jerseyhoya wrote:California Supreme Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban

Well, there's your issue. I hope they run it and it fails.

In terms of the decision itself, great news.

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:California Supreme Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban

Well, there's your issue. I hope they run it and it fails.

In terms of the decision itself, great news.

McCain's opposed to the FMA. This could get really sticky for him.

Re: the decision being great news, I think I disagree. I'm not a big fan of when courts do crap like this. The electorate is moving, inexorably, in that direction. If you pull the trigger too soon, then maybe there's a backlash and a constitutional amendment, state or federal, gains momentum. Obviously the idea of the people who are affected in the here and now is important too, but there were already domestic partnership rights.

The Senate on Thursday joined the House in overwhelmingly supporting a farm bill, which was cleared to President Bush by an 81-15 vote despite his veto threat.

The move followed a 318-106 favorable vote in the House, meaning both chambers provided the bill with veto-proof margins.

Only 13 Republicans voted against the bill. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a majority of his conference supported the bill.

The only Democrats to oppose the bill were Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, both of Rhode Island.

All three presidential candidates missed the vote. Democratic candidates Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) released statements of support for the bill, and both criticized GOP candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), who had said he would veto the bill if he were president.

Hope. Change. Huge, market distorting subsidies for rich farmers.

jerseyhoya wrote:

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:California Supreme Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban

Well, there's your issue. I hope they run it and it fails.

In terms of the decision itself, great news.

McCain's opposed to the FMA. This could get really sticky for him.

Re: the decision being great news, I think I disagree. I'm not a big fan of when courts do crap like this. The electorate is moving, inexorably, in that direction. If you pull the trigger too soon, then maybe there's a backlash and a constitutional amendment, state or federal, gains momentum. Obviously the idea of the people who are affected in the here and now is important too, but there were already domestic partnership rights.

The decision upheld a law that was passed twice by the CA legislature, I believe. So it's not "judicial activism," merely appropriate review. (I'm sure the scrupulously honest Republican campaign committees will note that distinction...)

Sullivan:

As usual, the lazy critics are uninformed. The California court has not over-ruled the legislature: in fact, the legislature has voted for full marriage equality twice already. And the court has not "created" a right to marriage for gay couples. It has argued that if the state has conceded that domestic partners should have, under state law, all the benefits and responsibilities of married couples, the designation of a separate and distinct category must be suspect, under strict scrutiny, to the inference that the designation is based on a desire to deny gay couples equal dignity and recognition. This is the same point I've made in the past; isn't constructing a separate and distinct category an example of pure animus? You have conceded the substance, but cannot concede the name. Since no heterosexual couple's rights would be affected in any way, what exactly is the rationale for maintaining the distinction? Except bias?

Republicans suck.

Meanwhile, I agree with you about the farm bill. But both parties I'm sure are desperate to point to some, any, legislative accomplishments. And for the Republicans the vote against the veto can serve as a bona fide for their independence from Bush.

On another topic: Obama/Snowe? I kinda like it, mostly because it would make the Clintonites totally plotz.

dajafi wrote:Meanwhile, I agree with you about the farm bill. But both parties I'm sure are desperate to point to some, any, legislative accomplishments. And for the Republicans the vote against the veto can serve as a bona fide for their independence from Bush.

On another topic: Obama/Snowe? I kinda like it, mostly because it would make the Clintonites totally plotz.

Is there any kind of history to support something like this? Would the DNC even allow it?

Oh boy...

Quick "soundbite" summation...

Bush: "foolish delusion"

Biden: "This is bullsh**"

Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), piling on to Democratic complaints about President Bush’s speech in Israel today:

"This is bullsh**, this is malarkey. This is outrageous, for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, to sit in the Knesset ... and make this kind of ridiculous statement."

Speaking before the Knesset, Bush said that "some people" believe the United States "should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."

"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

Democrats have interpreted the comments as an attack on Sen. Barack Obama, and Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the president was out of line.

dajafi wrote:The decision upheld a law that was passed twice by the CA legislature, I believe. So it's not "judicial activism," merely appropriate review. (I'm sure the scrupulously honest Republican campaign committees will note that distinction...)

Sullivan:

As usual, the lazy critics are uninformed. The California court has not over-ruled the legislature: in fact, the legislature has voted for full marriage equality twice already. And the court has not "created" a right to marriage for gay couples. It has argued that if the state has conceded that domestic partners should have, under state law, all the benefits and responsibilities of married couples, the designation of a separate and distinct category must be suspect, under strict scrutiny, to the inference that the designation is based on a desire to deny gay couples equal dignity and recognition. This is the same point I've made in the past; isn't constructing a separate and distinct category an example of pure animus? You have conceded the substance, but cannot concede the name. Since no heterosexual couple's rights would be affected in any way, what exactly is the rationale for maintaining the distinction? Except bias?

I might have been wrong about this, based on the NYT article. Sullivan's argument is defensible but I think boils down to semantics: he's saying that the Court has ruled the legislature passed marriage by another name.

The court’s 4-to-3 decision, striking down two state laws that had limited marriages to unions between a man and a woman, will make California only the second state, after Massachusetts, to allow same-sex marriages. The decision, which becomes effective in 30 days, is certain to be an issue in the presidential campaign.
...
The state’s ban on same-sex marriage was based on a law enacted by the Legislature in 1977 and a statewide initiative approved by the voters in 2000, both defining marriage as limited to unions between a man and a woman. The question before the court was whether those laws violate provisions of the state Constitution protecting equality and fundamental rights.

jerseyhoya wrote:

The Senate on Thursday joined the House in overwhelmingly supporting a farm bill, which was cleared to President Bush by an 81-15 vote despite his veto threat.

The move followed a 318-106 favorable vote in the House, meaning both chambers provided the bill with veto-proof margins.

Only 13 Republicans voted against the bill. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a majority of his conference supported the bill.

The only Democrats to oppose the bill were Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, both of Rhode Island.

All three presidential candidates missed the vote. Democratic candidates Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) released statements of support for the bill, and both criticized GOP candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), who had said he would veto the bill if he were president.

Hope. Change. Huge, market distorting subsidies for rich farmers.

there is a lot of food stamp money in these bills

Then pass a fucking food stamp bill. It's a bloated 300 billion dollar mess.

jerseyhoya wrote:Then pass a $#@! food stamp bill. It's a bloated 300 billion dollar mess.

not really how it works...the department of agriculture issues food stamps. they have to get funding from congress through these bills

If only the Democrats controlled Congress and if only Obama was an important figure in the Democratic Party, then maybe he would have been able to take a leadership role on this bill to make it less of a giveaway.

He'll show leadership someday though. Let's elect him president.

Any person of modest intelligence should see in the farm bill all the things that are wrong with our government.

The problems won't go away just because Bush isn't President anymore.

jerseyhoya wrote:Then pass a $#@! food stamp bill. It's a bloated 300 billion dollar mess.

Hey, cool--you actually put in the dollar sign, number sign, etc. I always just assume someone wrote the swear and let the filter play nanny...

As mentioned, I agree with you--and that's exactly how I would have liked to see it done: pass a food stamp bill as part of a second anti-recession package (extend UI benefits, etc). But I think the problem is that these guys are going home soon and they desperately need something to point to. You and I and TV know it's garbage legislation, but, well, we've got the time to hang out on the intertubes and dig in more.

The other problem of course is that you can't get the support of suburban legislators for food stamps unless you put in the sweetener for them (not that their constituents benefit from agripork, but their bank accounts presumably do), and you can't get the agripork without the food stamp provisions that bring urban legislators on board. If we looked at the nay votes in the House, I suspect we'd see a bunch of Mike Pence fiscal conservatives and goo-goo liberals in opposition--the people who won't pay any price for their principled stand--while everyone else rolls the proverbial logs.

I let the filter do the work.

I get the compromise aspect, but just about nothing in the bill appeals to me on a policy level. And it's a loser for McCain politically. The whole thing just pisses me off.

Correcting myself yet again on this CA/gay marriage question: Sullivan was right the first time. The legislature did pass gay marriage, twice; Ahnuld vetoed it, twice. Glenn Greenwald:

Equally misinformed will be anyone arguing that this is some sort of an example of judges "overriding" the democratic will of the people. The people of California, through their representatives in the State legislature, twice approved a bill to provide for the inclusion of same-sex couples in their "marriage" laws, but both times, the bill was vetoed by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said when he vetoed it that he believed "it is up to the state Supreme Court" to decide the issue.

Polls have found substantial support for gay marriage in California, with dramatic trends toward favoring gay marriage. While there was a referendum passed in 2000 limiting marriage only to opposite-sex couples, five years later (in 2005), California's state legislature became the first in the country to enact a same-sex marriage law without a court order compelling them to do so. Thus, even leaving aside constitutional guarantees (which, in a constitutional republic, trump public opinion), today's ruling is consistent with that state's democratic processes and public opinion, not a subversion of it.

Schwarzenegger has indicated that he will not support the ballot initiative to amend the California constitution to exclude same-sex marriages; he seems to feel the matter is closed. From his perspective, this probably couldn't have gone any better.

Interesting. Well, I'm hopeful that this will be seen as legitimately done then.

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