the courts rule that gay people can be married, then the only thing to do is to ban marriage altogether. Or, more precisely, the idea is to prevent the state from issuing marriage licenses. Don’t let straight people have legally-recognized marriages if it means that gay people can have them, too.

This is petulance defined.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus invited former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to be the keynote speaker at the RNC’s winter meeting, but it appears that he regrets that decision:

Priebus responded to Huckabee’s comments, telling the Washington Post, “I don’t know what he was talking about. Sort of a goofy way of using some phrases. Not the way I would have phrased it.”

I don’t know what Mike Huckabee was talking about, either. When he was serving as governor, Huckabee signed a law mandating that health insurance plans provide contraceptive coverage, and he made no exceptions for religious institutions. And, despite the fact that his hero Jesus was quite clear that he had nothing but the harshest contempt for hypocrites, Huckabee is now behaving as if contraceptive coverage in health care plans is some kind of violation of people’s religious rights.

His actual comments were more than ‘goofy.’ They were nonsensical. I don’t know if he asks his nieces to refer to him as ‘Uncle Sugar,’ but I certainly hope not. The main thing is that he wants us to have a national discussion about contraception.

“If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it. Let us take that discussion all across America.”

I’m not sure that anyone knows quite what the hell that comment is supposed to mean. He later explained that “My point was to point out that Dems have put a laser-like focus on government funded birth control and given it more attention than cancer drugs.”

Does anyone think Huckabee’s point was that Democrats are not highlighting enough how ObamaCare is giving people access to life-saving cancer drugs?

Anyone?

I’ve tried to decipher Huckabee’s meaning and I’ve read other people’s attempts to explain his comments, but I think I’ll have to chalk it up to some kind of cultural misunderstanding. It’s kind of like the tension I feel between having total contempt for how Saudi Arabia treats women and religious freedom and my tolerance for different cultures having different laws and beliefs. Maybe your typical Saudi understands what Huckabee was trying to say, but I certainly don’t. I can hardly believe that I share the same country with the man.

As best as I can tell, he was saying that Republicans have enough respect for women to believe that they can remain chaste until marriage, as they should. Maybe ObamaCare should cover the expense of burkas. Would Huckabee support that?

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing with the painting of the turreted Cape May, New Jersey house. The photo that I will be using is seen directly below. I will be using my usual acrylics on a 8×10 gallery-wrapped canvas.

When last seen, the painting appeared as it does in the photo seen directly below.

Since that time, I have continued to work on the painting.

I have continued to work on the first story.  Gone are the many confusing vertical elements.  Only the porch posts remain.  (They will need to be  a bit thicker.)  In the shadows behind the posts, a door frame and a window now appear.  Note that the shadows on the porch posts follow the pattern of the elements above.

I have also changed the house next door.  I’ve made it more uniform and added a roof line.  I’m not sure if I should do anything further.  Let me know what you think in the comments below.

The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

I’ll have more progress to show you next week.  See you then.

Earlier paintings in this series can be seen here.

Sadly, but also somewhat fortuitously, Ed Kilgore is correct about this:

Now anyone who reads this blog surely knows by now that the bright 2014 prospects for an unregenerated GOP are largely baked into the cake, thanks to a sizable midterm turnout advantage, a House landscape with few marginal districts, and a very favorable Senate landscape. And there are just enough grounds for 2016 optimism among Republicans to make a good midterm outcome quite enough to convince most of these birds that a genuine “rebranding” is a fallback measure, only to be used in emergencies, and vastly less attractive than taking a chance on winning with their full freak flag displayed.

The Republicans have rebounded from their government shutdown nadir, have gained some strength from the troubled rollout of the ObamaCare website, and have begun to indulge in some irrational exuberance. The “cake” that Mr. Kilgore refers to is really just a giant cushion that will protect the GOP from the just consequences of their actions. Their House majority is safe enough that they can probably commit carnal acts with barnyard animals on the Washington Mall and not lose control. And the Democrats are protecting so many Senate seats that the Republicans can have a horrible election night in November and still pick up a handful of seats. But the correct way to look at the midterms is that the Democrats don’t have much upside potential but they can certainly still win. The Dems could whittle away at the House majority and hold their own in the Senate, while picking up a few statehouses in the process.

The bigger reason for rebranding is to do something about the structural advantage the Democrats have in the Electoral College. When a party holds the White House for twelve or more consecutive years, it changes the country. We saw that when the Dems had a twenty-year reign from 1933-1953, and we saw it when the Republicans held the White House from 1981-1993. There is a ripple effect that is felt decades down the line. So, it is pretty important for the Republicans that they don’t allow the Democrats to win in 2016, but they aren’t even giving themselves a chance.

They think their future is bright, but that’s an illusion. Yet, I think I’d rather have them overconfident at this point.

Paul Waldman tries and mostly fails to explain to me what the hell Mike Huckabee was trying to say. I agree that all most women heard was Huckabee calling them sluts, but I am pretty sure that that wasn’t his intended message. He was trying to say that Democrats think that women are sluts, but I can’t really understand why he was making that argument. Yes, I get that women are not supposed to want to have sex, but that wasn’t quite what Huckabee was saying, either.

The bottom line is that Huckabee said a bunch of words that didn’t really mean anything and the takeaway was that he is eager to have a national debate over whether a woman who uses birth control is only doing it because she can’t overcome her desire to have sex. Since 99% of women use birth control at some point in their lives, Huckabee came pretty close to insulting every women in the country.

His best defense is that he’s stupid and doesn’t understand that women use birth control for health reasons other than avoiding pregnancy, that they use it even when they aren’t having any sex, and that Democrats don’t think less of women who take steps to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Someone might point out to him that the most common female contraceptive (the pill) is taken orally once a day and that women don’t use it like PEPCID®.

As for why Republicans continue to say offensive things about women, it’s because they’re sub-mental. They’re convinced that there is such a thing as illegitimate rape, for example, which can definitely result in pregnancy if you don’t eat enough contraceptives beforehand.

Home-schooling is overrated.

The National Council of La Raza and Mi Familia Vota Education Fund
launched a major voter registration drive yesterday, with the aim of registering a quarter million new Latino voters before the midterm elections. It’s good that they are starting early because you want to make sure there is time to get everyone on the voter rolls before any cut-off. Plus, the other side never sleeps.

The Republicans have to hope that the Latino turnout effort is a disappointment, because they’ve avoided the full consequences of their anti-Latino rhetoric up to now because of low voter participation rates in the Latino community. The faster that changes, the faster the modern GOP will meet its demise.

If former UN Ambassador John Bolton runs for president then I think Rep. Pete King’s candidacy would be redundant. I suspect Rick Santorum will run for a couple of reasons. First, he has nothing else to do. Second, the GOP has a history of nominating the guy who came in second the last time around. They did with Poppy in 1988, Dole in 1996, McCain in 2008, and Romney in 2012. It seems like a stupid strategy, since there is a reason they rejected the candidate the first time, but it gives Santorum a reason to hope that he could actually be the nominee. John Boehner is pushing for Jeb Bush, but Barbara is opposed to the idea. If Jeb doesn’t run and Christie is too damaged to make a go of it, then the field is really wide open. I have no idea who the money guys have in mind. I can’t imagine it’s Paul Ryan, although it could come to that. I think they need an Eisenhower, but we don’t have any of those right now.

I suspect that there will be some more token candidates in the Herman Cain-Michele Bachmann mode, and Rand Paul will probably make a run despite his serial plagiarism (because, standards? what standards?).

Which of the governors will run? Rick Perry? Bobby Jindal? Will they even waste their time?

And who will be running (essentially) for vice-president? Or to set themselves up for 2020?

It’s interesting to see how Ann Althouse and her commenters responded to the news that Dinesh d’Souza has been indicted in federal court for making illegal campaign donations. Ms. Althouse acknowledges that a crime has been committed and that “meaning well” is not exactly a defense, but she suggests that d’Souza’s crime was insignificant and that he probably was only indicted because he made a movie critical of the president. Also, campaign finance laws are too complicated so no one wants to run for office. The comments follow in the same vein, with minimization of the crime, charges of hypocrisy, and plenty of conspiratorial speculating.

I wonder how long we would have to wait for these people to offer the same defenses to someone who sold a small amount of crack.

I wonder what would happen if Michael Bloomberg decided to seriously contend for the Republican nomination in 2016. I doubt he would consider taking on Hillary Clinton, but bear with me. If Bloomberg put his billions to work on a serious presidential campaign as a Republican, he could probably grab a lot of delegates to the convention. Remember how successful Ron Paul was in grabbing delegates and even taking over the party leadership in some states. You can be unorthodox, lose badly, and still gain some real influence.

The idea would be multifaceted. Obviously, there are some ideas, like gun control and health (anti-smoking, anti-sugary drinks, anti-trans fats) that motivate Bloomberg. I think he’d like to push back against the homophobia, sexism, racism, and xenophobia that are so ascendant in the Republican Party. I think he wants to do something about climate change. Bloomberg is certainly not a down-the-line progressive by any means, but that’s precisely why it makes sense for him to try to reinvigorate a Rockefeller Republican wing of the GOP that can compete in the Northeast and on the left coast.

It would probably make sense for Bloomberg to recruit candidates to run in California’s jungle primaries, too. The GOP, as a conservative party, is pretty much dead. Why leave it to the libertarians to pick over the bones?