Archive for the ‘elections’ Category

How is it the judges here are such idiots?

A federal district court judge in Boston today struck down the 1996 federal law that defines marriage as a union exclusively between a man and a woman.

Judge Joseph L. Tauro ruled that the federal Defense of Marriage law violates the Constitutional right of married same-sex couples to equal protection under the law and upends the federal government’s long history of allowing states to set their own marriage laws.

This is going to be a big game changer. Liberal sites on Memeorandom are all over it.

First of all those who said a constitutional amendment was not necessary have no leg to stand on, however those who were saying that knew it was false when they said it, they were playing for time. Little did they know that time state after state, even ones as liberal as Maine and California would reject Gay Marriage at the ballot box. So much for stalling for time.

Second of all democrats in borderline districts are now going to be in even worse shape. If the party opposes an amendment even more seats will be lost in swing states.

Third of all this is a big issue in both the Black and Latino communities and it’s an issue that the democratic party is on the wrong side of. They don’t want to deal with it but now they have no choice.

Fourth of all suddenly the Elena Kagan nomination becomes perhaps something worth fighting for and a test vote on gay marriage that democratic senators don’t want to have.

Finally this forces the president to make a call. If he comes out in favor of gay marriage that will be a bridge too far for the religious Black community particularly with only one vote making the difference on the court. There is no barrier to break anymore. That will be the difference in 2012. Expect him to speak against this ruling, but avoid introducing a constitutional amendment unless he is sure it will be defeated.

In one respect the timing isn’t bad for democrats, this is going to be a bad year anyway so you might as well get it all over with.

I saw the clip today on Morning Joe where Chris Matthews declares that Palin will win the nomination in 2012 if she runs, Newsbusters was surprised:

An unexpected prediction, and an even more surprising admission from Chris Matthews this morning . . .

Appearing on Morning Joe, the Hardball host predicted that Sarah Palin would seek the Republican presidential nomination, and painted a path to victory for her. In a moment of candor, Matthews admitted that “the media will try to destroy her, of course.”

Matthews made his comments in the course of a pre-taped Mojo Midterm Exam segment that aired on today’s Morning Joe.

Newsbusters is shocked SHOCKED that Matthews would say what he says. They should not be. If they paid attention to what followed they would understand.

Barnicle maintained that if Palin is the nominee that Obama wins re-election automatically. Matthews believes this too.

Matthews is a hyperpatrisian but he is no fool. He knows what both 2010 & 2012 have in store for Democrats in general and this administration in particular. He wants Palin running not because he thinks she can win, but because he thinks she can not.

Newsbusters is reading Matthews wrong but Matthews is reading Palin wrong and Joe Scarborough God bless him hits the nail on the head. When Scarborough points out that Matthews claims concerning Palin’s ignorance are the same thing that was said about Reagan, Matthews declares Reagan well read and substantive.

Unfortunately for Chris like myself Joe read Tip O’Neill’s Autobiography and reminded Chris what his old boss said about Reagan. It was the liberal line for decades until he died. I remember the arguments, I believed them at the time, the difference was when the facts didn’t support those beliefs I changed my opinion, they haven’t.

Here Joe was able to see what Chris Matthews had wrong. Matthews and Barnicle are assuming that the nation won’t accept a Sarah Palin, they assume she is some kind of dunce that people will see right through. However what people see right through are the media types who think this.

2010 may be 2004 redux but 2012 has the potential to be 1980 all over again. A Carter like president facing crises that he can’t cope with, a republican field with one or more established faces (Romney, Huck) and an outsider, a former governor who is considered by the intelligentsia just a lightweight celeb. The left was delighted when Reagan was the front runner, convinced that he couldn’t win, remember how that turned out?

Will the left learn from history? I see no reason why they would start doing so now.

Update: Captain Ed’s take, he notices something too.

Notice that no one objects to this characterization of the media on this panel of, er, media personalities. No one questions whether that is actually the media’s job, to intentionally try to destroy political candidates. It’s all just a given. Palin runs, media will attempt to destroy her — and it serves as an implicit admission that the media did exactly that in 2008.

Solid point.

Now that the youngest doesn’t have to be out of the house before 7 and the wife doesn’t have to be out by 8:15 or so I haven’t been up for 6 every day so I’ve been missing the start of Morning Joe lately.

But I caught the tail end and Barnicle and Matthews went off on Harry Reid’s opponent Sharron Angle.

Barnicle considers her an idiot, Matthews went off about loving to be “pulling the scab off her” to expose her.

Well after all she has extreme positions like opposing Abortion even in cases of Rape in incest, you know what you call a position like that: “Catholic”.

And it’s not like Reid is doing something low like say building phishing websites.

The Reid campaign activated the prior sections of Angle’s original website where supporters of Angle could enter their e-mail and other contact information for future campaign communications, as well as a form to sign up as a volunteer. I know that the “contact” section was operable because I filled it out the form and hit the “submit” button.

Turning these contact and volunteer functions live must have been a deliberate Reid campaign decision, because the “contribute” function on the spoofed website was inoperable. The Reid campaign clearly wanted to gather names and contact information on Angle supporters, but did not want to go so far as to take fraudulent donations.

Now of course Talking Point Memo (via memeorandum) sees Angle’s complaint as unusual:

Sharron Angle has resorted to an unusual maneuver to counter Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s attacks on her past quotes and positions, the Reid campaign has announced: A cease-and-desist letter, demanding that Reid no longer republish Angle’s previous campaign website.

I’m sure everyone who has ever given their person information to a false website will sympathize with this argument. Meanwhile Lee Cary at American Thinker reports that this is only the beginning:

So, first scrub the voter registration lists looking for phony names. Then, have an army of people prepared to be poll watchers on Election Day, trained to look for voter fraud.

And in the run up to the election, don’t be surprised if the Reid people secretively finance and encourage a third party candidate with the sole purpose of diverting anti-Reid votes to help him in his race against Angle. You don’t think this’ll happen?

It’s articles like this that leave Don Surber to this conclusion:

Pretty desperate but as I have said, polls or not, I expect Dirty Harry to prevail in November.

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Let’s hope he’s wrong.

Update: Tweet of the day:

“@SharronAngle is NOT a kook She is us!”

Bazinga!

In addition to the proximity of Romano’s Mkt, one of the great advantages of the house I live in is the path of Fitchburg’s 4th of July parade is only 2 blocks from the house, less than a 5 min walk. So every year since December of 1991 we go and watch it.

Six months before we bought the house John Olver became my congressman. In all the years that I’ve seen Fitchburg’s 4th of July Parade I’ve never seen Congressman Olver there…

Mayor Lisa Wong with Congressman John Olver at the July 4th Parade in Fitchburg 2010

…until yesterday.

Not that is it odd for a congressman to march in one of the largest cities in his district but what brought about the change. Well oddly enough I think it had to do with the presence of Bill Gunn candidate for the 1st district marching in the same parade.

It was suggested at the tea party meeting on Monday that Mr. Olver’s presence was added at the last minute when he heard Mr. Gunn would be there. If a liberal as established as John Olver sees the need to electioneer this year in Massachusetts then the times they are a’changin.

P. S. Yes that was an abrupt end to the video. My camera memory filled just as he was finishing his last sentence. The rest of his sentence says we need fiscally responsible candidates on the Local, State and Federal Level.

UPDATE: As I was writing the post I was looking at the flyer on the table. it said “MA 1” but I thought the “1” was a “J” so I thought it was “Maj” as in Major. Mr. Gunn has corrected me. That’s totally my bad.