The General American Politics Thread

[Stacy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcCXd51utKE

 

We are the World + Modern Warfare = The Fuck?

 

The North Korean's have bizarre ideas when it comes to propaganda they actually don't know how to make themselves threatening at all it was easier for them to just say "We have a nuke and our leader secretly likes Gangnam Style don't fuck with us, that is all".  

[Johnny Boy]

As Roger Ebert once said:

Advice for North Korea, which wants so desperately to be noticed: Study the film "Bambi vs. Godzilla."

[Kevin]

I find it hilarious that North Korea used footage from a video game to show New York in ruins on top of "We are the World". Whoever is running the propaganda department over there is doing a poor job of it.

[Autosaver]

 

I saw this a couple days ago, just had to share.

 

Notice how nobody was able to answer Warren's simple question? Thank god we actually have someone to live up to their campaign promises. Shes going full on these guys.

[Autosaver]

 

I knew it.

[Patticus]

It's a pretty damning indictment when such an outlandish parody can be so easily mistaken for the real thing.

 

... That is just a parody, right?

[Stacy]

Quick somebody Photoshop that with Romney or George W. Bush.

 

For those who don't know it is now 10 years since the start of the War In Iraq.

Edited February 26, 2013 by BW199148

[-Robin-]

So, Supreme Court hearings over DOMA and Prop 8 are coming up. A plethora of evangelical groups are gearing up to defend it in court.

Democrats, including the Obama staff, are lining to strike it down. Along with some promoinent Republicans.
 

WASHINGTON — Dozens of prominent Republicans — including top advisers to former President George W. Bush, four former governors and two members of Congress — have signed a legal brief arguing that gay people have a constitutional right to marry, a position that amounts to a direct challenge to Speaker John A. Boehner and reflects the civil war in the party since the November election.

The document will be submitted this week to the Supreme Court in support of a suit seeking to strike down Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative barring same-sex marriage, and all similar bans. The court will hear back-to-back arguments next month in that case and another pivotal gay rights case that challenges the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act.

The Proposition 8 case already has a powerful conservative supporter: Theodore B. Olson, the former solicitor general under Mr. Bush and one of the suit’s two lead lawyers. The amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief is being filed with Mr. Olson’s blessing. It argues, as he does, that same-sex marriage promotes family values by allowing children of gay couples to grow up in two-parent homes, and that it advances conservative values of “limited government and maximizing individual freedom.”

Legal analysts said the brief had the potential to sway conservative justices as much for the prominent names attached to it as for its legal arguments. The list of signers includes a string of Republican officials and influential thinkers — 75 as of Monday evening — who are not ordinarily associated with gay rights advocacy, including some who are speaking out for the first time and others who have changed their previous positions.

Among them are Meg Whitman, who supported Proposition 8 when she ran for California governor; Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Richard Hanna of New York; Stephen J. Hadley, a Bush national security adviser; Carlos Gutierrez, a commerce secretary to Mr. Bush; James B. Comey, a top Bush Justice Department official; David A. Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s first budget director; and Deborah Pryce, a former member of the House Republican leadership from Ohio who is retired from Congress.

Ms. Pryce said Monday: “Like a lot of the country, my views have evolved on this from the first day I set foot in Congress. I think it’s just the right thing, and I think it’s on solid legal footing, too.”

Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former Utah governor, who favored civil unions but opposed same-sex marriage during his 2012 presidential bid, also signed. Last week, Mr. Huntsman announced his new position in an article titled “Marriage Equality Is a Conservative Cause,” a sign that the 2016 Republican presidential candidates could be divided on the issue for the first time.

“The ground on this is obviously changing, but it is changing more rapidly than people think,” said John Feehery, a Republican strategist and former House leadership aide who did not sign the brief. “I think that Republicans in the future are going to be a little bit more careful about focusing on these issues that tend to divide the party.”

Some high-profile Republicans who support same-sex marriage — including Laura Bush, the former first lady; Dick Cheney, the former vice president; and Colin L. Powell, a former secretary of state — were not on the list as of Monday.

But the presence of so many well-known former officials — including Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey, and William Weld and Jane Swift, both former governors of Massachusetts — suggests that once Republicans are out of public life they feel freer to speak out against the party’s official platform, which calls for amending the Constitution to define marriage as “the union of one man and one woman.”

By contrast, the brief, shared with The New York Times by its drafters, cites past Supreme Court rulings dear to conservatives, including the Citizens United decision lifting restrictions on campaign financing, and a Washington, D.C., Second Amendment case that overturned a law barring handgun ownership.

“We are trying to say to the court that we are judicial and political conservatives, and it is consistent with our values and philosophy for you to overturn Proposition 8,” said Ken Mehlman, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, who came out as gay several years ago. He is on the board of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which brought the California suit, and has spent months in quiet conversations with fellow Republicans to gather signatures for the brief.

In making an expansive argument that same-sex marriage bans are discriminatory, the brief’s signatories are at odds with the House Republican leadership, which has authorized the expenditure of tax dollars to defend the 1996 marriage law. The law defines marriage in the eyes of the federal government as the union of a man and a woman.

Polls show that public attitudes have shifted drastically on same-sex marriage over the past decade. A majority of Americans now favor same-sex marriage, up from roughly one third in 2003.

While Republicans lag behind the general population — the latest New York Times survey found a third of Republicans favor letting gay people marry — that, too, is changing quickly as more young people reach voting age. Several recent polls show that about 70 percent of voters under 30 back same-sex marriage.

“The die is cast on this issue when you look at the percentage of younger voters who support gay marriage,” said Steve Schmidt, who was a senior adviser to the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, and who signed the brief. “As Dick Cheney said years ago, ‘Freedom means freedom for everybody.’ ”

Still, it is clear that Republican backers of same-sex marriage have yet to bring the rest of the party around to their views. Mr. Feehery said there are regional as well as generational divisions, with opposition especially strong in the South. Speaking of Mr. Boehner, he said, “I doubt very seriously that he is going to change his position.”

Experts say that amicus briefs generally do not change Supreme Court justices’ minds. But on Monday some said that the Republican brief, written by Seth P. Waxman, a former solicitor general in the administration of President Bill Clinton, and Reginald Brown, who served in the Bush White House Counsel’s Office, might be an exception.

Tom Goldstein, publisher of Scotusblog, a Web site that analyzes Supreme Court cases, said the amicus filing “has the potential to break through and make a real difference.”

He added: “The person who is going to decide this case, if it’s going to be close, is going to be a conservative justice who respects traditional marriage but nonetheless is sympathetic to the claims that this is just another form of hatred. If you’re trying to persuade someone like that, you can’t persuade them from the perspective of gay rights advocacy.”

 

The hearings will begin sometime next month, so get a seat. This may be the next big thing after the sequester talks this week.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/us/politics/prominent-republicans-sign-brief-in-support-of-gay-marriage.html?_r=1

Edited February 27, 2013 by Gregor

[Tornado]

The problem with Prop 8 going to the Supreme Court is that there is a very real chance that they will decide that it simply isn't a federal issue. So while the Defense of Marriage Act as a result of this case will in all likelihood be removed and burned and pissed on as it should have been when it was going through Congress way back in '96, there is also a good possibility that Prop 8 won't be repealed (and it will open the floodgates for other states to pass similar measures).

 

 

 

Also, the case about DoMA is called United States vs. Windsor and it starts on the 27th of March.

Edited February 27, 2013 by Tornado

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Anyone else kinda shocked that Dick Cheney is out in support of same-sex marriage?

 

Oh this is just going to be gold against the Religious Right...granted, all I know about the guy is him shooting someone, but I just wanted to make conversation.

Edited February 27, 2013 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Johnny Boy]

Wait, Dick Cheney supports Gay Marriage? I bet those hardcore conservatives are pulling their hair out right now.

[Patticus]

Anyone else kinda shocked that Dick Cheney is out in support of same-sex marriage?

Why yes, yes I am shocked.

At least he has the common sense to see that the writing is on the wall in regards to that subject, and it would be pointless for him (or anyone else) to place himself on the wrong side of history, society, morality and our knowledge of the natural world.

[SuperStingray]

Anyone else kinda shocked that Dick Cheney is out in support of same-sex marriage?

One of his daughters is gay, so I'm not too taken by surprise.

Edited February 27, 2013 by Metal Gear (sting)RAY

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

One of his daughters is gay, so I'm not too taken by surprise.

Wow...I just hit a double whammy of surprises here...

[Tornado]

Yeah. She came out during (I think) the second term of Bush's presidency, and even then he was sorta... distancing himself from the GOP when they went into panic mode over the news.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

CISPA is coming back for round 2: http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/cispa_is_back/?=om

[Patticus]

I dread what gains the GOP might make in next year's mid-terms if these sequester cuts take effect. I know that Obama has a much higher approval rating than the Republicans going into this, but the Republicans have a nasty habit of putting the blame for things that are in large part their own fault on other people. Will either side blink, or are we actually going over the cliff this time?

[PSI Wind]

So it's the Republicans that are trying to block Obama from stopping the sequester cuts? Or is Obama using scare tactics but he's still correct? I'm not sure.

[Johnny Boy]

CISPA is coming back for round 2: http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/cispa_is_back/?=om

They never know when to throw in the towel do they?

[Patticus]

Good news for women:

 
The House of Representatives and the Senate have finally agreed to send a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act to President Obama’s desk.
 
"On Thursday, by a vote of 286 to 138, the House passed the bipartisan Senate-approved version of the bill — one that includes added protections for LGBT, Native American, and undocumented victims of domestic violence. All 138 votes against the bill were Republicans."

 

At least the version of the bill which didn't include support for LGBT women wasn't the one which passed, and I am saddened, though not shocked, by the fact that all of the naysayers were Republicans. The party obviously hasn't changed, at least not yet.

 

In other news, another Republican said another stupid thing:
 

New Hampshire Republican: ‘A lot of people like being in abusive relationships’

A Republican lawmaker in New Hampshire made a startling comment Tuesday during a debate on a bill that would reduce the penalties for simple assault, claiming that “a lot of people like being in abusive relationships.”

The remark by state Rep. Mark Warden ® was caught on tape during a meeting of the New Hampshire House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. He was speaking in support of a bill his fellow lawmakers on the committee overwhelmingly voted to kill.

“Is the solution to those kind of dysfunctional relationships going to be more government, another law?” he said. “I’d say no. People are always free to leave.”

Warden told The Concord Monitor on Wednesday that his remarks were “taken out of context, but that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

While it is in fact common for people to return to abusive relationships, experts and therapists say it can often result in further violence. Additionally, many abusive partners manipulate their victims through physical and emotional means, making it difficult, and sometimes impossible, for them to leave in the first place.

“Victims of domestic violence have historically been characterized as masochistic women who enjoy being beaten. Evidence does not support this anachronistic psychological theory,” the Virginia-based Women’s Center explains. “Rather, victims of domestic violence desperately want the abuse to end, and engage in various survival strategies, including calling the police or seeking help from family members, to protect themselves and their children. Silence may also be a survival strategy in some cases. Moreover, enduring a beating to keep the batterer from attacking the children may be a coping strategy used by a victim, but does not mean that the victim enjoys it.”

 
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/27/new-hampshire-republican-a-lot-of-people-like-being-in-abusive-relationships/
 
What a stupid man. Isn't it about time that lawmakers with views like these be exposed and fired left, right and center?

[Stacy]

 

Woah! That guy is a real fucktard!  

 

I don't think anyone male or female wants to be in a abusive relationship not even the most warped of Sadomasochists would want to be a abusive relationship.

 

Of all the stupid shit....

 

*Faceplams*

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

My only problem with VAWA would be that it's gender specific. I'd prefer something more gender neutral that deals with Domestic Violence for everyone due to gender roles and expectations being a social mess.

 

I think I'll be content with the Secretary of Defense ending the ban on women in combat for now tho.

[Stacy]

 

Shit America should of voted for Dumbledore here! 

[Tani Coyote]

Anyone else kinda shocked that Dick Cheney is out in support of same-sex marriage?

 

Only because his daughter's homosexual. Statistics show people who originally were badmouthing gays often become supportive of the cause once they actually have a homosexual child (well, unless they're one of those scumbags who disown them for it).

 

As for the actual development: Wow. That's a lot of conservatives backing the subject.

 

Could my dream of the GOP slowly moving away from social conservatism finally be coming true?

 

Suppose it's logical; generally society becomes more liberal and tolerant over time. With each day there's less old fashioned voters. The GOP has to change to survive.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Two people already beat you in telling me that bro...