Obscanity: You’ll know it when you see it

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Longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas retiring – CNN.com.

Wow. I had no idea. Does she realize that many Jews never left Israel, or never left the Middle East, or did not move to Israel from Europe but from Africa or Asia, or that Germany and Poland were never our true home? We were always from the Middle East. When we were in Europe, most people there hoped we would go back to where we came from, if not simply perish. So to say we should “go back to Germany/Poland” is to completely misunderstand the Jewish people as a whole. I don’t know if “Go back to Africa” is really an accurate analogy; that would be closer if she had said Jews should get out of America and go back to Israel. A better analogy would be if a community of freed slaves – or even their ancestors today – returned to their homes in Africa only to be told to “Go back to Virginia.”

Iran ready to protect Gaza-bound ships – UPI.com.

Faaaantastic. So now Iran gets to do what it’s been DYING to do for years, with an excuse that makes it look like it’s not the aggressor. If Iran hadn’t been supporting Hamas financially and militarily all this time, perhaps there wouldn’t be a need for a blockade in the first place.

Iran Red Crescent to send aid to Gaza – CNN.com.

If I never hear the word “flotilla” again it will be too soon. If Israel wouldn’t allow ships from a friendly nation to break the blockade, what makes them think it’s going to allow “aid” from Iran without inspection? Doesn’t Gaza get enough “aid” from Iran through its underground tunnels? In any event, Hamas has alrea…dy announced that it is holding all flotilla aid itself hostage by refusing to allow it into the country unless Israel meets demands. All that aid from those other ships is just sitting there because Hamas refuses to touch it.

“I’m beginning to think ‘the American people’ is a meaningless phrase, cravenly used as a cudgel to project whatever provincial concerns any particular interest group may want to advance, and as such, perhaps should be struck from public utterance, along with such other false monolithic projections as ‘The Founders int…ended,’ ‘Our children deserve,’ and ‘Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee!’” ~ Jon Stewart, May 5, 2010

Myth of the ‘gay lifestyle’ justifies bias – CNN.com.

Growth of Unpaid Internships May Be Illegal, Officials Say – NYTimes.com.

Insurer targeted HIV patients to drop coverage | Reuters.

Op-Ed Columnist – Learning From the Sin of Sodom – NYTimes.com.

In all fairness, I think a lot of the liberal snobbishness toward faith-based organizations is precisely the result of evangelical sanctimony… but otherwise, the guy really has a point.

Meanwhile in Texas: “American Taliban” Isn’t Hyperbole Anymore | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

Maybe somebody needs to build a website to identify members of this group by name, photo and workplace.

Kenyan Police Disperse Gay Wedding – NYTimes.com.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyan police officers broke up a gay wedding on Friday and arrested several wedding guests, saying they had to intervene before an irate mob could stone the wedding party to death…

YouTube – Woman’s Last Stand: Dodge Charger Commercial Spoof.

‘Valentine’s Day’ promotion gets ‘de-gayed’ – CNN.com.

Sarah Palin Populism: Savvy Speech to Tea Party Movement – TIME.

Case Stokes Haiti’s Fear for Children, and Itself – NYTimes.com.

Srsly? Little kids are not stray animals – you can’t just pluck them off the street without regard to their status, assuming it’s all okay because they’ll be better off in good [white] Christian homes. They thought they didn’t need papers because of the earthquake? Really? I’ve heard of other people who think they can just help themselves to anything after a natural disaster… we call them “looters.”

I understand the desire to help the kids… but this approach crosses a line. A big one.

ProtectMarriage completely misses the point. I’m shocked. Or not.

Outside the courtroom, the plaintiffs’ attorneys sharply criticized the notion that redefining marriage to include homosexual relationships would contribute to the deinstitutionalization of marriage. That argument, they said, is like saying that extending the right to vote to women “deinstitutionalized” the voting process.

Nice sound bite, but the analogy fails. Securing women’s right to vote didn’t do a thing to change the meaning and importance of voting. By contrast there is no doubt that re-defining marriage to include homosexual relationships would ipso facto divorce the institution itself from its fundamental, biological foundation. Nice try.

I think that’s kind of the point. Before the Nineteenth Amendment was passed, politicians and pundits argued that extending voting rights to women would de-legitimize the political process, destroy homes and families, lead to double-voting, create crime, injure women, result in military ruin, and generally destroy the world. It didn’t. And neither will same-sex marriage.

ProtectMarriage is now furious at, um, well, let’s take a look:

Despite supposedly winning our appeal in the Ninth Circuit to protect the privacy of our internal Prop 8 campaign records, the trial judge has still forced us to hand over literally tens of thousands of pages of sensitive campaign memos, emails and other documents to the plaintiffs. After sifting through our internal documents for facts they think aid their case, they had them labeled as trial exhibits and added to the court record.

Yeah, we’ve all read the testimony. The Court was pretty good about keeping out the genuinely sensitive / private stuff, and much of what was admitted was redacted substantially. But as for the general process of the opposing side forcing you to hand over personal documents (also known as discovery), sifting through those documents, labeling them as trial exhibits, and adding them to the court record? I’m pretty sure that’s a hefty component of what experts esoterically refer to as LITIGATION.

How a Bad Expert Witness Can Ruin A Case « Prop 8 Trial Tracker.

At any moment of optimism, however, I go back to the basic lay of the land on this case. Due to the level of scrutiny in the case, Olson, Boies, et al. are playing on an uneven playing field. They have to roll the boulder up the hill. While Prof. Miller seems to be struggling to push it down the hill, they are still the ones pushing the easy way.

Ladies and gentlemen, if I could just call your attention to the final lines of the latest ProtectMarriage.com entry…

In fact, when the video cameras stop rolling and the sensationalism of this trial fades away, it will become clear that plaintiffs have essentially presented a political argument—not a legal claim. Such a case belongs in the public debate, not a courtroom.

Tags: Gregory Herek, prop8, protect marriage, traditional Marriage

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Raise your hand if you see something glaringly wrong with this?

Let’s break this down:

1) What video cameras? This guy would have you believe there’s some sort of media circus going on in the court room. Seriously? These people went to the SUPREME COURT to keep this thing from being televised. Yes, it’s being recorded for the judge, but those recordings are not being released to the public, and from the court transcripts they already appear to be biting their nails about what’s going to happen to them at the end of the trial. So… “When the video cameras stop rolling”? Really? Can we say, “HYPERBOLE”?

2) What sensationalism? There’s been virtually no media attention to this trial. If I wasn’t a gay law student taking an active interest in the trial, I’d have no reason to know it’s even happening. Network news hasn’t really touched it much. Stewart and Colbert are barely even acknowledging it, if they have at all. So again – what sensationalism would that be, exactly?

3) If the case belongs in the public debate, why have you turned off both pings AND comments?

Obama to Offer Aid for Families in State of the Union Address – NYTimes.com.

Dear President Obama,
If you want to “help families,” could you please get rid of the Gay Tax? I’m really not sure exactly where we’re supposed to come up with that kind of money – and I find it terribly ironic that you expect us to pay more for less.
Thanks,
Disenfranchised Taxpayer

slacktivist: I think maybe part of the reason you’re so angry is you keep demanding that you get screwed and then, not surprisingly, you keep getting screwed.

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

Twelve US Senators signed a letter urging Uganda’s president to block passage of Uganda’s proposed ban on homosexuality, legislation which includes punishments of either life imprisonment or death, and encourages a witch hunt by requiring people “in authority” to turn in suspected homosexuals.

Note that not a single one of the Senators who signed onto the letter is a Republican. That’s no surprise, really. I’m fairly certain the Repubs are just trying to figure out if that bill would fly in Congress.

My favorite “Gathering Storm” parody…

Protect Marriage avoids inconvenient truths.

Then Thursday, for the first time (we believe) ever in a court of law, a proponent of a voter initiative was put on the stand to be interrogated under oath about his own political, moral and religious views. Not only was the Prop 8 supporter forced to reveal his political and religious views under penalty of perjury, but he was further forced to defend and substantiate his views so the court can decide whether his views are “improper.”

They make it sound like Plaintiffs plucked a random guy off the street. This was an OFFICIAL PROPONENT of the amendment, and also the executive director of one of the campaign coalition organizations. This was a guy who JOINED as a Defendant Intervener (despite efforts to withdraw under pretense of fear once he realized he was making matters worse by being there)! That makes him a VOLUNTARY PARTY TO THIS CASE. Why shouldn’t he be put on the stand under oath and interrogated as to his actions and motives? Tam voluntarily stepped into the public eye in order to make outrageous claims about the “gay agenda.” He participated in public debates on behalf of the Yes on 8 campaign. And perhaps most importantly, Tam’s beliefs reflect those of a great number of Prop 8 supporters – and that is entirely relevant to this case, because the Plaintiffs need to show that animus was the driving factor. Tam SHOULD be held accountable for his public statements, especially because he not only inserted himself into the campaign, but also inserted himself into the very case in which he is being examined.

Protect Marriage’s summation of today’s testimony. Virtually NO mention of the fiasco that was the impeachment of William Tam, even though his testimony took up the entire second half of the day. Definitely a must-read (his testimony, not PM’s summary). Lawyering at its finest.

Actually, the really hilarious part is that the post is entitled “A Head Shaker of an Afternoon.” Segura testified in the morning. TAM testified in the afternoon. I’ll bet it WAS a real head-shaker.