Gay Marriage - Immigration - Iraq
Gay Marriage
Link
A snip:
WASHINGTON - Some election-year advice to Republicans from a high-ranking source who has the president's ear: Don't use a proposed constitutional amendment against gay marriage as a campaign tool.
Just who is that political strategist? Laura Bush.
The Senate will debate legislation that would have the Constitution define marriage as the union between a man and a woman early next month, Majority Leader Bill Frist said on CNN's "Late Edition."
President Bush supports the amendment, but Vice President Dick Cheney does not. Cheney's daughter, Mary, is a lesbian and has been speaking out against the marriage amendment as she promotes her new book, "Now It's My Turn."
Mary Cheney wrote that she almost quit working on the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004 because of Bush's position on gay marriage. Asked Sunday about reports that White House political adviser Karl Rove and other Republicans want to use the issue to mobilize conservatives for the midterm election, Cheney said she hoped "no one would think about trying to amend the Constitution as a political strategy." (ha ha ha ha ha ha who the fuck is she kidding?)
"I certainly don't know what conversations have gone on between Karl and anybody up on the Hill," Cheney added in her appearance on Fox. "But you know, what I can say is look, amending the Constitution with this amendment, this piece of legislation, is a bad piece of legislation. It is writing discrimination into the Constitution, and, as I say, it is fundamentally wrong."
But Frist said he would defend the amendment even to Dick Cheney.
"I basically say, Mr. Vice President, right now marriage is under attack in this country," Frist said on CNN. "And we've seen activist judges overturning state by state law, where state legislatures have passed laws defining marriage between a man and a woman, and that's being overturned by a handful of activist judges around the country. And that is why we need an amendment to come to the floor of the United States Senate to define marriage as that union between one man and one woman."
Emphasis added to point out what ignorant pricks both Bush and Frist are, but that's obvious to anyone that is not on their knees for this administration.
It will be a wedge issue and they will flaunt it around just like before (Fox news link..ha ha). It worked well at the state level, as the discriminatory little neocons rushed to the polls to save Amerika from those pesky gay people that want to get married. Oh God! Marriage is under attack...we must save marriage from the gays!
Have been married and divorced myself - I think gays should have - check that: everybody - should have the chance to be as miserable as the rest of the populace that has been granted the divine right of matrimony.
Or something like that.
Will that amendment pass?
Most likely not.
Will the Republican - neocon - discriminatory - power hungry - control freak - evolutionary stunted - rightwing fascist Hitler wannabe's wave around a "constitutional amendment banning gay marriage" use it as a wedge issue in the upcoming elections? YOU BETCHA!
Will it cause the angry little neocons to rush to the polls? YOU BETCHA!
Is it yet another smokescreen for Iraq? YOU BETCHA!
Doesn't Laura's statements come across as a kind of admission that this was the strategy employed in 2004? YOU BETCHA!
Border Politics
Link
A snip:
WASHINGTON -
President Bush is to order as many as 6,000 National Guard troops to increase enforcement at the Mexican border, part of a $1.9 billion drive to tighten security and win conservative backing in Congress for a broad election-year overhaul of the nation's tattered immigration laws.
Bush's plan to use National Guard troops at the border ran into criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. (because its just a political ploy, a tool to inflame the shortminded box-thinking conservatives that will rush to the polls to "save our border" while completely ignoring the consequences of Bush's toy war in Iraq)
"The National Guard already is stretched to the limit by repeated tours in
Iraq and Afghanistan as well as from providing disaster assistance in their own states," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., though he commended Bush for "courage and leadership" in weighing in on the immigration debate. (courage and leadership? wtf?)
Bush was to say the nation has expanded the Border Patrol from about 9,000 to 12,000 agents during his presidency and has sent home about 6 million people entering the United States illegally. Still, he would add, that has not been enough.
"We will fix the problems created by illegal immigration and we will deliver a system that is secure, orderly and fair," the president was to say.
Emphasis added for obvious reasons.
Catch that last phrase in bold type: "problems created by illegal immigration". That statement is a microcosm of this administrations thinking(?) process.
How about the issues that lead to immigration in the first place? For example economic disparity, freedom, little things like that. Instead of building a fence or incarcerating people that are willing to risk their lives and leave everything behind in order to find a better life, perhaps we should be helping Mexico progress to a point where their citizens largely want to stay home.
I guess we're too busy fucking up and destroying Iraq to do that.
I can see a new Guantanamo...with brown people being tortured and photographed and ridiculed by the same Guard that has done such a great job of it in Iraq.
We want to be the riches, biggest, baddest, strongest nation on the planet and at the same time tell people to get the fuck out and stay out.
Don't get me wrong - not for "illegal" immigration, but I am definitely for making it easier for Mexican nationals to come here and find a better life. I'm also for expanding democracy and economic freedom to a nation like Mexico, but certainly not in the same fashion we are exporting "democracy and freedom" in Iraq. When I say expanding I do not mean an imperialistic adventure. Work with Fox and Mexico, help them, diplomacy, ya know, things like that.
Mexicans = Nazi Germany's Jews in present day Amerika. Just a tool to inflame the passions of the hyperbolic fascist right. Somebody else to blame for all the problems instead of looking at who is the biggest threat to American ideals, aka this guy and his buddies.
Oh, and this guy.
A snip:
The problem has inflamed passions on both sides and divided the state's politicians who do not all agree with Bush's proposed solution. The governor, Janet Napolitano, is a Democrat but agrees with Bush that the United States should allow more foreigners to have temporary work permits to enter the country while strengthening security at the border.
But others, like Republican Rep. J.D. Hayworth, wants to enforce the border before even considering any plan for guest worker permits. Hayworth was riding with Bush on Air Force One Thursday for the visit and said he was giving the president a copy of his book on immigration, which proposes building a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, using armed forces to help patrol the region and denying citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.
Arizona "is ground zero," Hayworth said, "when you consider nightly between 6,000 and 6,500 illegals attempt to cross our border and of that group, between 4,000 and 4,500 make it on a nightly basis. That is why there is such concern."
Hoooold on a minute there Hayworth. 4,000 to 4,500 Mexicans make it across the border on a nightly basis? Hmmm. Let's do some math.
30 days (avg. days in a month) multiplied by 4,000 (low overblown estimate) equals 120,000.
Multiply that by say six months and you have 720,000.
Where does Hayworth get his statistics?
Perhaps it is the same place Frist gets his "attack on marriage anti-gay" bullshit.
Perhaps it is the same place the Swift Boat Liars got their "facts" on Kerry's service.
Perhaps it is the same place Bush received his "intel" on Iraq.
Perhaps it is the same place...well, you get the idea.
Let's see what else the article says:
"Some of those who don't make it are caught by the Border Patrol, while others lose their lives with daytime temperatures as high as 120 degrees. At the Yuma station, which oversees 62 miles of the border, authorities said agents are catching 300 to 450 immigrants a day, which is comparable to last year's numbers. But they also are seeing unusual spikes, including 840 on a single day in March. Deaths in the Yuma sector hit a record 51 in 2005, up from 36 in 2004 and 15 in 2003."
Cripes, I'd have to bold the whole damn paragraph.
I think it needs no further analysis, but in case your mentally deficient, an UNUSUAL spike was 840 in a single day. Yes, this is just the Yuma station and there are more numbers to add to the total border, which I believe is 2000 miles giver or take.
There are certain places along the border that are preferred for attempted crossings, and the Yuma area is one of them. Having traveled to Arizona and having hiked the Santa Catalina mountains, I know firsthand that desert is brutal in more ways than one. I know these immigrants must be extraordinarily desperate to risk their lives in such a manner. Hell, I was out there for one day with a Camelbak and drained that puppy in four hours. And this was in March, a "cooler" time of the year in Arizona. It even rained while I was there.
At any rate, take a look at what Hayworth said again: "4,000 to 4,500 make it across the border nightly". Compare that with the numbers the article puts forth.
Note that little "ground zero" reference as well.
Let's see...there is a word for this type of rhetoric...hyperbole?...nah, more like BULLSHIT.
Chopper Down
Link
A snip:
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents shot down a U.S. helicopter during a raid against al-Qaida militants south of Baghdad and killed two soldiers, bringing the weekend death toll of American service members to seven, the U.S. military said Monday.
The military also said American forces killed more than 40 militants, including an al-Qaida operative, in five raids south of Baghdad in an area commonly known as the "Triangle of Death" because of the large number of insurgent attacks.
The U.S. hopes a national unity government that includes Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds will sap the insurgency's strength, but Iraqi politicians struggled against a deadline to form such a government. And with at least 20 Iraqis killed in roadside bombings and drive-by shootings Monday, sectarian violence showed no signs of letting up.
Other Americans killed over the weekend included two U.S. Marines who died Sunday during unspecified "enemy action" in Anbar province, the area of western Iraq that is the heart of the Sunni-led insurgency.
Two soldiers died Sunday in a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad, and another died in a roadside bomb in the capital Saturday.
The deaths raised to at least 2,443 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died since the war began in 2003, according to a count by The Associated Press.
The five U.S. raids south of Baghdad resulted in the killing of an al-Qaida militant blamed for an April 1 attack in the same area that downed a U.S. Apache helicopter and killed two soldiers.
An al-Qaida group had claimed responsibility for downing the Apache and posted a gruesome video on the Internet showing men dragging the burning body of what appeared to be an American soldier across a field as they shouted "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!"
Also Monday, insurgents fired more than 30 mortar rounds at a British military camp in southern Iraq, wounding four soldiers.
Six British soldiers have been killed and five wounded over the past nine days  all in southern Iraq, an area that has traditionally been far more peaceful that central and northern Iraq where U.S. forces are based.
Monday's violence came as Iraqi lawmakers alternately  and with varying degrees of sincerity  withdrew from the Cabinet negotiations or threatened to do so, and accused each other of greed, sectarianism and self-interest. (looks like we're exporting our brand of democracy after all!)
Deputies said Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki could announce a partial Cabinet ahead of a constitutionally mandated May 22 deadline, taking for himself the disputed defense and interior ministry posts. President Jalal Talabani, however, rejected that option.
"The presidency council does not want to see such key ministries excluded," Talabani said after meeting with his Shiite and Sunni Arab vice presidents. "We think the entire Cabinet should be announced."
"The defense and interior ministries are important, and we have previously agreed that they should be taken by independents agreeable to all the main blocs in Iraq," he said.
Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a member of the Sunni Arab Accordance Front, said it had reached a deal with the main Shiite United Iraqi Alliance in which the Sunnis would nominate the defense minister. In return, the Shiite bloc would name the interior minister.
Similar deals have unraveled over the past few days.
Shiite lawmaker Ali al-Deeb, a member of al-Maliki's Dawa Party, told the AP that "the Defense Ministry is still a problem."
Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's secular Iraqi List, favored to get the defense post, accused the Sunnis of delaying the process and of stoking violence as a pressure tactic.
"The ceiling has been set too high by the Accordance Front who claim they represent the Sunnis. They still insist on the Defense Ministry," Wael Abdul-Latif, the bloc's spokesman, told the AP. "But the bombs are still playing a role in the negotiations."
The violence underscored the pressure al-Maliki faces.
In Balad Ruz, 50 miles northeast of Baghdad, gunmen pulled three teachers  two brothers and a cousin  and their driver from a minibus and killed them. The assault prompted a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew in nearby Baqouba, a mixed city where six Shiite shrines were bombed Saturday.
In addition to the 20 Iraqis killed around Iraq Monday, five corpses were found in western Baghdad."
Oh yeah. Iraq. Remember that?
Just a guess: Republicans will wave a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, wave around immigration issues, and paint a rosy picture of Iraq in the upcoming elections.
Isn't there an old saying about insanity coming about as the result of doing the same thing over and over and over and over again and expecting a different result?
Definition of conservative. (link: Dictionary.com)
Compare those definitions with what the "conservative party" is doing to America, Iraq and the world.
Have a great day. ,
Link
A snip:
WASHINGTON - Some election-year advice to Republicans from a high-ranking source who has the president's ear: Don't use a proposed constitutional amendment against gay marriage as a campaign tool.
Just who is that political strategist? Laura Bush.
The Senate will debate legislation that would have the Constitution define marriage as the union between a man and a woman early next month, Majority Leader Bill Frist said on CNN's "Late Edition."
President Bush supports the amendment, but Vice President Dick Cheney does not. Cheney's daughter, Mary, is a lesbian and has been speaking out against the marriage amendment as she promotes her new book, "Now It's My Turn."
Mary Cheney wrote that she almost quit working on the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004 because of Bush's position on gay marriage. Asked Sunday about reports that White House political adviser Karl Rove and other Republicans want to use the issue to mobilize conservatives for the midterm election, Cheney said she hoped "no one would think about trying to amend the Constitution as a political strategy." (ha ha ha ha ha ha who the fuck is she kidding?)
"I certainly don't know what conversations have gone on between Karl and anybody up on the Hill," Cheney added in her appearance on Fox. "But you know, what I can say is look, amending the Constitution with this amendment, this piece of legislation, is a bad piece of legislation. It is writing discrimination into the Constitution, and, as I say, it is fundamentally wrong."
But Frist said he would defend the amendment even to Dick Cheney.
"I basically say, Mr. Vice President, right now marriage is under attack in this country," Frist said on CNN. "And we've seen activist judges overturning state by state law, where state legislatures have passed laws defining marriage between a man and a woman, and that's being overturned by a handful of activist judges around the country. And that is why we need an amendment to come to the floor of the United States Senate to define marriage as that union between one man and one woman."
Emphasis added to point out what ignorant pricks both Bush and Frist are, but that's obvious to anyone that is not on their knees for this administration.
It will be a wedge issue and they will flaunt it around just like before (Fox news link..ha ha). It worked well at the state level, as the discriminatory little neocons rushed to the polls to save Amerika from those pesky gay people that want to get married. Oh God! Marriage is under attack...we must save marriage from the gays!
Have been married and divorced myself - I think gays should have - check that: everybody - should have the chance to be as miserable as the rest of the populace that has been granted the divine right of matrimony.
Or something like that.
Will that amendment pass?
Most likely not.
Will the Republican - neocon - discriminatory - power hungry - control freak - evolutionary stunted - rightwing fascist Hitler wannabe's wave around a "constitutional amendment banning gay marriage" use it as a wedge issue in the upcoming elections? YOU BETCHA!
Will it cause the angry little neocons to rush to the polls? YOU BETCHA!
Is it yet another smokescreen for Iraq? YOU BETCHA!
Doesn't Laura's statements come across as a kind of admission that this was the strategy employed in 2004? YOU BETCHA!
Border Politics
Link
A snip:
WASHINGTON -
President Bush is to order as many as 6,000 National Guard troops to increase enforcement at the Mexican border, part of a $1.9 billion drive to tighten security and win conservative backing in Congress for a broad election-year overhaul of the nation's tattered immigration laws.
Bush's plan to use National Guard troops at the border ran into criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. (because its just a political ploy, a tool to inflame the shortminded box-thinking conservatives that will rush to the polls to "save our border" while completely ignoring the consequences of Bush's toy war in Iraq)
"The National Guard already is stretched to the limit by repeated tours in
Iraq and Afghanistan as well as from providing disaster assistance in their own states," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., though he commended Bush for "courage and leadership" in weighing in on the immigration debate. (courage and leadership? wtf?)
Bush was to say the nation has expanded the Border Patrol from about 9,000 to 12,000 agents during his presidency and has sent home about 6 million people entering the United States illegally. Still, he would add, that has not been enough.
"We will fix the problems created by illegal immigration and we will deliver a system that is secure, orderly and fair," the president was to say.
Emphasis added for obvious reasons.
Catch that last phrase in bold type: "problems created by illegal immigration". That statement is a microcosm of this administrations thinking(?) process.
How about the issues that lead to immigration in the first place? For example economic disparity, freedom, little things like that. Instead of building a fence or incarcerating people that are willing to risk their lives and leave everything behind in order to find a better life, perhaps we should be helping Mexico progress to a point where their citizens largely want to stay home.
I guess we're too busy fucking up and destroying Iraq to do that.
I can see a new Guantanamo...with brown people being tortured and photographed and ridiculed by the same Guard that has done such a great job of it in Iraq.
We want to be the riches, biggest, baddest, strongest nation on the planet and at the same time tell people to get the fuck out and stay out.
Don't get me wrong - not for "illegal" immigration, but I am definitely for making it easier for Mexican nationals to come here and find a better life. I'm also for expanding democracy and economic freedom to a nation like Mexico, but certainly not in the same fashion we are exporting "democracy and freedom" in Iraq. When I say expanding I do not mean an imperialistic adventure. Work with Fox and Mexico, help them, diplomacy, ya know, things like that.
Mexicans = Nazi Germany's Jews in present day Amerika. Just a tool to inflame the passions of the hyperbolic fascist right. Somebody else to blame for all the problems instead of looking at who is the biggest threat to American ideals, aka this guy and his buddies.
Oh, and this guy.
A snip:
The problem has inflamed passions on both sides and divided the state's politicians who do not all agree with Bush's proposed solution. The governor, Janet Napolitano, is a Democrat but agrees with Bush that the United States should allow more foreigners to have temporary work permits to enter the country while strengthening security at the border.
But others, like Republican Rep. J.D. Hayworth, wants to enforce the border before even considering any plan for guest worker permits. Hayworth was riding with Bush on Air Force One Thursday for the visit and said he was giving the president a copy of his book on immigration, which proposes building a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, using armed forces to help patrol the region and denying citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.
Arizona "is ground zero," Hayworth said, "when you consider nightly between 6,000 and 6,500 illegals attempt to cross our border and of that group, between 4,000 and 4,500 make it on a nightly basis. That is why there is such concern."
Hoooold on a minute there Hayworth. 4,000 to 4,500 Mexicans make it across the border on a nightly basis? Hmmm. Let's do some math.
30 days (avg. days in a month) multiplied by 4,000 (low overblown estimate) equals 120,000.
Multiply that by say six months and you have 720,000.
Where does Hayworth get his statistics?
Perhaps it is the same place Frist gets his "attack on marriage anti-gay" bullshit.
Perhaps it is the same place the Swift Boat Liars got their "facts" on Kerry's service.
Perhaps it is the same place Bush received his "intel" on Iraq.
Perhaps it is the same place...well, you get the idea.
Let's see what else the article says:
"Some of those who don't make it are caught by the Border Patrol, while others lose their lives with daytime temperatures as high as 120 degrees. At the Yuma station, which oversees 62 miles of the border, authorities said agents are catching 300 to 450 immigrants a day, which is comparable to last year's numbers. But they also are seeing unusual spikes, including 840 on a single day in March. Deaths in the Yuma sector hit a record 51 in 2005, up from 36 in 2004 and 15 in 2003."
Cripes, I'd have to bold the whole damn paragraph.
I think it needs no further analysis, but in case your mentally deficient, an UNUSUAL spike was 840 in a single day. Yes, this is just the Yuma station and there are more numbers to add to the total border, which I believe is 2000 miles giver or take.
There are certain places along the border that are preferred for attempted crossings, and the Yuma area is one of them. Having traveled to Arizona and having hiked the Santa Catalina mountains, I know firsthand that desert is brutal in more ways than one. I know these immigrants must be extraordinarily desperate to risk their lives in such a manner. Hell, I was out there for one day with a Camelbak and drained that puppy in four hours. And this was in March, a "cooler" time of the year in Arizona. It even rained while I was there.
At any rate, take a look at what Hayworth said again: "4,000 to 4,500 make it across the border nightly". Compare that with the numbers the article puts forth.
Note that little "ground zero" reference as well.
Let's see...there is a word for this type of rhetoric...hyperbole?...nah, more like BULLSHIT.
Chopper Down
Link
A snip:
"BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents shot down a U.S. helicopter during a raid against al-Qaida militants south of Baghdad and killed two soldiers, bringing the weekend death toll of American service members to seven, the U.S. military said Monday.
The military also said American forces killed more than 40 militants, including an al-Qaida operative, in five raids south of Baghdad in an area commonly known as the "Triangle of Death" because of the large number of insurgent attacks.
The U.S. hopes a national unity government that includes Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds will sap the insurgency's strength, but Iraqi politicians struggled against a deadline to form such a government. And with at least 20 Iraqis killed in roadside bombings and drive-by shootings Monday, sectarian violence showed no signs of letting up.
Other Americans killed over the weekend included two U.S. Marines who died Sunday during unspecified "enemy action" in Anbar province, the area of western Iraq that is the heart of the Sunni-led insurgency.
Two soldiers died Sunday in a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad, and another died in a roadside bomb in the capital Saturday.
The deaths raised to at least 2,443 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died since the war began in 2003, according to a count by The Associated Press.
The five U.S. raids south of Baghdad resulted in the killing of an al-Qaida militant blamed for an April 1 attack in the same area that downed a U.S. Apache helicopter and killed two soldiers.
An al-Qaida group had claimed responsibility for downing the Apache and posted a gruesome video on the Internet showing men dragging the burning body of what appeared to be an American soldier across a field as they shouted "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!"
Also Monday, insurgents fired more than 30 mortar rounds at a British military camp in southern Iraq, wounding four soldiers.
Six British soldiers have been killed and five wounded over the past nine days  all in southern Iraq, an area that has traditionally been far more peaceful that central and northern Iraq where U.S. forces are based.
Monday's violence came as Iraqi lawmakers alternately  and with varying degrees of sincerity  withdrew from the Cabinet negotiations or threatened to do so, and accused each other of greed, sectarianism and self-interest. (looks like we're exporting our brand of democracy after all!)
Deputies said Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki could announce a partial Cabinet ahead of a constitutionally mandated May 22 deadline, taking for himself the disputed defense and interior ministry posts. President Jalal Talabani, however, rejected that option.
"The presidency council does not want to see such key ministries excluded," Talabani said after meeting with his Shiite and Sunni Arab vice presidents. "We think the entire Cabinet should be announced."
"The defense and interior ministries are important, and we have previously agreed that they should be taken by independents agreeable to all the main blocs in Iraq," he said.
Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a member of the Sunni Arab Accordance Front, said it had reached a deal with the main Shiite United Iraqi Alliance in which the Sunnis would nominate the defense minister. In return, the Shiite bloc would name the interior minister.
Similar deals have unraveled over the past few days.
Shiite lawmaker Ali al-Deeb, a member of al-Maliki's Dawa Party, told the AP that "the Defense Ministry is still a problem."
Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's secular Iraqi List, favored to get the defense post, accused the Sunnis of delaying the process and of stoking violence as a pressure tactic.
"The ceiling has been set too high by the Accordance Front who claim they represent the Sunnis. They still insist on the Defense Ministry," Wael Abdul-Latif, the bloc's spokesman, told the AP. "But the bombs are still playing a role in the negotiations."
The violence underscored the pressure al-Maliki faces.
In Balad Ruz, 50 miles northeast of Baghdad, gunmen pulled three teachers  two brothers and a cousin  and their driver from a minibus and killed them. The assault prompted a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew in nearby Baqouba, a mixed city where six Shiite shrines were bombed Saturday.
In addition to the 20 Iraqis killed around Iraq Monday, five corpses were found in western Baghdad."
Oh yeah. Iraq. Remember that?
Just a guess: Republicans will wave a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, wave around immigration issues, and paint a rosy picture of Iraq in the upcoming elections.
Isn't there an old saying about insanity coming about as the result of doing the same thing over and over and over and over again and expecting a different result?
Definition of conservative. (link: Dictionary.com)
Compare those definitions with what the "conservative party" is doing to America, Iraq and the world.
Have a great day. ,
posted by Redjalapeno at Monday, May 15, 2006
2 Opinions:
After reading all that, how can one have a great day? I'm all for gay marriage. Everyone should be able to marry the person they wish to spend the rest of their life with... I think it's ridiculous of the people against it to tout "sanctity" when there are so many caught having affairs or divorcing to remarry that young chick down the way.
RJ,
I have nothing against gay marriage. I certainly don't think that it is something the federal government should be sticking their nose in and it is obvious, as you detail, that it is for political reasons. A gay marriage ammendment would be unconstitutional since, in my opinion, this is a religious issue. I wish the gay lobby and its congressional supporters had worded the issue in such a way that gay couples could enjoy all the civil benefits of marriage (i.e. taxes, caretakers, etc.) but avoid the moral side altogether. Unfortunately, or civil rights have a long history in Anglo Saxon, Western European culture that scantifies property (including money) above all else. (Probably has to do with the feudal system).
As for the immigration issue, I deal with it every day. Unfortunately, I never learned Spanish. (languages are my Achilles heel). But, they are really good people, especially their kids. What we are seeing, again in my opinion, is the blowback from NAFTA which is really just the end expression of our virulent capitalism. I support the concept of a Marshall Plan for Mexico.
As for Iraq, it is the ultimate mess. Far worse than Vietnam. I keep thinking what would happen if every day 25-50 average citizens in the U.S. were killed by "insurgents." We'd be in total lockdown and Cheney in his bunker (where I wish he'd stay.)
A little long winded today, ain't I!
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