Picture of the year? This photo says everything.
The thread is a big hung over from celebrating last night's milestone achievement: the ability to marry another thread of the same sex in the State of New York.
- Mike Grisanti, Senator from Buffalo, was one of the Republicans who voted yes on marriage equality. His speech is a moving one.
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- Meanwhile, our bigoted friends at the National Organization for Marriage (nom nom!) are pledging $2 million to punish the Senators who voted for freedom and equal rights last night.
- The story behind the photo.
- Without expressing a position on Libya one way or the other, this statement by John Cole is insightful:
You want to know why the Presidency keeps getting more and more powerful? Because someone has to make decisions.
The House just voted against authorizing the Libya mission, then voted against defunding operations in Libya. I’d ignore those idiots, too. If I were President, until these clowns get their shit together, I’d pretty much do whatever I wanted.
- The "Tea Party" is doing to California's redistricting process what they did to health care reform, but without the yelling and disruption:
One of the key Tea Party talking points is that race and ethnicity shouldn’t be taken into consideration at all by the commission when it comes to drawing political maps.
“A lot of conservatives feel we’ve made remarkable progress on race in America through the civil rights movement,” says Salaverry, whose father’s side is Latino. “It’s time to move on and become a post-racial society, but unfortunately because of the Voting Rights Act and well-funded ultra-left wing activist groups, we won’t.”
Similar complaints have been made by Tea Party groups at redistricting hearings in the South, Texas, and other states, says Anita Earls, executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, a civil rights group based in Durham, N.C. “They are very strident,” she says. “They’ve been pretty strongly anti–Voting Rights Act.”
Hmm...Tea Partiers against the Voting Rights act and arguing against the creation of minority-opportunity districts. Nah, nothing racist to see here, America. move along. For further reading, check out my brother thereisnospoon's recap of one such commission hearing. My favorite:
Republicans might want to be reminded of the fact that "white flight" does not constitute a community of interest, and "get off my lawn" does not constitute a valid political opinion.
- In case you didn't know, women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. Change.org has a petition up asking Subaru to stop selling cars to countries whose women can't drive them.
- You can already sign up for Netroots Nation 2012 in Providence, Rhode Island! Register for the conference, and book your room. The hotel block filled up early in Minneapolis, so get it done early this year. I already did. That's one less room available for you.