Jaded Times

Likely future Speaker of the House John Boehner (R) has established himself early as an irrational braggart, which pretty much fits in line with his upcoming job.  Speaking to ABC, Boehner did distance himself from the anti-Obama statements of his Senatorial party-mate Mitch McConnell, but went on to openly admit he plans to waste the time of the House and Senate (translating into millions of tax-payer dollars in wasted salaries) combatting the recently passed medical bill, knowing full well the President will not veto it.  Nice to know the Republicans are offering “change”.

Boehner also showed that he’s truly a man of the people; or at least, of their level of intelligence and historical perspective:

Boehner, in his ABC interview, said he’s not sure the president and other Democrats fully understand the message delivered by the voters on Tuesday. “When you have the most historic election in over 60, 70 years, you would think the other party would understand that the American people have clearly repudiated the policies they’ve put forward in the last few years.”

Most historic election in over 60, 70 years?  So this minor midterm is more historic than, say, when the nation elected a minority President for the first time not just in our history, but in the history of the western world?  Or two years earlier, when the Democrats not only did EXACTLY what the Republicans have done here, but also won the Senate?  This is a stronger message than either of those?  Or how about 2004, when the re-election of our own president was questionable at best?  Or four years before, when the same man didn’t even actually win?  That’s going back only twelve years.  Gaining a slight majority in the House isn’t a revolution, it’s a slightly fickle political climate.

Seriously, Mr. Boehner, if you are going to be Speaker of the House, please get some perspective.  After four years of Pelosi, we really, really need you to have it.

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This really should have been the headline across the print and internet news world, but instead the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” portion of the bill is what everyone is reporting on today, and how this is a huge defeat for gay rights.  This may be true, but the bigger point should be that Senate Republicans shot down a bill that would have seen increases in the salaries of our troops.  Though the argument does seem to center around some form of supposed morality, the bill included funding for campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with a 1.4% pay increase for troops, both of which were blatantly refused by Republicans, even when offered without the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell included in the bill:

Democrats argued that Republicans were unwilling to allow the debate to open, even when promised a chance to offer an amendment to strike the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy from the bill.

When combined with the fact that over 12,500 troops have been discharged from the military under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, not to mention the number of soldiers who did not sign up because of it (incalculable, but I am sure quite large), and the Republican plan for our military over the past twelve years seems to come into full view:  wage illegal wars, but underpay and understaff our forces while putting incompetents and criminals in charge of decision making. I mean, we all suspected it, but to have it spelled out so blatantly is just so refreshing.

Veteran John McCain (R) explains why keeping gays out of the military is more important than troops receiving a fair wage.

But back to the gays–I’m getting more and more disturbed by how important other people’s sex lives seem to be to congress.  Maybe it’s the fault of the press; with the paparazzi following politicians everywhere this way, they can’t get their own private gay on, so maybe they decided to take it out on people who can?  For whatever “reason”, it’s a disturbing trend, and it really needs to stop, especially in regards to the military.  I mean, it’s a job.  A job where you kill people.  Not to get too Hicksian, but how can one argue morality in reference to trained killers, demolitionists, and butchers? This is not an anti-military rant, it’s not an easy job and, in a lot of cases, it is a very necessary one, but come on…

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Remember how this SNL alumn wrote a book (with the help of a team of researchers) that proved that Bill O’Reilly and several of his ilk were basing their arguments on facts that had already been disproven (or just straight out lies)?  And then that SNL alumn got a senate seat? Well now the misinformed and lazy are kicking it up a notch by actually running the ignorant for seats in the House.

“Do you know, where does this phrase ’separation of church and state’ come from?” Urquhart asked at a campaign event last April. “It was not in Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. … The exact phrase ’separation of Church and State’ came out of Adolph Hitler’s mouth, that’s where it comes from.

See, but the problem is that he actually did write those words in the very letter you’re basing your position on:

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

So there you go.  Aside from perhaps sweeping up after session, you have no business even aspiring to a seat in the house of representatives of one of the largest superpowers in the world. Those people (hopefully) base their decisions on, you know, facts and stuff. Unless your argument is that Hitler was the first to use the word “of”, in which case I applaud your ingenuity, but respectfully request that you utilize your vast talents writing Geico commercials.

You know, highly intelligent friends of mine comment on how the Tea Party has some “solid ideas”.  If this is the best they can do, I may have to consider registering Democrat.

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Dammit, California, America has spoken!  We don’t want gays getting married.  There is a perfectly logical reason, and that is that God, or Allah, or L Ron Hubbard will destroy the earth if people who love each other are recognized as such by the state.  Didn’t you read the Bible?  Or the Koran?  Or Dianetics?  Wait, maybe that was from Battlefield Earth, or the Book of Mormon, or any of the lesser known (or B-list) works…

As an American and a human, I will go on record for a THIRD time to say I am embarrassed that this is something any of us would care enough about to vote against.  Honestly, what fucking business is it of yours who other people marry?  It’s as if, somehow, allowing gay people to be married will unite their gayness into a gay coalition of some sort, that could then rise up out of the gayetto and possibly overtake our children, forcing the men to crave cock and the women to buy flannel shirts.  We must protect our adoption agency workers jobs!  And our flannel industry!  Keep adoption legal!  Keep flannel, um, Canadian?

I honestly just feel sorry for people who feel like they somehow have the right to decide what is morally right for anyone other than themselves. How about this, America: I don’t think fat people should be allowed to get married.  After all, it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and some chick wearing a mu-mu. And before you start quoting scripture at me, gluttony is ALSO a sin, so drop the twinkie and hit the treadmill you hypocrite.

A couple of stellar pull quotes:

“In America, we should uphold and respect the right of people to make policy changes through the democratic process, especially changes that do nothing more than uphold the definition of marriage that has existed since the founding of this country and beyond,” said Jim Campbell, a lawyer on the defense team.

Campbell makes an excellent point here; at the time of the founding of this country, African-Americans were predominantly slaves and women were treated as property.  So by the transitive property, we can thusly assume that Jim Campbell wishes to re-enslave black people and put women back in the kitchen where they belong.  A bold stance, Mr. Campbell, but we have to admire your honesty. If, you know, nothing else about you.

Former U.S. Justice Department lawyer Charles Cooper, who represented the religious and conservative groups that sponsored the ban, said cultures around the world, previous courts and Congress all accepted the “common sense belief that children do best when they are raised by their own mother and father.”

Holy shit, I couldn’t agree with this more!  I don’t think anyone in the world is pro-homosexuals-stealing-babies.  Beyond that, I fail to see Mr. Cooper’s point, as I think that even the biggest homophobe on the planet must concede that it is far better to be raised in a loving environment than in a boarding house by the state (which would be some of that socialism that the right seems to only hate when convenient for them).  Or maybe this is more of the right’s war on adoption.  Keep adoption legal.  KEEP IT LEGAL.

Either way, tragic loss to the DoJ’s legal team, that Cooper.

(seriously, though, congrats California for joining the very short list of states who are seeing reason, even if the only person to finally do something about it is one of only three openly gay federal judges in the country)

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Hi DC!

My opinion of gay marriage mirrors Bill Hicks’s opinion on gays in the military:  anyone DUMB ENOUGH to want to be married should be allowed to be married.  I’m still working on somehow adopting the “trained killers” portion of that bit into my philosophy as well, but it’s not quite there yet…

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The below video may appeal to me more because of my (oh so useful!) degree in folklore, but it’s still Jon Stewart, still funny, and still a great representation of what Congressmen do to earn their six figure salaries and lifetime pensions…

Chuck Grassley’s Sir Taxalot

Unfortunately, Senor W. T. Fayta saw his shadow, so we have eight more weeks of ridiculous partisan bitchery to deal with.

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Earlier today California’s supreme court upheld the results of the vote on Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriages. As I haven’t really broached this subject directly before, let me try to sum this one up as best as possible:

1) Based on what I’ve seen of marriage, you’re an idiot to want to be married.

2) BUT, either all of us or none of us should have that right. Basic “equal rights” logic. So you’re a much, much bigger idiot for preventing anyone from getting married.

3) In a state that has been in severe financial crisis for several years, it’s a bit gross that so much money was spent trying to make same sex marriage illegal.

4) You don’t need a piece of paper to tell you that you love someone. But if that paper is offered to some, it should be offered to all. Again, basic “equal rights” logic.

5) For all of you out there who feel this even fucking matters, feel free to write in to explain why you voted for Prop 8 and why you feel it’s any of your business what other people do in their private lives. I’d seriously like to know.

6) And for all of you bashing the right wing over this, the best resolution I have heard to the issue came from an ultra-conservative relative of mine (though I have read similar ideas elsewhere since), who suggested:

SOLUTION–change the legal definition of marriage: make the legal end of marriage a “civil union”, and let religious groups ONLY perform marriages. What this means is that anyone can be together with anyone and have their union be recognized/receive all the same rights as current “marriages”, and let churches and synagogues and temples and mosques decide who should be married in the eyes of their god.

For the gay among us about to complain, keep in mind many churches were already performing gay marriages and it really should be up to them, not the state, as to what is acceptable in the eyes of their god. For the bigoted among us about to cheer, keep in mind that if you were not married by a priest or rabbi or the like, you have a civil union, not a marriage.

There. Done. Now can we move on to this whole “collapsed economy/people starving in the streets” thing, California?

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So far President Obama seems to have done more in a few days than former president Bush (man, those words in that order just feel right, huh?) accomplished in his first year.  In a rarely seen political move, Obama has actually kept true to his word and signed the directive to close Gitmo and limit the army and CIA’s ability to torture prisoners, a promise many felt he wouldn’t fulfill.  His administration is already hard at work attacking the current economic apocalypse, moves that harsher critics might point out the Bush Administration could have been making for the past three months.  He has also reversed several unpopular Bush administration policies, including striking down the pre-suffragette throwback abortion funds policy (though the policy did warn that if he were to strike it down, it would become more powerful than he could possibly imagine) late Friday afternoon.

So while one could conceivably point out that the man is being scrutinized far beyond any reasonable measure, most Americans do have to admit that, after 8 years of Bush, it’s just nice to have a President who is actually fucking doing something.

It is rumored that his next move could very well be to overturn the Bush Administration’s highly controversial “Babyback Ribs Act”, in which orphans who have not found homes by age 9 are harvested for their delicious, delicious meat.

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While much of the country (nay, the world) celebrates our nation’s return to reason, many others are protesting the backwards steps some states have taken yet again this year in the continuing fight for civil rights.  California was the hot-bed for this battle, from police clashes at protests to celebrities condemning Proposition 8, which changes the state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage in direct conflict with the summer ’08 state Supreme Court ruling.  Most notable on the celebrity front is Melissa Etheridge, who has publicly stated she will no longer pay state taxes:

Etheridge declares that if she’s not “allowed the same right [to marry] under the state constitution as any other citizen. … I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes, because I am not a full citizen.”

The announcement comes as Governor Schwarzenegger, who has also spoken out publicly against Proposition 8, has called for tax hikes in the financially troubled state. Guess that hike will have to be a bit larger if others follow suit, especially Apple Computers, who donated $100,000 to the no on 8 campaign and who are one of the larger corporate tax contributors to the state (EDITOR’S NOTE–this is comedic speculation, Apple has not even joked about not paying their taxes). We at Jaded Times applaud Miss Etheridge, and will happily send a fruit basket (with requisite file) to her cell come tax week.

In other celebrity news, Leonardo DiCaprio has said he is glad to have dropped his “sex-symbol status”, which is news to us, as we didn’t know he’d had one.

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No joke in this post, just serious applause for Apple, a company I’ve always respected and now, ever more so.  From their frontpage today:

No on Prop 8
Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

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