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Tuesday, March 30, 2004 Justices Are Not Blind While there's a lull in the gay-marriage litigation, I'm wondering what t he California Supreme Court will do with the issue once it's squarely be fore them. One possibility, it seems to me, is to hold that civil unions (which, in California at least, are supposed to grant gay couples every right of marriage except the name) are a system of "separate-but-equal" rights, and that such apartheid schemes are no more constitutional when enacted by legislatures than when imposed by courts.
people of different races could marry each other: "Since the essence of the right to marry is freedom to join in marriage w ith the person of one's choice, a segregation statute for marriage neces sarily impairs the right to marry." The California Supreme Court sits at the Civic Plaza in San Francisco, ac ross from City Hall. A few weeks back, they could look out their windows and see committed, loving couples lined up around the block at City Hal l, in the rain and wind, waiting for their turn to exercise their fundam ental right to marry. Let's hope these Justices take the advice of anoth er great judge, Benjamin Cardozo, who cautioned "not to close our eyes a s judges to what we must perceive as men."
A new Bush-Cheney ad ridicules John Kerry for "wacky ideas" like "taxing gasoline more so people drive less." True enough, Kerry did endorse such as idea more than a decade ago. But, if it's so "wacky" an idea why did Harvard economist Gregory Mankiw, now the chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, write a piece for Fortune magazine in 1999 that prop osed doing exactly that: Let's cut income taxes by 10% and finance it with a 50-cent-per-gallon h ike in the gasoline tax. Cutting income taxes while increasing gaso line taxes would lead to more rapid economic growth, less traffic conge stion, safer roads, and reduced risk of global warming--all without jeo pardizing long-term fiscal solvency. This may be the closest thing to a free lunch that economics has to offer.
A shrink ing majority of Americans still believe the invasion was a good idea des pite the now more-or-less indisputable facts that there were no weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein was not in cahoots with Osama bin Laden. Many otherwise rational people, apparently, share Shrub's faith- based position on these issues. The debate, so far, has ignored Clarke's other substantive charge that th e Iraq invasion was not a necessary part of the war on terror, but a dan gerous diversion. Once that's finished, let's spend a little time re-visiting the Pentagon' s performance. Aside from the brief organized military campaign at the b eginning, the planning and execution of the Iraq adventure has been a co mplete and utter disaster. From the day the Army arrived in Baghdad with out enough troops to control the looting until today when there aren't e nough troops to maintain basic law and order, the Administration has pla yed a dangerous game of catchup because its basic assumption, expressed by Dick Cheney--"I believe, in fact, that we will be welcomed as liberat ors"--was so thoroughly and predictably wrong. Why anyone would assume that Iraqis would feel any different about Americ ans than their counterparts in neighboring nations--most of whom dispise the US for its arrogance and power and its virtually unqualified supp ort of Israel--remains a mystery for the ages. It makes you wonder which sheltered planet Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz and Condi Rice grew up on. You also wonder if the Administration thinks that by letting Condi twist, slowly, slowly in the wind, the wolves will be happy. But, nothing enbo ldens the jackels of the press more than a little taste of blood.
In Af ghanistan and Pakistan and in some cells in Iraq, the Uzbeks are the equ ivalent of North Vietnamese regulars, the hard core. " there's plenty of first ra te predictive and analytical "open source" material out there (some of i t compiled by excellent researchers at RFE-RL) that goes largely ignored by the spinners in the West Wing.
req'd) between the White House and the Kean Commission indicate the possibility of a deal that would keep her testimony private and not under oath. Senators Kennedy and Schumer are introducing a bill today that calls for Rice-a-roni to testify under oath. With all that theyve learned from Howard Deans use of the interne t to mobilize, the Democratic Party response to the White House stonewal l has been rather Daschle-like. Maybe elder statesman Robert Byrd needs to get out there and remind America that all those folks in the White Ho use who are so big on one nation under god dont want to put their hands on the bible when it comes to truth telling.
starting to show the impact of the Clarke clashes and the toll of the first rounds of the Bush ads. First, the sl ightly good news: about 75 percent of Americans are paying a lot or some degree of attention to the 9/11 hearings and Clarke resulting in a slig ht, maybe significant, dent in Bushs still high approval on handling ter rorism. Rice-a-ronis refusal to testify is seen by a slight majority of likely voters in this survey as a sign that Bush has something to hide. However, that advantage would evaporate immediately if she did, and I th ink she will.
potentially helpful book out, W orse than Watergate, where he talks about impeachable offenses, but he c oncludes that Bush should be given the benefit of the doubt on weapons o f mass destruction and justification for the war in Iraq. O n taxes, by 3:1 likely voters at all income levels say Kerry will increa se taxes, even though Kerry says he will only raise taxes on those makin g $200,000. On reliability, or dare I say character issues, by an almost equal margin, likely voters are saying that Kerry changes his mind on i ssues for political reasons. Now the worst news: with high numbers like this it means that some fellow travelers, Democrats representing 13 perc ent of likely voters, hold these same negative views. He needs another Boston Tea Party where he can dramatically demonstrate the impact of Bushs reckless tax cuts. Throw a list of Benedict Arnold companies into the tides. Get Bob Rubin to organize a group of Responsible Citizens for Tax Reform. A nything, something, before the bleachers start to empty.
Washington Post describes as "one of Washingt on's best-connected Republican lobbyists" received $10 million in previo usly undisclosed payments from a public relations executive whom he reco mmended for work with wealthy Indian tribes that operate casinos. Do you suppose these are the "crooked" bastards that John Kerry was talki ng about?
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