Biffster’s World

There’s good news for marriage equality out of the New Jersey Supreme Court:

New Jersey’s Supreme Court opened the door to gay marriage Wednesday, ruling that homosexuals are entitled to the same rights as heterosexuals, but leaving it to lawmakers to legalize same-sex unions.The high court gave lawmakers 180 days to rewrite marriage laws to either include same-sex couples or create a new system of civil unions for them.

This is a most wonderful step in the right direction. It still allows for legislators to pass Civil Unions instead of allowing Marriage, but that’s a small thing. This ruling still opens up the door for marriage equality. And it creates a precendent to work around all of the “definition of marriage” amendments currently being passed by a number of states. This ruling basically says that states can define marriage however they want, but they cannot deny same-sex couples the same rights that heterosexual couples receive.

The tide is turning. Slowly, but most definitely.

Remarks made by President Clinton at Georgetown University marking the15th Anniversary of the New Covenant Addresses as part of the Center for American Progress’s conference, Securing the Common Good: A Vision for America. (via www.americanprogress.org)

[...]

Now, this sort of politics – striving for the common good – for me stands in stark contrast to both the political and governing philosophy of the leadership in Washington today and for the last six years. The more ideological, right-wing element of the Republican Party has been building strength, partly in reaction to things that happened 40 years ago: to Barry Goldwater’s defeat, to what they saw as the excesses of the ‘60s. It got a lot of legs when President Reagan was elected, but this is the first time when, on a consistent basis, the most conservative, most ideological wing of the Republican Party has had both the executive and the legislative branch, with a very distinct governing philosophy and a very distinct political philosophy.

Where us common-good folks favor equal opportunity and empowerment, they believe the country is best served by the maximum concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the right people – right in both senses. (Laughter.) We believe in mutual responsibility. They believe that in large measure people make or break their own lives, and you’re on your own. We believe in striving at least to cooperate with others, because we think that there are very few problems in the world we can solve on our own. They favor unilateralism whenever possible and cooperation when it’s unavoidable.

It’s getting close to election time, so I am starting to research all of the various  amendments and referenda on the ballot here in Colorado. Today’s topic: Amendment 39. This is one that we have to vote against!

Teachers and education leaders oppose Amendment 39 because it does nothing to improve student achievement. In fact, Standard and Poor’s studied this issue and concluded that there is no link between a particular percentage of classroom spending and student achievement.

If you are for public education at all, then you have to vote against Amendment 39. This is an evil piece of legislature, aimed at undermining public education while appearing to try to help it. The Vote No website (also linked on the sidebar) details many reasons to say no to this proposed amendment. One of the most important reasons is:

What is the impact on children in our schools?
Because budget cuts are necessary under the Amendment 39 mandate, children will lose out on nourishing meals, health services, counseling and safe transportation. Disparate impacts occur in low-income areas where children depend on schools to provide nutritious meals, counseling and security, and in rural areas where safe school buses transporting children to school must be reduced or eliminated.

I am also very suspicious of the people behind this proposed amendment, including former Republican minority leader Joe Stengel - a man who seemed to always be looking for ways to funnel money away from lower/middle class Coloradoans and direct it to the upper-class, and Grover Norquist.

Yahoo! News has what may be the least surprising headline ever: Democrats have big lead after sex scandal:

A ABC News/Washington Post poll found Democrats held a 54-41 percent lead in the congressional horse race among registered and likely voters, which ABC said was the biggest Democratic lead this close to election day in more than 20 years.

This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.  Representative Foley’s actions were bad, Speaker of the House Hastert’s coverup was even worse. There was no way that this wouldn’t lead to a massive public backlash against Republicans and towards Democrats. The question is: will this backlash hold up for another four weeks?

Let us hope so!

In case you hadn’t heard, endorsements for the Colorado Gubernatorial race are coming in. Most of the big ones are going to Bill Ritter, including the state’s two largest newspapers, The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News.

Bob Beuaprez is not to be left out, however. He received his own accolates, as he was added to the  2006 “Dirty Dozen” List:

The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) today joined with the Colorado Conservation Voters Campaign Fund to name Representative Bob Beauprez (CO) to LCV’s 2006 “Dirty Dozen” list, the first time in LCV’s 36-year history that it has named a gubernatorial candidate to its list.

Would it be wrong of me to point out once again that Ritter has over a 15-point lead over Beauprez in the latest polls. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but this is starting to look like a slam-dunk.

How much worse can things get for House Republicans right now? Mark Foley’s predilection for little boys would’ve seemed to have been a catastrophe. But instead, Foley’s pediophilia is just the tip of the iceberg. The Republican cover-up is turning out to be the true catastrophe for the House Republicans. One which they aren’t going to recover from.

So just how bad is it? It looks like the coverup has been going on for three years:

At the same time, a congressional aide said in an Associated Press
interview he first warned Hastert’s aides more than three years ago
that Foley’s behavior toward pages was troublesome. That was long
before GOP leaders acknowledged learning of the problem.

The aide, Kirk Fordham, said he had “more than one conversation with
senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives
asking them to intervene” several years ago.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert’s staff immediately said this was false, of course. Hastert is fighting for his political life here, trying to deny that there was any type of cover-up. But with every passing day, new information is released which points to a massive cover-up. And House Republicans are starting to realize that Hastert’s ship is sinking:

Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, third-ranking leader, pointedly told reporters he would
have handled the matter differently than the speaker, had he known of
it.

“I think I could have given some good advice here, which is, You
have to be curious, you have to ask all the questions you can think
of,” said Blunt, a member of the leadership. “You absolutely can’t
decide not to look into activities because one individual’s parents
don’t want you to.”

Republican Rep. Ron Lewis of Kentucky, in a tougher-than-expected re-election race, abruptly
canceled an invitation for Hastert to join him at a fundraiser next
week.

“I’m taking the speaker’s words at face value,” Lewis told the AP.
“I have no reason to doubt him. But until this is cleared up, I want to
know the facts. If anyone in our leadership has done anything wrong,
then I will be the first in line to condemn it.”

I think it is safe to say that Hastert is not going to survive the scandal. It’s also a fair bet that at least a few incumbent Republicans will lose their seats because of this. November’s election was already looking promising for Democrats. Now, it looks like a sure thing that the Dems will take control of the House.

(All quotes from Yahoo! News)

For those of us who have given up on normal tv news and have instead switched to using Comedy Central’s Daily Show as a primary source of national/world news: a study has determined that ‘Daily Show’ is not just fake news!

Fox said the Comedy Central program is first and foremost “clearly a humor show.” But she added there is also significant information being exchanged, calling it “a legitimate source of news.”