“…and as always in parting, we wish you love, peace… and SOUL!”

Water cannon attack on black Civil Rights demonstrators in 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama. The water was propelled at 100 lbs/sq inch. (Charlie Moore)

“Culdesac Cred”.  or maybe even Exurb cred. Really I have to believe Republican politicians say this stuff to get credibility among the hardcore party base. The base acknowledges either their denial of liberal activism’s key role in the construction and growth of this country or squeals with glee at the outbursts of rage from elected Democrats and liberal activists. Or maybe they just want to keep us liberals in condemnation mode instead of organize and act mode.

I’d rather think the Governor of New Jersey is that cynical rather than so insane that he needs to mark down American history on the fly. Either way, it has to be rebutted because it’s all from “there was an easier way to get voters rights rather than create so much trouble” right wing “libertarian intellectual” revisionist line used by guys like Ron Paul.

“I think people would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights, rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South,” Christie said after an event in Central Jersey.

via NJ gov strikes with a zinger after segregationist comparison during heated gay marriage debate – The Washington Post.

Yes they would have been happy for a referendum on their Civil Rights, except for the fact that the people who were dying in the streets of the South who couldn’t vote would have had to depend on the votes of people who were fighting to keep them from voting.

Former Republican Presidential Candidate Jon Huntsman bootstrapped his way through a Quixotic campaign.

For Villagers, Republicans are “moderates” if they’re reasonable dinner party guests.

via Eschaton: It’s Just Tone.

Yes, and this revisionist policy position syndrome affects more people than you think. See one Bill Maher.

I’ve heard him say quite often that former Vice President Dick Cheney is to the left of President Obama on marriage equality.  President Obama has successfully led the repeal of DADT, extended benefits to domestic partners of executive branch employees, supports Civil Unions, stopped the DOJ from defending DOMA in court. Prior to that, Obama as US Senator and US Representative had a record of supporting Civil Rights for LGBT Americans including supporting hate crimes legislation that includes LGBT as a protected class. The sticking point here is that Obama supports civil unions (short of gay marriage), while Dick Cheney supports marriage equality although like Obama  he says (marriage is the province of the states). But Cheney’s strong personal support of LGBT rights amounted when hedged against the Bush/Cheney’s platform resulted in substantial setbacks to marriage equality and civil rights for LGBT Americans.

Cheney was a long serving US Representative, a  Secretary of Defense, director of the Council of Foreign Relations and a very powerful vice president for the bulk of George W. Bush’s 8 years in office. It’s true, as  Secretary of Defense he was first quoted on the record as referring to the policy of banning gays in the military as “an old chestnut”. But not that old of a chestnut:

Increasingly, toward the end of his tenure, Cheney had to consider social issues affecting the military forces, particularly the status of homosexuals in the military and the role of women in combat. In the face of pressure from some members of Congress and the public at large, Cheney reviewed standing DoD policy on these matters. He decided that the existing policies–a ban on homosexuals serving in the military and the exclusion of women from combat positions–were correct and did not need to be changed.

During and after his tenure as VP, Cheney also professed his belief in full marriage equality, but he did little beyond these proclamations of personal belief to advance the rights of LGBT Americans with regards to these issues. Cheney picked himself for the number two job in the Bush administration as head of Bush 2000 VP search committee and it was evident then that a Bush/Cheney administration would never support repeal of DADT or marriage equality and in fact would push for less civil rights for LGBT groups. During the 2000 and 04 elections Bush/Cheney, ran on a platform that made them the bulwark protecting real ‘murkins and their children from teh ghey marriages.

This was a big motivator for evangelicals, the group that when energized supercharges the ground game for Republicans. To tweak the issue prior to the US Presidential Election in 2004 and Mid Term elections in 2006, the Bush Administration introduced legislation for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and woman. These “sanctity of marriage” amendments failed, but showed that no federal action was possible. “The Sanctity of Marriage” was up to social conservative evangelical voters.  With this demagoguery as a motivator, from 2002 to 2008, social conservatives proposed and passed anti-marriage equality ballot measures in 29 states that amended their constitutions to be anti-gay marriage.

Degree, magnitude, process and consequence of political actions matter. Cheney was vocal or personally adamant in his support for marriage equality and civil rights but this was largely absent from Cheney’s legislative, cabinet and vice presidential agendas. These same issues have been political priorities in President Obama’s considerably shorter political career. Cheney squandered his opportunity to be politically “on the left” of Obama on these issues in any substantial way.

• Ron Paul is a plain and simple bigot who fully agreed with the content of his newsletters
•  Ron Paul is a plain and simple charlatan who cranked up the bigotry in his newsletters to grow his audience

“A person involved in Paul’s businesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid criticizing a former employer, said Paul and his associates decided in the late 1980s to try to increase sales by making the newsletters more provocative,” the paper reports. “They discussed adding controversial material, including racial statements, to help the business, the person said.”

(from Ron Paul-Supporting Former Ron Paul Secretary: He Knew All About Those Newsletters | TPM)

Either option disqualifies him as a serious candidate for President or a serious movement politician. I wonder if this meeting in the late 1980′s went something like…

The evidence states that the defendants agreed not to poach employees from each other or give them offers if they voluntarily applied, and to notify the current employers of any employees trying to switch been. They also agreed not to enter into bidding wars and to limit the potential for employees to negotiate for higher salaries.

In one particularly juicy piece of evidence from May 2005, Adobe’s CEO Bruce Chizen emailed Steve Jobs regarding “Recruitment of Apple Employees”. In the message, Adobe’s SVP for human resources writes “Bruce and Steve Jobs have an agreement that we are not to solicit ANY Apple employees, and vice versa.”

Additionally, documents state that there is “strong evidence that the companies knew about the other express agreements, patterned their own agreements off of them, and operated them concurrently with the others to accomplish the same objective.”

For example, Lori McAdams of Pixar wrote an internal email to others at Pixar  in April 2007 stating, “I just got off the phone with Danielle Lambert [of Apple], and we agreed that effective now, we’ll follow a Gentleman’s agreement with Apple that is similar to our Lucasfilm agreement.”

In business a “Gentleman’s agreement” is usually an agreement to screw everyone not considered a gentleman.

King knew he was marginalized as a referee of the proceedings after that moment. I don’t know if King knows why. King basically asks Gingrich if he wants to comment on a wreck that was a previous marriage. He doesn’t even bother to challenge Newt in the context of his views on marriage  equality or his crusade against Bill Clinton. He just basically asks him if he wants to share some anecdotes regarding his 2nd marriage/divorce.

A divorce that I or any other voter could give two shits about. He could have discussed: The recession. The Iraq war. The mortgage crisis. Fannie/Freddie. The national budget. Reproductive rights. Global warming. No. He wants to know what Gingrich has to say about his 2nd ex wife.

When Gingrich dings him, King then tries to beg Gingrich off with the punk move of saying “this story did not come from our network”. It came from your network the minute you brought up at the Republican debate. If you can’t stand for the value of the question when challenged you shouldn’t ask it.

He also said he didn’t “inherit money from my parents”.