I was already under the working assumption that any Republican who rails against the gays is himself gay. Time after time, history has proven me right in this assumption. So really, yawn, shocker.

Republican state Sen. Roy Ashburn said Monday he is gay, ending days of speculation that began after his arrest last week for investigation of driving under the influence.

Ashburn, who consistently voted against gay rights measures during his 14 years in statewide office, came out in an interview with KERN radio in Bakersfield, the area he represents.

…Ashburn has voted against a number of gay rights measures, including efforts to expand anti-discrimination laws and recognize out-of-state gay marriages.

Last year, he opposed a bill to establish a day of recognition to honor slain gay rights activist Harvey Milk.

Equality California, a group that advocates for expanded gay rights and other issues, said it consistently gave Ashburn a 0 rating on its scorecard.

Note: I deliberately linked to the Faux News article to show how even they couldn’t shine this turd.

Sarah Palin’s family digs that Commie health care, alright:

My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse. Believe it or not — this was in the ’60s — we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.

Markos Moulitsas chimes in:

Palin should reimburse Canada for the health care she stole without paying into their system.

Ever wonder what the RNC really thinks about its followers? Wonder no longer, as Politico has obtained a copy of the RNC’s fundraising plans.

The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”

…The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading “Visceral Giving.” Their motivations are listed as “fear;” “Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;” and “Reactionary.”

Major donors, by contrast, are treated in a column headed “Calculated Giving.”

Their motivations include: “Peer to Peer Pressure”; “access”; and “Ego-Driven.”

With marriage equality now taking place in D.C., employers in D.C. will of course have to extend the same benefits to same-sex spouses as they do opposite-sex spouses.

The Archdiocese of Washington found this untenable. Health benefits? To the gays? What’s a Catholic employer to do?

Catholic Charities will continue to honor the health plan coverage that current employees have as of March 1, 2010. As of March 2, a new plan will be in effect that will cover new employees and requests for benefit changes by current employees. The new plan will provide the same level of coverage for employees and their dependents that you now have, with one exception: spouses not in the plan as of March 1, will not be eligible for coverage in the future.

That’s right — straight or gay, if your spouse wasn’t on the plan as of March 1, s/he can never, ever get health care coverage. See? Now they don’t have to give benefits to the gays — and it’s legal!

Yeah, that’s pretty much the embodiment of Christian charity right there.

Read on.

Rachel Maddow gives this terrific roundup of the Republicans who are expressing dismay at passing the health care bill — in direct contradiction of their own record. Whether it’s Sen. Grassley opposing his own proposal, or numerous Senators claiming that reconciliation is the end of the democratic process despite their repeated use of it in the past, the GOP hypocrisy is simply appalling, as is their apparent belief that we won’t notice their own voting records:

…that we need better consumer protection against the banks.

America’s finest news source, The Onion, brings us this editorial from House Minority Leader John Boehner:

It is my responsibility as an elected official to look out for the people back home, the voters who sent me to Washington. So, after 20 years representing Ohio’s 8th District, I know what the good citizens of Montgomery, Preble, and Butler counties really want: someone who engages in the kind of calculated political gamesmanship that increases his standing in the Republican party while simultaneously hindering our country’s legislative process at every conceivable turn.

I assure you, the last thing my voters need is some well intended, do-all-I-possibly-can-to-help-the-little-guy congressman running around Washington, working across the aisle, and fighting tooth and nail for jobs, health care, and financial reform to ensure their tax dollars never end up in the hands of banks capable of holding our entire economy hostage.

No, sir. My constituents deserve better.

They deserve a leader willing to roll up his sleeves and play the types of twisted, greedy political games that, by their very nature, tear apart the fabric of our democracy for the sake of assuring reelection.

Hey you. You there in the Glenn Beck T-shirt headed off to the Tea Party Patriot rally.

Stop shouting for a moment, please, I want to explain to you why you’re so very angry.

You should be angry. You’re getting screwed.

I think you know that. But you don’t seem to know that it doesn’t have to be that way. You can stop it. You can stop it easily because the system that’s screwing you over can only keep screwing you over if you keep demanding that it do so.

So stop demanding that. Stop helping the system screw you over.

Look, you can go back to yelling at me in a minute, but just read this first.

The measure includes a new program that would give companies a break from paying Social Security taxes on new employees for the remainder of 2010. It also carries… a provision to allow companies to write off equipment purchases.

Tax cuts. Tax write-offs. Obviously, something the GOP is behind, right? Wrong. 27 GOP Senators voted against the jobs bill.

I fully expect the so-called “Tea Party” types to lambast those 27 GOPers for being tax-hiking, big-government socialists. Hahahaha! Just kidding. We all know that label only applies to Democrats.

Update: my friend Craig points out that only 5 GOP Senators voted for cloture on the bill, but 13 then voted to pass the bill itself. This is the all-too-typical obstructionism we’ve seen (and are going to keep seeing): GOPers willing to filibuster bills that they approve of, just to be spiteful and counter-productive. If you want to know why Congress seems to have a hard time getting stuff done, there’s your answer right there.

A popular meme (and talking point) on the right is that “America is a center-right nation”. The right loves to repeat this because it undercuts any Democratic plan as out-of-touch with what “America wants”. Even after America elected a Democratic President and filled both houses of Congress with Democratic majorities.

A few articles worth reading about our supposed “center-right” affiliation:

First, a Pew Research poll finds that younger Americans identify as Democrats instead of Republicans 41 to 22. The group with the highest Republican self-identification, the seniors, was still Democrat 38 to 31. And the young crew say that part of what defines their generation is ”liberalism/tolerance”.

Second, this post from Michael Lind on Salon, arguing that the right, out of power, has built a counterculture instead of an opposition:

Political factions that are out of power have a choice. They can form a counter-establishment or a counterculture. A counter-establishment (a term that Sidney Blumenthal used to describe the neoconservatives in the 1970s) seeks to return to power by reassuring voters that it is sober and responsible. A counter-establishment publishes policy papers and holds conferences and its members endure their exile in think tanks and universities.

In contrast, a counterculture refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the rules of the game that it has lost. Instead of moving toward the center, the counterculture heads for the fringes. Like a cult, it creates its own parallel reality, seceding from a corrupt and wicked society into morally and politically pure enclaves…

Just as the New Left claimed that the New Deal era wasn’t really liberal, so the countercultural right claims that the Republican Party from Nixon to George W. Bush wasn’t really conservative…

A few decades ago it was the countercultural left that opposed science, technology and markets… Nowadays anti-science, anti-technology Luddites are more likely to be found on the right, among opponents of stem-cell research and evolutionary biology…

Paul Weyrich, the president of the Free Congress Foundation, [said], “The radicals of the 1960s had three slogans: turn on, tune in, drop out. I suggest that we adopt a modified version.”

Finally, there’s this summary of polls from FiveThirtyEight showing a breakdown by various issues, and analyzing whose position the majority of Americans take: Obama’s or the GOP’s. Surprise: most of the time, it’s Obama’s:

Of these 25 issues, Obama’s position appears to be on the right side of public opinion on 14… It would appear to be on the wrong side of public opinion on five issues: the GM/Chrysler bailout, Guantanamo Bay, health care, the extension of the TARP program, and terrorist trials. On the other six issues, the polling is probably too ambiguous to render a clear verdict.

Republicans, on the other hand, have been overwhelmingly opposed to almost all of these measures with the exception of Ben Bernanke and Afghanistan troops, both of which poll ambiguously, and the credit card bill, which polled well.

‘cos it doesn’t.

It’s like rain on your wedding day! And you apparently have no sense of it.

CBS’ official policy on ads is that they don’t air contentious advocacy ads. That’s why they rejected an ad in 2004 from the United Church of Christ in which the UCC said they welcomed gays.

At least, that was their policy. on Sunday, CBS will be airing an anti-abortion ad from Tim Tebow. During the Superbowl.

CBS’ new policy on ads is that they don’t air contentious advocacy ads… unless they feel like it.

What to do? My friend Sarah offers her plan:

…[I] will be donating to Planned Parenthood on Superbowl Sunday in direct response to the pro-life PSA being approved. Don’t get mad, use it to make positive change in the world.

I couldn’t agree more. On Sunday, I encourage you to do the same; I will be.

(And while you’re at it, check out Planned Parenthood’s video in response to the Super Bowl ad.)

NO SERIOUSLY

Check out the results from this poll.

I… I am speechless. I can’t even summarize it.

Okay, let me try. 2000 Republicans surveyed, and the results include

Should contraceptive use be outlawed?
Yes 31
No 56
Not Sure 13

THIRTY ONE PERCENT
SOMEWHERE, MARGARET ATWOOD IS PULLING OUT HER HAIR

Wouldn’t it be nice?

(Text NSFW.)

Bill O’Reilly asked folks to grade Obama on his first year in office. The results might surprise you.

We have been at war in Afghanistan longer than we were in WWII. It remains one of the major issues facing this country.

Today, representatives from 70 countries are meeting in London about Afghanistan, trying to find a way to unbury it from its mess.

Current top headlines from various news sites:

• BBC: “‘Tide must turn’ for Afghanistan”
• CNN: “Impact of Obama speech: Did it deliver?” No mention of the conference at all on the front page, not even in the “World” section.
• MSNBC: “Budget woes likely to crimp Obama jobs plan”. Conference is headline #3 below the fold in the “More News” section.
• Fox “News” (sp): “Renewing ‘Change’ Promise, Obama Tries to Reset Agenda”. Conference is tenth link down in the top section.
• NY Times: “A Dose of Reality, a Bid to Restore Magic”. Conference is first link below the fold.

Not all that SFW:

(thanks to Dolsen for the link)

If you’ve been wondering how much of the discontent with the health care bill is the bill itself and how much is the Dems’ (lack of) messaging about it, I submit this for your consideration:

Constituents appearing at health care town halls have even demanded that their members of Congress keep their “government hands off of Medicare.” Now, a new Public Policy Polling poll finds that millions of Americans do not realize that the federal government runs Medicare:

One poll question indicative of how difficult it is to gain public understanding on a complicated issue asked if respondents thought the government should ‘stay out of Medicare,’ something inherently impossible. 39% said yes.

Thanks to Jasper for the link.

It would be nice if this passes.

Requesting the Senate to adjust its rules to reflect the intent of the framers of the Constitution by amending the Senate’s filibuster rule, Rule 22, to facilitate the consideration of bills and amendments.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

Whereas the Constitution requires a super majority in certain circumstances only and, in all other votes, a simple majority was intended to be sufficient…

Resolved, That the House of Representatives requests the Senate to adjust its rules to reflect the intent of the framers of the Constitution by amending the Senate’s filibuster rule, Rule 22, to facilitate the consideration of bills and amendments.