HorsesAss.Org

Well, this is great news.

That is, until today, when the Supreme Court overturned section 3 of the 1996 law as unconstitutional, so now the Starling-Littlefields can enjoy all the financial benefits and equal dignity of a recognized marriage.

“I’m in tears,” Starling told ABCNews.com right after the decision was rendered. “Today’s ruling means the federal government will no longer be allowed to treat some American families differently. Now all same-sex couples who are married or who have the freedom to marry will be able to provide their children the necessary legal and economic protections they need in life.”

The 5-4 decision read: “DOMA violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the federal government. Under DOMA same sex married couples have their lives burdened, by reason of government decree, in visisblt and public ways.

“By its great reach DOMA touches many aspects of married life from the mundane to the profound”

They’ve also dismissed the Prop 8 appeal. So yay, and there’s more work to do.

The Texas Tribune has the scoop on the incredible happenings in the Texas Senate on Tuesday evening. Essentially, state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, engaged in an 13 hour filibuster of a draconian anti-abortion law. The Texas Senate rules allow such filibusters, but they can be stopped if the person doing the filibuster wanders off topic or leans too much on the desk (really!). With less than two hours to go in the special session, another Senator objected to Davis’ speech, which had “wandered” to the seemingly unrelated topic of the implications of Texas’ 2011 abortion sonogram law for this new law.

Sure seems like bullshit to me, but the advantage of being the majority party is you get to push almost everything in your favor.

From there, it didn’t go well for Republicans. There were a long series of procedural moves, the gallery onlookers periodically disrupted proceedings, and finally Senators engaged in a chaotic series of exchanges.

As the midnight deadline approached, protesters started screaming, effectively shutting down the ability to communicate on the floor. In the final minutes, Republicans hustled to conduct a vote that most Democrats weren’t even aware was happening. The final votes appeared to occur after the midnight deadline. (The deadline is not just a Senate rule, but a legal deadline for the special session, as I understand it).

This brought new issues to resolve:

State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, told the press, “we started voting before midnight,” and therefore, it counted. But state Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, said, “the session is over with…it’s over with at midnight,” and so, the vote didn’t count.

Okay…I suppose it could be true that a vote started before midnight might be legally able to continue until after the midnight deadline. Fine…they win in a legal overtime, I suppose.

Not so fast. Despite Sen. Patrick’s confidence in being able to conclude a vote started before midnight, apparently not every Republican was convinced. Here are screenshots of the Senate log (click to enlarge image):

The first one [right] shows the last actions on SB 5 taking place after midnight. And the second [left], taken 9 minutes later, shows the dates changed to 6/25:

You’re fucking kidding me! Those fucking Texas Republicans fraudulently manipulated the time stamp to make it appear as if voting was complete before the Midnight deadline?!!!?!! In Texas, such actions might go by some folksy euphemism like , “cow paddy fence mendin’.” To the rest of us, this sure looks like organized voting fraud bullshit!

Why am I not surprised by Republicans fraudulently manipulating the election record in their favor? (Whenever you hear a Republican talking about voting fraud, it’s projection.)

And why am I not surprised the Party of Stoopid™ thought they could get away with this fraud without anyone noticing?

Update: Perhaps recognizing they were busted by screenshots, the Republicans fold…

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst stepped down from the dais after ruling that time had expired on SB 5, telling the senators, “It’s been fun, but, um, see ya soon.”

The Supreme Court has struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. The act empowered the Justice Department with a veto (pre-clearance) over changes to voting laws in a handful of states and some localities with a history of discrimination in voting. This act was most recently renewed by Congress and signed into law by George W. Bush in 2006:

…every single Senate Republican and the vast majority of House Republicans voted for it. But today SCOTUS asked Congress to take another crack at regulations that would backstop states or counties if they passed laws that discriminated against the voting rights of any racial group.

So…that’s one thing. Superficially, it seems there is wide support in Congress to put into place some type of enforcement power in the Voting Rights Act. In theory, it should be easy for this Congress—even with a powerful obstructionist agenda motivating Republicans—to pass a new version of the law. But “theory” cannot really be trusted with the current crop of right wing Congressional nut jobbers. But…if they did rewrite the law, they could well improve it.

How can it be improved? Besides “updating” the outdated formula specified in Section 4, they could broaden the law to all states. Over the last decade, we have seen an alarming increase in state laws that disproportionately disenfranchise minorities, the poor, and non-native English speakers. Remember Karl Rove? The man was either delusionally paranoid or politically cunning in pushing the meme (with a big assist from intellectual fraudsters Hans von Spakovsky and John Fund) of widespread “voter fraud!” In reality, voter fraud is extremely rare, rarely organized, and in the rare instances it is organized, it’s usually committed by Republicans. (Okay…I made up the last “fact”…in reality, we cannot know because the sample sizes are tiny).

The result of Rove’s “fraudulent” fantasies is that Republican groups developed “model laws” that, if enacted, would disenfranchise minorities disproportionately. These model laws have been introduced in a number of non-Voting Rights Act states controlled by Republicans. Essentially, we are in a new era where many states not covered by the Voting Rights Act are at risk of disenfranchising minority voters—state like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The solution is for Congress to put some teeth into the 15th amendment and pass a Voting Rights Act that covers all states equally and significantly broadens protections for disadvantaged persons.

Yeah…whatever…that’s all pie-in-the-sky. Within hours of the SCOTUS decision several states have indicated they would go forward with their blocked or stalled voter ID laws. This does not mean they”ll succeed—after all, the 15th amendment is pretty fucking clear! But it means the Justice Department must now sue states to get the laws blocked. That process takes substantially more effort, so it is an imperfect solution.

In the long run, this court decision may well hurt Republicans. By further disenfranchising minorities, Republicans will fail at “winning the hearts and minds” and VOTES of minority and disadvantaged voters. It is a medium-term demographic disaster for Republicans. Related to that, Joshua Green points out:

Many of the GOP’s current problems stem from the fact that it is overly beholden to its white, Southern base at a time when the country is rapidly becoming more racially diverse. In order to expand its base of power beyond the House of Representatives, the GOP needs to expand its appeal to minority voters. As the ongoing battle over immigration reform demonstrates, that process is going poorly and looks like it will be very difficult.

The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a central provision of the Voting Rights Act will […] intensify the Southern captivity of the GOP, thereby making it harder for Republicans to broaden their appeal and win back the White House.

That is…we have years of “Republican amateur hours” to look forward to in the House.

The final implications I want to discuss are the Constitutional ones. A reading of the ruling turns up very few specifics on why the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional:

…[I]n Shelby, five conservative justices gutted the Voting Rights Act anyway, deeming it inconsistent with Constitution because, well, they said so. These jurists said the same law used to be perfectly constitutional, but somehow morphed into being unconstitutional without anyone noticing, and without violating anything specific in the Constitution itself.

That leads to the question, “When did it become unconstitutional to subject states to pre-clearance??

Oh wait…That was Scalia’s question about same-sex marriage…

If time can morph things from constitutional to unconstitutional because “things change” couldn’t today’s ruling have implications for, say, the first amendment. I mean, they didn’t have the intertubes, high speed laser printers, Twitter, wireless phones, or even electronically-enhanced megaphones when the First Amendment was ratified. “Free speech” was more akin to a lowly musket compared to the GG-95 PDW that is today’s high powered speech technology.

Hmm. Speaking of muskets and modern personal defense weapons…shouldn’t this ruling provide “ammunition” (doh!) for those who argue that the rights conveyed in the second amendment no longer apply because of technological change in weapons technology?

Holy shit…I think the conservative Justices have given us a living Constitution! Fucking judicial activists!

Still no state budget. So….join us for an “imminent budget” edition of the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally. Maybe by the time we go home….

We meet every Tuesday evening at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier than that for Dinner.

(Ummm…this one is a little NSFW….)

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out another DL meeting over the next week.

The Tri-Cities chapter also meets tonight. On Wednesday, the Burien and Bellingham chapters meet. And on Thursday the Woodinville chapter meets. And next Monday, the Aberdeen, Yakima, South Bellevue and Olympia chapters meet.

With 207 chapters of Living Liberally, including seventeen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

– The Supreme Court strikes down part of the Voting Rights Act.

– This is a bit old, but a hearty cheer to the people who got the Alpine Lakes Wilderness & Rivers Bill out of the Senate.

– Speaker of the House under the GOP is the worst job ever.

– The publicly financed election bill is now in the Seattle voters’ hands.

– Super Fast Internet is coming to some neighborhoods.

– Still riveted by SB5 in Texas.

– Still no budget. Maybe by the time we get off work?

– Everybody Wins

Maybe there will be one when we wake up.

We’ll see if that amounts to an actual budget deal. But it’s what Governor Inslee tweeted out (h/t to Goldy). I have no idea if this is real, and if it is what’s in the deal, but I hope Democrats don’t give away the farm.

– Power of Ridicule

– In petitions: The General has a petition to investigate that pervert Rep. Michael Burgess, and The Transit Riders Union wants to save Metro from devastating cuts.

– I’ve been riveted by the abortion hearings in Texas. I probably would have missed a lot of it if not for Jessica Luther

– Capitol Lake has mud snails.

– A bicyclist has died in Woodinville (Seattle Times link)

– I am very sorry that white people began experiencing great violence in 1860. But for some of us, war did not begin 1860, but in 1660. The brutal culmination of that war may not have allowed us to ascend into a post-racial heaven. But here is something I always come back to: In 1859 legally selling someone’s five-year-old child was big business. In 1866, it was not.

Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. It was Bainbridge Island.

This week’s is related to something in the news from June, good luck!

1 Chronicles 1:25
Eber, Peleg, Reu,

Discuss.

Greetings from San Jose! I’m here in the Bay Area for the annual Netroots Nation meeting. Something like 3000 political activists, writers, bloggers, operatives, and practitioners are here.

Yesterday, I attended a panel called Science Under the Rug: How Government and Industry Hide Science. Among the panelists was Penn State climatologist Michael Mann, whose research in the 1990s led to the now widely known hockey stick chart of global mean temperature. The emphasis in this panel was on the determined anti-empirical efforts of climate deniers, the gun lobby, opponents of choice, and the like. Too often, the opponents in separate fields are the same groups, or at least groups funded by the same corporate and/or ideological groups. They certainly share techniques to try to undermine science, to drive wedges into our understanding of the world around us.

Lunch today (sponsored, BTW, by the Sierra Club) was accompanied by a Q&A with Nancy Pelosi. If nothing else, she’s a tough, gutsy woman. It isn’t easy to defend the complexities of the NSA mess — especially against some of the more extreme of purity trolls, which abound in this crowd — but she did exactly that. She turned the crowd toward her side by decrying the privatization of security (Snowden worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, not the NSA).

The Netroots Nation 2013 meeting celebrates the turnaround of California in the last few years. Once saddled with a $40 billion deficit, the state is now solvent, even booming. I’m sure it’s merely a coincidence that this reversal occurred as soon as Jerry Brown took the corner office in Sacramento from Ahnold, as soon as the state legislature achieved a super-majority of Democrats in both houses. Yes, there was a bit of help from the glacially-improving US economy, but still…

At the opening plenary session on Thursday, the location of Netroots Nation 2014 (NN14) was announced. There’s great excitement that, between July 17 and 20, we’ll get together in Detroit. It will be an important year in Michigan — an open seat in the US Senate (due to the retirement of the Senate’s finest combover, Democrat Carl Levin), a wildly unpopular Governor (Scott Walker-wannabe Rick Snyder), and other important political races. On top of that, of course, there’s the symbolism of going to the symbol of America’s collapsing middle class, decaying infrastructure, and other deep socioeconomic woes. If NN14 can be, in some small way, part of bringing Detroit back from the brink, then it will be the most meaningful event in the organization’s existence.

[UPDATE: 5:30pm] In the closing session, we’re hearing Ignite talks from many progressives. Among them — Seattle’s own Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, CEO of MomsRising and spouse of former State Senator (45th LD) and recent Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor Bill Finkbeiner. I knew that she was to Bill’s left, but not this far in the correct direction.

Maddow: Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) black-lists petition signers.

The G.O.P. War on the Needy™:

• Bashir: “We have had 4 years of GOP Teabagger ‘assholery!'”
• Chris Hayes: The GOP’s cruel ‘food stamp jihad’
• Alex Wagner: Mean spirited Republicans are wrong about hunger and food stamps.
• Sharpton: Republicans go after benefits for the poor after calling the needy “rapists, pedophiles & murders”!
• G.O.P. Culture Warrior Louie Gohmert:Cut food stamps because a poor person once bought king crab legs (via Crooks and Liars).
• Bashir: Republicans vote down farm bill because its not mean enough to food-stamp recipients.
• Chris Hayes: “Farm Bill” dies, but hypocrisy lives as Republicans find it “not mean enough” on food stamps.
• Alex Wagner: GOP house slashes funding of food stamps

John Oliver: Is Paula Deen suffering from ‘adult onset racism’ (via Crooks and Liars)?

White House: West Wing Week.

More Skirmishes in the Republican War on Women™:

• Republican House passes strict abortion bill
• Roy Zimmerman: The Vagina Dialogues:
• J&Co: The GOP rape caucus is at it again!
• Young Turks: House passes anti-abortion, pro-fetal masturbation bill.
• Chris Hayes: Republicans take another fake, symbolic, unconstitutional stab at abortion rights
• Ann Telnaes: House Republicans push another abortion ban.
• Maddow: Wisconsin G.O.P. think women regularly lie about rape
• Seventeen Senators who voted to protect rapists
• Rep. Burgess (R-TX) on masturbating fetuses.
• Young Turks: G.O.P. considers joking about abortion to appeal to young voters!
• Bashir: Bobby Jindal’s ‘stupid’ GOP ignores 2012 warnings and goes on abortion war-path
• Alex Wagner on the G.O.P.’s bad science, unconstitutional abortion bill
• Maddow: The incredible shit you hear from the right wing these days:
• Bashir: Abortions interrupt fetal masturbation and other right wing crazy.
• Young Turks: Republicans still fail to understand rape.

Ann Telnaes: Dick Cheney’s short-term memory.

The GOP War on Same Sex Couples™:

• Daily Show: Homophobia and the bullied Christians (via Slog).
• Maddow: Maine’s Republican Gov. LePage gives it “without vasoline”, Part I
• Maddow: Maine’s Republican Gov. LePage gives it “without vasoline”, Part II
• John Fugelsang:International House of Pray-Away-The-Gay is prayed away.
• Alex Wagner: Exodus International apologizes and exits
• Young Turks: Anti-gay group shuts down for good and apologizes

Robert Reisch: The quiet closing of Washington, D.C.

Ann Telnaes: Beating the drums of war.

The GOP War on Immigrants™:

• Maddow: “Low I.Q.” and immigration reform—House GOP in contradictory disarray on bill.
• Chris Hayes: Senate Republicans try to ‘buy off’ their racist base in immigration reform
• Alex Wagner: Why the far right Republicans won’t accept the “Gang of 8” bill (hint: racism)
• Matt Binder: Supreme Court strike down AZ law requiring citizenship proof to register to vote
• Supreme Court strikes down Arizona’s “Show Us Your Papers” law
• Bashir:Teabaggers ‘scald’ Rubio in hate-filled “round ’em up” DC protest

John Oliver: Let’s just fucking ignore Sarah Palin!

The G.O.P. War on the IRS™:

• Young Turks: The IRS scandal is totally debunked.
• Alex Wagner: Issa’s theory fails.
• Sharpton: I.R.S transcripts expose nutjob Darrell Issa’s fraudulent witch-hunt
• Bashir: car thief Darrell Issa fraudulent, hypocritical ‘selective’ information
• Sharpton: Republicans try to tie Obama to Nixon?!?
• Young Turks: The Teabaggers are still crying over IRS non-scandal.
• Alex Wagner: The GOP’s lunatic IRS agenda.

Colbert ends his feud with Ahmadinejad.

Sharpton: Glenn Beck announces tea-party as the “new civil rights movement!”.

The GOP War on Islam™

• Sharpton: Hannity’s Playboy spread smear.
• Alex Wagner: Sean Hannity, in interview with Playboy, claims Obama was born in Indonesia or Kenya or whatever…..

John Oliver on sad Obama.

Security State:

• Mark Fiore: FISA–Now hiring!
• Sexy NSA PSA.
• Liberal Viewer: FAUX News blames ACLU NSA spying lawsuit for stock market drop?!?
• Young Turks: FBI admits to using drones.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

No, as of when I started writing this at 5:00. So, we’re still a few weeks out from a budget shutdown in Washington. I thought we were supposed to have something. I don’t see any reports that there’s a snag, so who knows? If we run out of time without a budget, well, terrible things:

During a briefing Thursday, the Governor’s chief of staff Mary Alice Heuschel said that 34 state agencies would shut down completely, including the Governor’s office, the Auditor’s office and the state Lottery. The Governor, himself, would remain on the job.

The plan calls for 24 agencies to shut down partially, including the Department of Ecology, Employment Security, Fish and Wildlife and the Health Department.

“The Department of Corrections estimates that approximately 3,000 of their 8,000 employees would be [laid off] and they’re an agency that has federal mandates to continue a large portion of their operations,” said Brown.

Services for the needy would be cut back, including child care subsidies and food and nutrition programs.

Twenty-five state agencies would remain open, including colleges and universities and departments that don’t rely on the operating budget for funding.

But you know, Rodney Tom probably won’t personally suffer, so who cares?

– If we put a fund together, I bet we could get enough to change the Tacoma Dome to the “HorsesAss.Org Awesomedome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

– Police are warning about a woman posing as a DSHS employee to steal money from very vulnerable victims, and detectives believe there could be many more targets who have not yet come forward, possibly because of the language barrier between themselves and police.

– 8 Ways Not To Be An “Ally”: A Non-Comprehensive List (h/t to my friend M on Facebook)

– I don’t know what else to say. I’m not surprised, because I am a white person who has been a white person her whole life (!) and thus I have spent a lifetime interacting with other white people who presumed that, because we are both white, we are both fans of racist humor. Or cool with racial slurs. Or will definitely agree about their solid and totally original theories on some ancient racist narrative.

– I was just talking to someone from West Seattle about cycling on the Spokane Street Bridge, and now there’s a counter.

– Please — that’s only 45 words. That’s not even a blog post — it’s almost a Tweet. Clearly trivial.

– Fun Facts are my favorite Tom the Dancing Bug, and Fun Facts About New York City is my favorite in a while.

They didn’t get results and they put the blame on somebody else. It’s another day in the unproductive life on the Republican Congress where they bring bills to the floor that are going nowhere and they blame other people for their lack of success. As I say, another day in the amateur hour of the Republican Congress.

— House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi after the G.O.P. Farm Bill went down in flames, prompting infighting and finger pointing among the House Republicans.