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Indiana joins the 21st Century

Another domino falls, and Indiana becomes the latest state to allow people in love to get married.

That brings the anti-gay-marriage wins up to a grand total of zero.    indiana-gay-pride

Today also saw Utah losing its appeal of last December’s decision, paving the way for marriages to start happening there as well.

“In less than a year, every Federal District Court to consider the issue has reached the same conclusion in thoughtful and thorough opinions – laws prohibiting the celebration and recognition of same-sex marriages are unconstitutional,” Judge Young wrote in the Indiana decision. “It is clear that the fundamental right to marry shall not be deprived to some individuals based solely on the person they choose to love. In time, Americans will look at the marriage of couples such as plaintiffs, and refer to it simply as a marriage – not a same-sex marriage. These couples, when gender and sexual orientation are taken away, are in all respects like the family down the street. The Constitution demands that we treat them as such.”

 

 

Editorial cartoon: Mobius war

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Bernie Sanders for President?

A while ago, I worried that Senator Bernie Sander’s eye on the Presidency would ruin the Democrats’ chances in 2016.  We don’t need another Ralph Nader-like spoiler.Bernie_Sanders

But he’s said recently that he would never run as an independent, which calms me greatly.  He would use the race as a way to make sure the issues he cares about are discussed, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I think his presence in the Presidential race as a Democrat would be beneficial.  He won’t win, of course, but he certainly could make sure that the party follows a more populist (and winning) message, rather than looking like just another traditional status quo race.  (OK, yes, Hillary breaks the mold by being a female candidate, but her views are pretty moderate and traditional.)

 

 

Editorial cartoon: In a just world

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Government Profits on Student Loans while we suffer

Should the US Government be profiting from student loans?  Is the government’s job to “make a profit”?

One of the reasons the economy is not in great shape is because students are so in debt trying to pay back student loans.  (Let’s leave the discussion about why college costs so much for later).   If money is being spent paying back loans, it’s not getting spent on homes, cars, appliances, and goods that help the economy as a whole.    loans

A recent bill would have reduced the student loan percentages to a reasonable amount (but still, ironically, higher than when the government lends money to GM and the banks).  It was shot down by Republicans (duh).  Why?  What possible reason would they be against this?  How does this bill do anything but help all students, liberal and conservative alike, from blue states to red states?

Oh, right.  It was being paid for by increasing taxes on millionaire and billionaires, and we can’t have that, because they’re the “job creators” who will stimulate the economy.  (Remember that?  When the Bush tax cuts first went into effect, they were supposed to do that?  Remember when that happened?  Ha ha!  Aren’t we a bunch of chumps!)

So once more the government took the side of the 1%, ignoring 99% of the people they are supposed to be representing.

One of the reasons it failed as well is because of all the lies being spread all over the internet about it.  More than once I tried to explain to people who falsely claimed that this was “an Obama loan forgiveness program” that would let students get off without paying anything.  “I paid my loans, how can these freeloaders get away with it?”  Facts never matter to these people, and of course, only a few would admit that the law did no such thing, but you can guess which news station was promoting that meme, can’t you?

 

Editorial cartoon: Typical responses

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The Benghazi Scandal?

I’ve been asking what the Benghazi Scandal is for months now, but no one has been able to explain it to me. It apparently had something to do with the fact that the first reason given for the attack was that anti-Islamic video and then later, as more information became available, the story changed a bit.

Still not sure why that is a scandal.

As you may have heard, the Obama administration captured the mastermind behind the attack this week.  ahmed-abu-khattala(This is the same Obama administration that captured the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, that ousted Gadaffi without any American lives lost, and that secured the release of an American held hostage for five years, just to remind you.)  And guess what this villain told us?  Yep, the attacks were because of the video.

So where does that leave the conspiracy-minded Republicans who insist that Beghazi is a scandal?  I have no idea, because clearly facts are not important to them — they believe it’s a scandal and therefore it must be.

This is despite the fact that everyone except Fox News realizes it isn’t.

 

Editorial cartoon: Shifting blame

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I agree with Glenn Beck. Seriously. I’m not kidding.

Every once in a while, people with strong political biases will step back and question their own beliefs.  When that happens, it rightly makes the news.

The situation in Iraq has produced a few turnarounds, the most surprising of which is former shock radio host and current talk radio host Glenn Beck.  “[Liberals] said we couldn’t force freedom on people,” Beck said yesterday. “Let me lead with my mistakes. You were right. Liberals, you were right, we shouldn’t have.”

He went on:  glenn_beck

“In spite of the things I felt at the time when we went into war, liberals said, ‘We shouldn’t get involved, we shouldn’t nation-build and there was no indication the people of Iraq had the will to be free. I thought that was insulting at the time. Everybody wants to be free.”  However, he admitted, “You cannot force democracy on the Iraqis or anybody else.  It doesn’t work. They don’t understand it or even really want it.”

Pat Robertson said similar things as well.  “And so to sell the American people on weapons of mass destruction, he had WMD and was getting [concentrated uranium] yellowcake out of Africa and all of that, it was a lot of nonsense,” the preacher said. “We were sold a bill of goods, we should never have gone into that country!  As bad as Saddam Hussein was, he held those warring factions in check, and he contained those radical Islamists,” he continued. “It’s too late to fix it. It’s unfixable. Those simmering animosities have been there for centuries.”  (Of course Robertson thinks the solution is just around the corner, what with the coming Rapture and everything.)

All this makes Joe Biden look like he may know what he’s talking about with foreign policy.  While he did vote for going into Iraq, he states it was because of Bush’s lies about weapons of mass destruction.  But almost as soon as we were there, Biden suggested splitting the country into three factions.  “The idea, as in Bosnia, is to maintain a united Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group — Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab — room to run its own affairs, while leaving the central government in charge of common interests,” he wrote in a New York Times editorial in 2006.

“It is increasingly clear that President Bush does not have a strategy for victory in Iraq,” he said. “Rather, he hopes to prevent defeat and pass the problem along to his successor.”

Maybe we should be listening to Biden more often, hm?

Editorial cartoon: The real weapon