Last Call

Keep working on that jobs legislation, Republicans.

An effort spearheaded by Republicans to repeal the new health care law collapsed Wednesday evening after the Senate refused to ignore its adverse impact on the deficit.

By a vote of 47-51, the Senate sustained an objection to the legislation on the grounds that it does not comply with congressional budget rules. Because a full repeal of the law is projected to increase the deficit, waiving that point of order would have required 60 votes.

But even if Democrats had allowed a straight up or down vote on the amendment, it likely would have failed. No Democrats voted with the GOP to remove the objection, giving them fewer than the 51 they'd need to successfully repeal it. Republicans -- and, really, everyone else -- have been expecting this outcome for months. And while this blunts their head-on efforts at repeal, they've always expected that their best chances to destroy or chip away at the law will come either via the courts, spending bills or amendments to the law meant to weaken it.

Pointless, as predicted.  Kabuki.  Showmanship.  Hooray, you have registered your objection, as you have chosen to do so many, many times.

Now how about fixing the damn economy?  Republicans attacked Democrats by saying they passed a health care bill when they should have been working on jobs.  What do Republicans spend the first month of the 112th Congress doing?  Re-fighting and re-losing the same health care debate (and bizarrely redefining rape.)

We have bigger problems to worry about, folks.

Tent cities don’t typically enjoy a warm welcome anywhere. But in Seattle, where Tent City 3 and other similar camps have operated in an uneasy truce with officials for nearly a decade, there’s a plan to institutionalize the concept.

Seattle officials are considering setting up encampment on city property. Unlike current tent cities that are required to move every three months, this one would stay in one place, operate with the city’s approval and feature storage lockers and trailer-style facilities for showers and cooking. The proposal reflects the scope of Seattle’s homelessness problem and heightened political tension over the issue, which came to a head with the establishment in 2008 of an encampment dubbed Nickelsville – after former mayor Greg Nickels, who was criticized for his homelessness policies. Current Mayor Mike McGinn, who was elected in 2009, acted on the recommendation of a citizens review panel to propose a permanent encampment.

And you know, Republicans don't seem to mind about the permanent American underclass.  Hey, Republicans are trying to do everything they can to keep folks like this down anyway.  Hard to vote without a permanent address in a red state, so in the end, they don't matter.  They're not "constituents".

Maybe we should be doing something about the millions of Americans dying by inches each day.  But no, we've got to cut taxes on the wealthy.

When Republicans said they had job growth as a priority, they didn't mean you.  Complain and blame Obama for two years, and obstruct all legislation.  Heck of a plan, GOP.

I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

In this case, Rand Paul has serious trouble defining the term "compromise."

"Many ask will the Tea Party compromise? Will the Tea Party work with others to find a solution?" the senator asked in a speech that was part history lesson and part Socratic inquiry.

Paul explained his Senate desk was once occupied by Henry Clay, a former Kentucky senator and secretary of state known as the "Great Compromiser." But in his speech, Paul questioned whether the compromises Clay made on slavery proved it was more important to firmly support what is right than to try to find common ground.

Instead, Paul pointed to Clay's cousin Cassius, a fierce abolitionist and fiery character who refused to budge on the issue of slavery.

"Now, today we have no issues, no moral issues that have equivalency with the issue of slavery. Yet we do face a fiscal nightmare, potentially a debt crisis in our country," he said. "Should we compromise by raising taxes and cutting spending as the debt commission proposes?"

The answer?

"Of course there must be dialogue and ultimately compromise, but the compromise must occur on where we cut spending," Paul said.

In other words, there will be no debate on deficit reduction as being the only legislative goal worth worrying about, and no debate on cutting spending versus raising taxes and cutting loopholes to increase revenues in order to reduce the deficit.

The only debate is who gets hurt by spending cuts.

To Rand Paul, this is "compromise".  It's only a matter of by how much Rand Paul and the Tea Party "wins" the deficit argument that will even be allowed to be discussed.  He's not framing the argument, he's hijacking it.

We Never Liked You Anyway

You know that panhandle chunk of West Virginia that's basically Maryland without the infrastructure?  Seems the state lawmaker in charge of that part of the state really would rather be anywhere other than West Virginia, and he wants to take those three counties with him next door to a real state.

First Tunisia, then Egypt, now...West Virginia? Well, no, not exactly. But delegate Larry Kump has had it up to here with his state's government. "I take pride in being a Mountaineer," says the freshman legislator—but he'd rather break his beloved state apart than see it suffer on as an economic backwater.

"Our per capita income in West Virginia is 47th in the United States; it's one of the few things we're not 50th in," Kump says. "We've lost 10,000 manufacturing jobs over the past three years. Gross Domestic Product is 49th in the nation."

He adds, "I'd prefer West Virginians stay together and just get their act together—but if they don't, I think it's a good idea to go elsewhere."

Elsewhere, in this case, means moving back in with the ex. Last week, Kump, a self-identified "libertarian grassroots populist" with tea party ties, introduced a bill in the state legislature calling for a non-binding referendum on secession. Specifically, Kump suggests that the three counties of the state's eastern panhandle break away from the mother ship and become a part of Virginia (as they were prior to 1863). His reason is simple: Kump believes the state government has created an economic climate that's holding its citizens back. West Virginia's almost heaven, in other words, but it's an awful big "almost."

What makes this guy think Virginia wants to put up with him, anyway?

Seriously folks, what is it with then entire philosophy that governance isn't about improving the lot of all citizens, but only looking out for those at the top who deserve it?  This clown basically sees the rest of the state of West Virginia as a burden to his state legislative district.  No offense, but I'd rather have my state legislators work on making the state better instead of pulling nonsense like this.

I mean should we all break up into city-states like ancient Greece?  Geez.

You're Kidding... Right?

In Hawaii, it is now illegal to sell toy guns to minors.  Because, of course, selling them to adults is better.  The crime is worth a $2,000 fine or up to 90 days in jail, or both.

This is ridiculous.  Not long after a first grader is kicked out for making a gun with his hand, kids will now not be able to buy super soakers or cap guns.  Can someone please explain what wrong this is making right?  I'm just a little baffled over here.

Thunder Snow!

For those of you who haven't seen lightning go off while snow drives down, you can check this link and enjoy.  It's what kept us in for a couple of days and without power for some.

I'll be back this afternoon with more, but I figured I would share what we saw during the great blizzard of 2011.

Denial Really Is A River In Egypt, Part 3

David Goldman argues at the Asia Times that it was wheat prices that did Mubarak in and he has a very valid point:

In this case, Asian demand has priced food staples out of the Arab budget. As prosperous Asians consume more protein, global demand for grain increases sharply (seven pounds of grain produce one pound of beef). Asians are rich enough, moreover, to pay a much higher price for food whenever prices spike due to temporary supply disruptions, as at the moment.

Egyptians, Jordanians, Tunisians and Yemenis are not. Episodes of privation and even hunger will become more common. The miserable economic performance of all the Arab states, chronicled in the United Nations' Arab Development Reports, has left a large number of Arabs so far behind that they cannot buffer their budget against food price fluctuations.

Earlier this year, after drought prompted Russia to ban wheat exports, Egypt's agriculture minister pledged to raise food production over the next ten years to 75% of consumption, against only 56% in 2009. Local yields are only 18 bushels per acre, compared to 30 to 60 for non-irrigated wheat in the United States, and up 100 bushels for irrigated land.

The trouble isn't long-term food price inflation: wheat has long been one of the world's bargains. The International Monetary Fund's global consumer price index quadrupled in between 1980 and 2010, while the price of wheat, even after the price spike of 2010, only doubled in price. What hurts the poorest countries, though, isn't the long-term price trend, though, but the volatility.

People have drowned in rivers with an average depth of two feet. It turns out that China, not the United States or Israel, presents an existential threat to the Arab world, and through no fault of its own: rising incomes have gentrified the Asian diet, and - more importantly - insulated Asian budgets from food price fluctuations. Economists call this "price elasticity." Americans, for example, will buy the same amount of milk even if the price doubles, although they will stop buying fast food if hamburger prices double. Asians now are wealthy enough to buy all the grain they want.

If wheat output falls, for example, due to drought in Russia and Argentina, prices rise until demand falls. The difference today is that Asian demand for grain will not fall, because Asians are richer than they used to be. Someone has to consume less, and it will be the people at the bottom of the economic ladder, in this case the poorer Arabs. 

So what can President Obama do?  A major, immediate shipment of food aid to Egypt may be just the thing the US needs to look like heroes.

The best thing the United States could do at the moment would be to offer massive emergency food aid to Egypt out of its own stocks, with the understanding that President Mubarak would offer effusive public thanks for American generosity. This is a stopgap, to be sure, but it would pre-empt the likely alternative. Otherwise, the Muslim Brotherhood will preach Islamist socialism to a hungry audience. That also explains why Mubarak just might survive. Even Islamists have to eat. The Iranian Islamists who took power in 1979 had oil wells; Egypt just has hungry mouths. Enlightened despotism based on the army, the one stable institution Egypt possesses, might not be the worst solution. 

But here's the problem, as China's growing middle class goes from rice to beef, it's putting grain prices out of reach for many in Africa and the Middle East.  It's all about food, folks, and the latest spike in food prices worldwide has already toppled a couple of regimes.

More will follow.  How will the US and the EU respond?  More importantly, how will China and India respond?  Certainly much less beef is eaten in India, but the two countries are responsible for a third of the world's people, and their growing food bill is being paid for by countries like Egypt.  Americans may eat a lot, but they can't compare to over 2.5 billion Chinese and Indian mouths to feed, and the entire planet is seeing a shift in food consumption habits now.

Hamburgers in Beijing brought down Mubarak.  A sobering thought.

Home, Home I'm Deranged, Part 16

It's not just homeowners who are in real trouble, but some seven million low-income renters are facing being trapped in apartments they can't afford, or that should be condemned.

Rising rents, stagnant wages and high unemployment led more than 7 million U.S. households either to live in substandard dwellings or pay more than half their monthly incomes for rent in 2009, according to a federal report delivered to Congress on Tuesday.


During the height of the Great Recession, the number of low-income households with "worst-case housing needs" increased by nearly 1.2 million, or 20 percent, from 2007 to 2009. That's the largest two-year increase since the Department of Housing and Urban Development began tracking the data in 1985.

Very-low-income renters who don't receive government housing assistance are considered to have "worst-case housing needs" if they live in poor conditions or their rent consumes more than half their incomes.

All family types, all racial and ethnic groups and all regions of the country saw an increase in these distressed renters in 2009, said Raphael Bostic, HUD's assistant secretary for policy development.

"The loss of income, the general lack of affordable housing and the increased monthly rent burden are clearly putting a lot of stresses on unassisted families at the lower end of the income spectrum," Bostic said.

The data for HUD's report, "Worst Case Housing Needs 2009," were gleaned from Census Bureau surveys conducted in May and September of 2009.

Combine that with higher gas prices and food prices on the way and you can see we have a real problem shaping up for millions of Americans in 2011.

The New Death Panels

Keep an eye on Republican controlled-states who are using Monday's ruling against health care reform as an excuse to refuse to implement the law, starting with Wisconsin.  Greg Sargent:

The office of Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, one of the states suing to overturn the Affordable Care Act, sends over this statement flatly declaring the law "dead" for his state unless it's revived by a higher court, and asserting that this relieves state government of any and all its responsibiilties to implement the law:

"Judge Vinson declared the health care law void and stated in his decision that a declaratory judgment is the functional equivalent of an injunction. This means that, for Wisconsin, the federal health care law is dead -- unless and until it is revived by an appellate court. Effectively, Wisconsin was relieved of any obligations or duties that were created under terms of the federal health care law. What that means in a practical sense is a discussion I'll have in confidence with Governor Walker, as the State's counsel."

It's unclear what this means in practice; a spokesman for the attorney general declined to detail what this might mean for Wisconsin residents. But it seems likely that other state officials hostile to the law may follow suit. My understanding is news organizations are canvassing state governments around the country to see if they're going to threaten to stop implementing the law in the wake of Vinson's decision. So we'll soon get a better sense of how widespread this will be.

I'm betting it will be very widespread right up until a higher court overturns Vinson's decision.  Remember the stated goal by Republicans:  to throw as many wrenches in the works as possible to see the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act to fail at the state level.  Looks like states refusing to implement the law in the wake of Judge Vinson's decision is the excuse they need to trash the law.

The question is, will they give the federal money back, and who will lose their health care now?

This hints at a new line of criticism Dems can use, should other state governments do as Wisconsin is doing. The Affordable Care Act has already resulted in nearly $40 million in federal grant funding to Wisconsin. Now that the law is "dead," will Wisconsin return the money or rebuff any other federal grant money? Will other state governments declaring the law dead do the same? If so, how much money do they stand to lose? How will this impact their consistuents? It's a pretty worthwhile line of inquiry.

Is Wisconsin going to end Medicaid, for example?  The next battlefield for Obamacare is taking shape, and this time people's lives are at stake.

Tunisia, Egypt, And Now Yemen

Yemeni President Saleh announced today he will not seek re-election in 2013.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a key U.S. ally against Al-Qaida, said on Wednesday he will not seek to extend his presidency in a move that would end his three-decade rule when his current term expires in 2013.

Eyeing protests that swept Tunisia's leader from power and threaten to topple Egypt's president, Saleh also vowed not to pass on the reins of government to his son. He also appealed to the opposition to call off protests as a large rally loomed.

"I present these concessions in the interests of the country. The interests of the country come before our personal interests," Saleh told his parliament, Shoura Council and members of the military.

"No extension, no inheritance, no resetting the clock," he said, making reference to ruling party proposals on term limits that had been seen as designed to enable him to run again.

Meanwhile in Egypt,  it's becoming increasingly clear that Mubarak won't last until September to the point that even President Obama is calling for a peaceful transition to a new government "now".  The US is evacuating non-government personnel from Egypt as well as clashes continue.

More as it comes in.

StupidiNews!

• With President Mubarak agreeing to step down in September, Egypt's military is asking protesters to go home.
• The TSA is testing less invasive body scanners at three airports across the nation to try to reach a balance of safety and privacy with fliers.
• A new report find the US border with Canada may be far more vulnerable to terrorists than the Mexican one.
• If flooding wasn't bad enough in Australia, Tropical Cyclone Yasi is already taking aim at the drenched state of Queensland.
• Ahead of the Super Bowl, US Customs and Homeland Security are taking aim at internet sites pirating live sports events.

Last Call

South Dakota lawmakers have introduced a state bill to require anyone 21 or over to purchase a gun for defense. Here's the "logic" behind this:

Rep. Hal Wick, R-Sioux Falls, is sponsoring the bill and knows it will be killed. But he said he is introducing it to prove a point that the federal health care reform mandate passed last year is unconstitutional.

“Do I or the other cosponsors believe that the State of South Dakota can require citizens to buy firearms? Of course not. But at the same time, we do not believe the federal government can order every citizen to buy health insurance,” he said.

Because if you're a winger, the state of South Dakota requiring you to buy a gun for defense is the same thing as the federal government requiring you to purchase health insurance.  It's not...but these are wingers.   They know it's unconstitutional, but they can't discern the difference between firearms and health insurance and are purposely not doing so.

Only one problem...like Steve M. here I'm betting a large number of Tea Party folks think passing this bill and the notion that it's unconstitutional and will be ruled as such is a travesty and a stupid idea.  I'm betting a whole lot of folks on the right think the federal government should require all Americans who are legally allowed to own a firearm to have one.

It's bad enough this is coming on the heels of Tuscon.  But this entire thing is going to backfire on the wingers.

The Mask Slips Again

And Republicans accidentally tell the truth.  Today's Freudian flip-flopper is Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

"If you took half the states out of the individual mandate requirement, this bill falls, requiring us to draft something new, and quite frankly that is the goal," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. "To find a way to get the Congress to redo this bill.... We want this bill to come to an end."

I'm sure they'll get to jobs any week now.

Graham has teamed up with Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) on legislation that would allow states to opt out of the farthest-reaching provisions of health care reform: the Medicaid expansion, minimum insurance benefit standards and the individual and employer mandates. Any state that successfully opted out of any of these provisions would diminish the extent of health care coverage in their state, and throw a wrench in the machinery of the law system itself. 

So no, Republicans couldn't really give a damn about Americans being in trouble, or the unemployment rate, or stagnant wages, or apparently rising health care costs, or anything else.

They want to refight the health care debate because they lost.  That's all that matters to them.  That's the goal, to waste as much of the next two years as possible on this petty garbage and blame Obama when nothing happens.

That's the plan for the next two years, folks:  nothing.  The Party of No marches on, bravely not doing a damn thing about America's problems.

Denial Really Is A River In Egypt, Part 2

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will indeed step down.

In September.

Castigating "political interests" that sought to cause unrest in Egyptian society, President Hosni Mubarak announced Tuesday he would not seek reelection at the end of his term in Sept.


"I instructed the vice president to engage in dialog with all the political forces on all the issues raised for politicial and democratic reforms," Mubarak said during a broadcast of Egyptian state television.

"I address you today, directly, to the people of the nation. Farmers, workers, Muslims and Christians. Elderly and youth. Each Egyptian man and woman in the countryside and cities across the nation. I never sold power and influence. People are aware of the harsh conditions I shouldered with responsibility."

He said he was "totally committed to ending his career" with dignity and in an orderly manner.

"In the few months remaining in my current term," Mubarak said he would "guarantee the transition of power." He further called on parliament to amend the Constitution to add presidential term limits.

Mubarak's term ends in September, but protesters have demanded he leave office right away.

The whole "I'm going to stick around for another seven months" thing isn't really going over well with the people in Egypt, needless to say.  It's worth noting that Jordanian King Abdullah has dismissed his cabinet as well and named a new Prime Minister.  But it's not going to be good enough.  Somebody needs to make it clear to Mubarak that there's a plane waiting for him, and needs to be on it before things get truly ugly.

Democrats Go To My Old Neck Of The Woods

The Dems have picked Charlotte as the site of the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

The decision signals that President Barack Obama intends to fight again in some of the states that his 2008 presidential campaign brought into the Democratic column for the first time in decades. North Carolina, Virginia and Indiana all went for Mr. Obama. He faces headwinds in all three states again, though North Carolina’s high number of African American voters will give him a boost there. In 2008, 23% of the state’s presidential election voters were black.

Mrs. Obama said in her email that “Barack and I spent a lot of time in North Carolina during the campaign . . . Barack enjoyed Asheville so much when he spent several days preparing for the second presidential debate that our family vacationed there in 2009.”

Mrs. Obama also promised it would be “a grassroots convention.” “We will finance this convention differently than it’s been done in the past, and we will make sure everyone feels closely tied in to what is happening in Charlotte. This will be a different convention, for a different time.”

Smart move.  North Carolina narrowly went for Obama in 2008 and any Republican challenger will have to take the Tar Heel State back in order to have any shot in 2012.   Pretty sure Zandardad is happy about this, and hey, while you guys are in Charlotte pick up some Bojangles.

About time somebody paid attention to North Carolina's growing political power as a swing state.

The Pause That Refreshes

Refreshes the reminder that Mitt Romney should really keep his mouth shut on health care issues, that is.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is calling on President Barack Obama to "press the pause button" on the federal health care overhaul in the wake of a judge's decision declaring it unconstitutional.

Romney tells ABC's "Good Morning America" that "we don't need the government imposing a one-size-fits-all system" on the states.

Romney acknowledged that his own health care law in Massachusetts contained the same kind of individual insurance mandate that a judge in Florida found unconstitutional in the federal law, but says he isn't apologizing for it. Romney, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, sought to make a distinction between the options that a state might choose under the 10th Amendment compared with Washington deciding the policy for all states in a single legislative act. 

See, so states can do it, but if the federal government tries to do it, we must gather in the streets or something. Sure Mitt, that makes tons of sense if you believe there's no sovereign federal control over states and we're fifty separate entities, and not the United States of America.

Yeah, see, that distinction won't fool his political opponents for a millisecond.

Star Trekkin' Across The Universe

Yet another example of sci-fi TV tech getting closer to reality.

Last month, Google unveiled its latest innovation, an app for phones that can near-simultaneously translate speech from one language to another.


"Google Conversation," so far only available to translate between Spanish and English, generated excited headlines speculating that a true universal translator -- an idea popularized by "Star Trek" -- might be just around the corner.

It's easy to get swept up by the buzz. Google's current text-based "Translate" online software is as good as it's ever been, allowing users to get reasonably faithful translations between scores of languages.

The company is also adapting its "Google Goggles" picture recognition software to allow phone users to translate signs. Recently it said it was looking at taking the quantum leap into translating poetry.

Google Product Manager Awaneesh Verma admitted when launching "Translate" that the device was "still in its earliest stages," and early demos have shown it to be a little shaky at performing its task.

Nevertheless, the potential is obvious. If the technology improves we could all soon be roaming the world as polyglots, freely conversing in any language and dialect.

Sadly, say experts in the field, we could be waiting some time -- a fact that becomes painfully clear when looking at the history of computerized translation.

Still has a long way to go....

Issa Gonna Be A Long Two Years, Part 2

Republican House Oversight committee chair Rep. Darrell Issa has literally been given a laundry list of concerns by big business to get rid of as many regulations and consumer protections as possible.  After all, these are the corporation that have paid for the GOP, and they want their money's worth.

The one that most neatly reflects the priorities of the conservative movement comes from the Heritage Foundation, which is asking Issa to attack decades worth of regulatory and statutory worker and consumer protections.

Here's the laundry list:

• Individual health insurance mandate
• Employer health insurance mandate
• Minimum health insurance benefit standards
• All future Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regulations
• Limiting debit card fees
• Transparency for shareholders
• Credit card regulation
• Incandescent light bulb phase out
• Broader energy efficiency standards
• Fuel efficiency standards
• Carbon pollution regulation
• Auto tailpipe standard
• Renewable fuel standards
• Low-income housing promotion
• Corporate accounting requirements
• Net neutrality
• Corporate media ownership rules
• Dairy price controls
• Domestic sugar subsidization

Read the whole thing here. 

All of those have to go, according to conservatives.  Too much regulation of the corporations that fund the GOP, and apparently Issa job as seen through the eyes of corporate America is to get rid of these pesky rules and regs so that the Mighty Hand Of The Free Market can control the world.  Of course, the corporations control the Mighty Hand, so it's all good if you're them.

If you're a consumer, well, government oversight's not for the little people. You don't have enough money "free speech" to make yourself heard.

Powerful Whine

Steve M. recounts the story of conservative blogger and lawyer Paul Mirengoff, formerly of the blog Power Line, and wants to know why other conservatives are up in arms over this at all.  The reason Mirengoff is formerly of the blog involves a less than flattering comment about Native Americans, of which Mirengoff's employer, DC law firm Akin Gump, does quite a bit of business with.  Steve sums up the outrage:

There are a lot of ways you can look at this, but I think one way you have to look at it is the American way: This is America, which means your boss can set all kinds of work rules for you and if you don't like them and they're not specifically enjoined by law, well, tough noogies. And that's what you'd expect the response to be, universally, on the right. Right?

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course that wasn't the response on the right. The response on the right was: One of our guys got mistreated by an employer! Fascism! Totalitarianism!

I gotta go with Steve on this one. These guys have advocated for "the Free Market" meaning "you're an at-will employee serving at the pleasure of your company's HR department."  They've been brutally against unions and worker's rights, saying they drive up the cost of labor and make America uncompetitive.  Well, one of them found out the hard way what the practical endpoint of all that really means.

Put the shoe on the other foot. Imagine a lefty lawyer/blogger of the previous decade bashing Bush on a blog even as his/her firm labored to maintain chummy relationships with the Dubya White House. Wouldn't Jacobson and McCain defend to the death the firm's right to press the lawyer to quit blogging? They might even howl for immediate termination and clawback of wages, no?

I don't recall these guys shedding a tear when Jason Levin lost his teaching job, or when Eason Jordan lost his job at CNN. So when they beg me to shed tears for Mirengoff, well, I'm unmoved.

Does that mean Col. Mustard's taking up the union cause now for bloggers?  That would be a hell of a thing.  Welcome to employment in the post crisis era, gentlemen.  You are 100% expendable in an employer's market.  You can and will be replaced .  Mirengoff chose his job over his blog of years and his employer didn't even blink making him choose.

Still think collective bargaining is a bad idea?

Like Daughter, Unlike Father

 Former President George W. Bush has made his feelings known on same-sex marriage (not to mention his support of a Constitutional amendment barring it and signing into law the Defense of Marriage Act.)  But at least one of his daughters says equality should reign.

Barbara Bush is coming out in support of gay marriage.

The 29-year-old daughter of President George W. Bush announces in a web video posted late Monday that she supports same-sex marriage. “I’m Barbara Bush and I’m a New Yorker for marriage equality,” she says. “New York is about fairness and equality. And everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love.”

The video is a 22-second spot for gay-rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign’s New Yorkers for Marriage Equality project. The group plans to show the video on Saturday at its annual gala in New York.

“Join us,” she says at the end, adding herself to a growing list of prominent New Yorkers, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who have appeared in brief videos supporting HRC’s efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in New York.

That puts daughters of Cheney, McCain, and now Bush on record as supporting same-sex marriage.  It's something that I think will be made national in my lifetime at least, but it could take quite a lot of time before it happens.

Still, every voice counts.  The struggle for civil rights has taught us that.

StupidiNews!

• A massive blizzard with temperatures well below zero will slam into the upper Midwest today, bringing deadly temperatures and feet of snow in some places.
• Ambassador to China Jon Hunstman has resigned, raising speculation the Republican will be running for President in 2012.
• Speculation that rising food prices and even US Fed policy may have sparked Egypt's unrest is raising some eyebrows.
• German unemployment has dropped to its lowest level in almost two decades, signaling the country may be among the first to emerge from the Euro crisis.
• Scientists have discovered that while your body's internal clock is run by genes, red blood cells have a clock that doesn't involve genes at all.