Let’s get this out of the way first.
Just because Jan Brewer vetoed the gay-hate bill in Arizona yesterday doesn’t make her a hero. She’s still an odious politician who shepherded the “papers please” legislation.
The only reason she vetoed the bill is because her paymasters told her in no uncertain terms that such blatant discrimination was bad for business. Moral, ethical, and human concerns did not enter into her veto decision. It was purely a matter of business not able to abide by such blatant and targeted bigotry. Gay money is as green as straight money, and hoovering it all up is the prime reason businesses exist.
So, a small cheer for Gov. Brewer doing, at last, the only logical thing. But, if she had truly been opposed to the law, she would have signaled while it was still in committee that it was dead on arrival to her desk. The fact that she milked the decision more than LeBron James did his indicates that she had no philosophical difficulty with banning gays from lunch counters. She just wanted to make sure that the Chamber of Commerce and its allies would back her politically. Without that backing, Arizona would be well on its way to an economic boycott not seen since the days of not commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
However, the meltdown in the hothouse corners of the Right makes this travesty almost worth all the angst it caused.
First, the Center for Arizona Policy, which claims to have crafted the bill, went into a snit.
The Center for Arizona Policy, which helped craft the anti-gay legislation that Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed Wednesday, said the bill’s rejection “marks a sad day for Arizonans who understand and cherish religious liberty.”
“Opponents were desperate to distort this bill rather than debate the merits. Essentially, they succeeded in getting a veto of a bill that does not even exist,” the group’s president Cathi Herrod said in a statement. “When the force of government compels one to speak or act contrary to their conscience, the government injures not only the dignity of the afflicted, but the dignity of our society as a whole.”
Let’s parse that for a few moments. The CAP—whose founder lost the Arizona governor’s race to Janet Napolitano in 2006 by 30 points—couches this as “religious liberty”, as if such is an absolute value. There are, however, no absolute rights in any democracy. All rights are conditional. Your right to be a homophobic, racist douchebag—couched in the velvet folds of religious liberty—do not trump someone’s basic citizenship rights, which means to not be discriminated against. And even that right to basic citizenship isn’t absolute; no one is saying that the local Southern Baptist minister has to open his church to gay weddings. All rights interplay with all others. CAP’s statement is farcical both on Constitutional grounds and grounds of common sense.
But, it gets better. Take a look at a few quotes from ground zero of Teabagger ground troops, Free Republic:
Jan Brewer will go down as a spineless homosexual ganglia. What a joke she was. They will not TRUMP GOD. Leviticus tells us what to do in the face of abomination.
…
Brewer shows that she opposes the First Amendment in her veto of this bill. The next stage of this slippery slope is to force a God-fearing doctor to perform an abortion. The bill was a stand for freedom and liberty and was based upon the Eternal, Inerrant Word of God.
…
We all knew she would buckle the minute she started buckling on Obamacare and started backing down to Obama on immigration.
…
This is only the beginning. In time each and every one of these godless pols will be stepping down and running for cover.
And on and on here.
So, to recap, the Teabagger faithful now see Jan Brewer, who has acted on their behalf in almost everything, as basically an Obama stooge.
As I said, Brewer is as odious today as she was before she vetoed the bill. That has not changed. Any other piece of fuckery-laced legislation which crosses her desk and which doesn’t bring down the wrath of corporate America will be signed in a trice.
However, this whole sordid affair drives another wedge between the people who tell the lies and the people who believe them. Those who tell the lies don’t have enough bodies to win elections. And those who believe the lies are now starting to see that they’re being used.
Now, we know that these brave, anti-establishment Teabaggers have a wanton proclivity to talk a big game and then fall into line when Election Day rolls around. However, their defeats have been coming fast and furiously. President Obama ate their lunch on the budget and debt ceiling. Obamacare is beating all expectations and will soon be as entrenched in American life as the other social welfare programs. Gay weddings are breaking out all over the land. Moral Monday keeps plugging along, not allowing the nation to forget voter disenfranchisement by their boisterous witness. It is forgivable if the average Teabagger asks “What the fuck is going on?!”
What’s going on is that those who are not the Koch Brothers are trying to rein in the crazy. And they’re finding that it’s, well, nigh on impossible. For all the problems we’ve had on the liberal side, we’ve never empowered the lunatic left. What the Right discovered after the 2006 and 2008 elections was that if it didn’t unleash the asylum residents, it would soon be a paragraph in future history books. But as all fairytales would tell you, corking the genie back in is at best a problematic exercise. In the real world… Well, good luck with that.
Will the Teabaggers take their marbles and go home? Their ancestors did after the Scopes trial, only to stew in resentment and come back as the Religious Right. Or will they launch the long-awaited putsch and stick the knives in their corporate masters? Then those masters of the universe might finally come to the belated realization that their broader interests are best served by a party composed of adults, not petulant, delusional children.
Enjoy the tears, and then get back to work. As Milt Shook said, politics is a game, and the only thing that matters is winning.
White House.gov
Eureka!
Congrats Bill R.!
Thank you, LL.
Good Morning TODVille!
Happy Friday everyone!
Bill!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is this your first ever gold medal?
Congrats Bill R. Special request, may I follow you on twitter please?
“As I said, Brewer is as odious today as she was before she vetoed the bill. That has not changed. Any other piece of fuckery-laced legislation which crosses her desk and which doesn’t bring down the wrath of corporate America will be signed in a trice.”
+ 1,000,000,000
Another nail-on-the-head post LL, thank you.
Our LL sure can turn a phrase, can’t he? :-)
Outstanding post! Bravo LL!
Bugged the hell out of me when Chris on Stephanie Miller was GUSHING over Brewer on the radio yesterday. In the same breath, he was downplaying President Obama and justifed it by saying Obama ran on gay rights and Brewer didn’t. See, it doesn’t matter what you DO regarding gay rights, what’s important is taking several days to veto a bill and only doing so because it would be bad for business.
I don’t think he even realized how idiotic he sounded.
I can’t stand him TrumpDog, he’s a smart ass git, and I think everything he says is for effect, I honestly don’t believe he has a single sincerely held view.
Enjoyed it yesterday too LL. You’ve inspired me along with others on the blog to strengthen my vocabulary skills and grammar. Who know, maybe I’ll write something interesting one of these days.
It really irritated me when I heard HRH, I mean HRC congratulate jab brewer. It was hard wishing Chelsea a happy birthday.
LL, now that I’ve read your post, I will say that I definitely agree with you. I said the same to a neighbor that was praising the AZ Governor for vetoing the bill. Little does he know about political games. The AZ woman had to weight in the interest of all her corporate masters before making a sensible decision on a 2-page bill, a decision that was clear as clean water, and obvious even to most of the jerks that proposed then voted for the bill to begin with.
Damn it, LL, are you ever going to write a clunker of a post?
Excellent observations as usual.
The one thing that is yet to be determined is to what degree the lunatic right shows up in November. Even though they are starting to feel betrayed time and again, that doesn’t mean they won’t still vote for the GOP. And of course, particularly with the House races, many of those running for office still are memebres of the lunatic right.
My biggest hope is that the Dem candidates take it to their opponents. Make them either identify with the loonies or disavow them. Too often, the Republicans have been let off the hook.
At the same time, we somehow need to make the lunatic left (far smaller in size than the lunatic right) realize that it is still in their best interest to vote for the Dems, even if they aren’t comrades in arms.
This is a must, must, must read speech. This is one amazing woman. She gets it. Lupita Nyong’o gets it and the world is listening.
I thank her and I wish her all the success in the world.
Damn…her skin is flawless….WOW…
I truly hope she wins an Oscar for her remarkable performance in 12 Years a Slave. She and Chiwetel Ejiofor are brilliant and most deserving, to say the least.
I first saw him in the series Dancing on the Edge … oh, my. My friend and I would watch an episode and then call each other to critique aka gush about it. Just cannot see 12 Years … I’d be in a heap on the movie theater floor … but I would love to see his acting in that, if I can steel myself to see it.
Every black woman should be uplifted by her words. And yes, she is a FLAWLESS beauty! Her performance in “12 Years A Slave” was gut-wrenching!
I read your essay this morning over at The People’s View, LL ~ well done, exceptionally witty writing.
This woman is perfection. When one looks up the word, Lupita Nyong’o is it.
Her interviews are flawless. When she speaks, she cuts through the nonsense and gets to the root of the matter. She is a remarkable individual.
https://twitter.com/WalleLawal/status/439432700072824833
Thanks, NW…She certainly has a very interesting life. Wishing her all the best.
Nyong’o was born in Mexico City, Mexico therefore acquiring Mexican citizenship by birth[2],[3][4][5] to Dorothy and Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o, a politician in Kenya.[6] It is a Luo tradition to name a child after the events of the day, so her parents named her Lupita (a diminutive of “Guadalupe,” Our Lady of Guadalupe).[7] She is of Luo descent and is the second of six children.[8] Her father was the former Kenyan Minister for Medical Services. At the time of Lupita’s birth, he was a visiting lecturer in political science at El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City,[8][9] and her family had been living in Mexico for three years.
Nyong’o moved back to Kenya with her parents when she was less than one year old,[7] when her father was appointed a professor at the University of Nairobi.[8] She grew up primarily in Kenya, and describes her upbringing as “middle class, suburban”.[9] At age sixteen, her parents sent her back to Mexico for seven months, to learn Spanish.[7][10] Nyong’o lived in Taxco, Mexico, and took classes at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico’s Learning Center For foreigners.
In 2013, her father was elected to represent Kisumu County in the Kenyan Senate.[7] Nyong’o’s mother is currently the managing director of the Africa Cancer Foundation and her own communications company.[11][12] Her cousin Tavia Nyong’o is a scholar and professor at New York University. In 2012, her older cousin, Isis Nyong’o, was named one of Africa’s most powerful women by Forbes magazine.[13][14] Her uncle, Aggrey Nyong’o, was a prominent Kenyan physician, killed in a road accident in 2002.[15]
Nyong’o currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. She is fluent in English, Spanish,[10] Swahili, and Luo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupita_Nyong'o
Thanks, Allison. Taxco, Mexico, is a gorgeous place! What a wonderfully interesting life she has lived. I wish her every success.
YW, Meta!
meta!!!!! we’ve got buckets and buckets of water pouring out of the sky - whooo hoooooo!!!!! It’s even raining sideways :-)
Drive extra carefully today and this weekend Californians.
“It’s even raining sideways”
:lol: Mooooooorning GGail!
Mooooooooorning Chips!!!!!!
This is you and your friend GGail, right?
Hahahahah - you see me? I’m building my boat now - Hahahahaha.
A few minutes ago - all of our cell phones here in the office started blaring - It was a National Weather Service Report Warning us of FLOODING!!!!!
I said “dang”!!! “I thought I was gonna get to go back home” :-(
Hold it - is a flood threat not enough to let you home early?! :lol:
Gurl pleeze! We’d have to be floating down the 210 freeway in our office buildings singing “HAPPY” before they call it an Emergency
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Inorite?!!!! It’s been raining all morning, just now stopped but I can hear it coming again. It’s such a great feeling. ENJOY!! I’m going to go for a walk in it later.
Don’t let the wind take your umbrella meta :-)
More guns, please.
I’m running in the rain to catch up with you guys.
LL, this is such a good read - thank you! You have me nodding my head while reading your words :lol:
NW, thank you for posting these tweets of Lupita. You’re right, she is a joy to look at and to listen to.
LL, you summarized Governor Brewer perfectly. Yes she vetoed an odious bill that was solely intended to do harm, but the fact that she had to almost be forced to veto it says a lot about her character. To quote Malcolm X, “You don’t stick a knife in a man’s back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you’re making progress.”
Press Secretary Jay Carney is at the podium …..
LL ~ bases loaded, he hits a home run! As always, FB’d with thanks, too many rwnj’s in my family for enjoyment! On other headlines: Mercury has dutifully stationed, so some relief from communications and travel issues will be felt over the next couple days. AND!! Yay, new moon tonight 28Feb14PST at 11:59pm, and 1March14EST at 2:59am, in the sign of Pisces 10.39. Now you know. And of course you know Mardi Gras (Shrove Tuesday) is on the 4th. Okay, outta here, have a very fine day, y’hear?? :lol:
from wiki
In August 2013, former Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton, in an open letter to new Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos under a section titled “The Ugly” called for Rubin to be fired, calling her columns “shallow and predictable” and “at best…political pornography.” He added that “she is often wrong, and rarely acknowledges it”[35] Pexton finished with:
Rubin was the No. 1 source of complaint mail about any single Post staffer while I was ombudsman, and I’m leaving out the organized email campaigns against her by leftie groups like Media Matters. Thinking conservatives didn’t like her, thinking moderates didn’t like her, government workers who knew her arguments to be unfair didn’t like her. Dump her like a dull tome on the Amazon Bargain Books page.[35]
Pete has Twitter buzzing.
NW, you got the inside scoop - who’s feet are those??? I won’t tell a soul !
We’re all guessing. People are filling Pete’s mentions with guesses. Only Pete knows.
Oooooooh, I love mysteries! Do we know yet who owns the feet?
Everyone is guessing. If you open up the tweet, so many people are throwing out names.
That’s a hoot, the first name I thought of - for some reason! - was Jon Bon Jovi, and that was the first guess!
Ok, I agree that it’s some white guy - based on the buckle on the shoe (hahahaha!!!) so I could go along with Bono, BonJonJovi, even Chuck Hagle, but with it being Cinema Day - it could be any actor…
“Ok, I agree that it’s some white guy – based on the buckle”
:lol: Comment of the century!
Seriously, let’s keep it real people :lol:
Except maybe that Idris fella - he might wear a shoe with a buckle
/ducks/runs from NW :wink:
Shhhhhh! maybe she won’t see it Chips! :D
CALLING NERDY, CALLING NERDY: EMERGENCY
I would get mad at you, but I can’t stop laughing!!!!
I can’t think of any come-back….give me a minute….
ROFLMAO!!!
Chips - your TOD tweet suggests Jan Brewer - I fell out of my chair laughing when I saw that!!!
Well, she buckled to the interests of big business, so I thought it was a good guess :cool:
Oh groan…..CORNY - hey! are U wearing shoes with buckles today???!!!!
Of course!!!
That’s not a bad looking shoe… with the right outfit….hmmmm
But that ain’t what you got on your feet right now - is it???!!!@@@!!$####!!!!!!
Until five minutes ago GGail, but I slipped in to something more comfortable:
Show-off
Thanks Bob!
I’m so proud of the Ukrainian people!
Yes; Brewer vetoed the bill because “business” objected to it, not out of any moral conviction. I saw this morning that American/Continental Airlines has had to cancel over 225,000 flights in the first two months of this year. So maybe we can expect to hear, next, that “business” has suddenly realized it’s being hurt by climate change. OOOHHH, NOOOO, MR. BILL! Just about every damned thing we do in this country is determined by how it affects “business”… Not that that’s any “news” to anyone here… But if that’s what it takes, so be it.
Thanks for the great post!
AND… Ms. Nyong’o is a truly lovely creature, isn’t she?
http://www.c-span.org/video/?318040-2/white-house-daily-briefing
Jay’s WH presser on 2-28-14
Oh, my, LL, your “right wing tears sustain me” was the second Big Laugh I’ve had today! Wonderful piece, all the way through!
Friday’s good.
Mooooooooooooorning everyone.
Thanks for posting for me, Chips.
I demand more rain. I switched days off for rain, dammit all to Hades!
LL, so does that mean you’re off today or not?
Yep, off today. Just woke up.
Another gem LL, you know what I always say: there’s magic in them there fingers.
You really need to move to Ireland if you’re that fond of rain!!
Well, it is on my bucket list to do a tour of Scottish and Irish whiskey distilleries.
I’m glad you left the best til last in that sentence.
All right, I’ve just woken up. Has Russia invaded?!
It looks they have, possibly.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26379722
Shit.
And, then there’s this …
BUT …. until this is independently confirmed by either US DOD, NATO, etc., view it as unverified ‘Internet’ video. Throughout the entire #Euromaidan saga, all kinds of videos of “Russian tanks,” etc., have appeared on YouTube, Twitter, FB, etc., with all kinds of claims of imminent invasion of Ukraine. None proved to be valid.
Putin IS saying that there needs to be no more violence in Ukraine. Sure, he’ll harbor Yanukovych and entertain some low level fuckery of the new govt. But I’d hope he wouldn’t want to have an all out war, for which he doesn’t have the military at any rate.
He’s such a megalomaniac and he’s painting himself into an ever smaller corner - re: his own people’s dissatisfaction - that he could do the crazy. If he does, a lot of folk are going to die in a very short interval. This is a very dangerous moment in human history.
Know the video was posted earlier, but love the comment in this one :)
Happening Now…
A live online video stream from a bald eagle’s nest at Berry College shows their newest family member — and one of the newest bald eagles anywhere.
One tiny gray hatchling became visible in the nest Saturday, alongside one as-yet unhatched egg, according to The Atlanta Journal Constitution.
The eagles have been nesting near the school’s athletic and recreation center.
http://lilburn.patch.com/groups/around-the-region/p/cuteness-alert-see-georgias-newest-bald-eagle-live?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
The pre-show for the WH Film festival has begun!
http://www.whitehouse.gov/live/live-white-house-student-film-festival
Traveler at Simferopol airport: “Why should we fear the armed men on the streets?” Probably from Florida.
:)
New post!
http://theobamadiary.com/2014/02/28/the-white-house-student-film-festival/
This is not looking good
LL, you continue to speak for all of us. Thank you!!!
We are in the middle of a blizzard here, all the schools are closed, even the University, which hardly ever closes. 50 mile winds. All the shoveling and plowing my husband has done is all gone. Our cars aren’t starting. We are just staying home for the next 2 days. By next week it is to be up in the high 30’s. Also talking to my family that lives in Azusa, CA where they are being evacuated for floods. This crazy weather is all normal, right?
On a personal note, I am glad February is almost over. I have lost 5 friends this month. 2 were expected and the other 3 were totally unexpected. One friend lost her husband, when he died in his sleep from an undetected heart problem. My other friend lost her husband to a medicine mix up, and my third friend, she had a heart attack at the age of 49, These 3 have all happened in a space of 10 days. We are all numb. Please cherish your family and all your friends, we never know what will happen. We know we are sustained by our faith.
This wonderful place also sustains me. Thank you all for being who you are and for supporting our great President.
So sorry to hear of this sadness, mtmarilyn! Our thoughts are with you.