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[Gaborn]

The difference is not practical. In practice, there is no difference. In written word on categorization, there is, but in execution and legally binding terms there is no difference.

You know I'm on the pro-gay activism side, but to argue that Obama is not versed in constitutional law because he does not believe there is a difference between a civil union and marriage is a reach of Mr Fantastic proportions.

"Separate but equal is inherently unequal" so of COURSE there is a fundamental difference. Obama's "explanation" for his original support for gay marriage before he was against it (which, admittedly was better than Pfieffer's "fake questionnaire" explanation) is embarrassing and laughable for anyone who purports to have any knowledge of the law or the history of constitutional rights.

With that said I agree with the Senator that said this:

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure,” he said. “It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”

 

[GhaleonEB]

Obama tells people to contact Congress and it crashes the Hill servers​

http://twitter.com/#!/pfeiffer44/status/95672707135455233

Heh.

Obama bent over backward to sound reasonable, while digging in on positions I thought he had abandoned. Boehner really came off as a dick, no pun intended. No, really.

But Obama confused me late in his speech, because he devoted most of it to calling for shared sacrifice among the wealthy and large corporations, rejecting an all-cuts approach, and then heaped praise on Reid's plan, which is revenue-free - all cuts.

 

[reilo]

If you want to keep arguing what the difference between a Silver Dollar and a George Washington Dollar Bill is, then that's your prerogative. Either way, it makes you seem immature and overtly idealistic to the point of your own detriment.

Then again, I'm arguing with the guy that found it acceptable to vote for Bob Barr and claim Obama is a hypocrite on gay marriage. To each their own.

 

[A Human Becoming]

Damn! I miss the speech. Anyone got a link?

You didn't miss much. Just the blame game with no compromise in sight.

 

[Gaborn]

If you want to keep arguing what the difference between a Silver Dollar and a George Washington Dollar Bill is, then that's your prerogative. Either way, it makes you seem immature and overtly idealistic to the point of your own detriment.

Then again, I'm arguing with the guy that found it acceptable to vote for Bob Barr and claim Obama is a hypocrite on gay marriage. To each their own.

We'll have to agree to disagree, though frankly I find it funny that you're upset I'd rather support someone who supported marriage equality in 2008 rather than someone who did not.

 

[TacticalFox88]

OK, saw some of the stuff on Youtube....our country really is going to shit isn't it? What the fuck is it going to take, another 9/11, for the people to unite again?

 

[reilo]

We'll have to agree to disagree, though frankly I find it funny that you're upset I'd rather support someone who supported marriage equality in 2008 rather than someone who did not.

I'm upset that you voted for someone that was directly responsible for taking away your rights as a gay person. In the end, I'll keep fucking that chicken, and you get angry over the word "marriage" all you want while missing the forest for the trees.

 

[darkwing]

OK, saw some of the stuff on Youtube....our country really is going to shit isn't it? What the fuck is it going to take, another 9/11, for the people to unite again?

need alien ships hovering in the skies

 

[eznark]

need alien ships hovering in the skies

We need to build sky fences to keep those damn aliens from taking our jobs.

 

[Technosteve]

Eh gaborn we should abolish marriage and just replace it with civil unions.

If our economy goes to shit im moving ezarks farm. I can provide the farm with body armor.

 

[Gaborn]

I'm upset that you voted for someone that was directly responsible for taking away your rights as a gay person. In the end, I'll keep fucking that chicken, and you get angry over the word "marriage" all you want while missing the forest for the trees.

Hey, you can do as you wish, and I'll do as I wish. That's the way the country works.

Technosteve - Sure, great, straight people first though, k?

 

[Oblivion]

OK, saw some of the stuff on Youtube....our country really is going to shit isn't it? What the fuck is it going to take, another 9/11, for the people to unite again?

LOL. We couldn't get unity when fucking Bin Laden was killed.

 

[empty vessel]

So someone who thinks they know what S&P thinks has an opinion on which one is more favorable?

Great article there.

edit: nm - eznark is the source, so I trust it.

Are you suggesting you find it incredulous that Boehner's plan--which intentionally sustains the political question about whether the US will willfully default on its debt--would be received less favorably than a longer term solution.

Is this really beyond your grasp?

 

[reilo]

Hey, you can do as you wish, and I'll do as I wish. That's the way the country works.

Technosteve - Sure, great, straight people first though, k?

Sure thing, boss.

 

[ElectricThunder]

OK, saw some of the stuff on Youtube....our country really is going to shit isn't it? What the fuck is it going to take, another 9/11, for the people to unite again?

9/11 was less about unity and moreso about kneejerk exploitation----"Quick, something crazy happened---let's push some really extra crazy stuff while everything is way off kilter!"

Whole speech bit inspires no confidence at all towards anything less than a last minute, rushed, "extra terrible something" passed, if anything at all versus the whole thing crashing down like cymbals from a cargo plane.

 

[elrechazado]

Are you suggesting you find it incredulous that Boehner's plan--which intentionally sustains the political question about whether the US will willfully default on its debt--would be received less favorably than a longer term solution.

Is this really beyond your grasp?

For someone who is always advocating for how we need to save journalism from its woeful state, I'd think you'd be able to identify the point I was making.

 

[A Human Becoming]

Eh gaborn we should abolish marriage and just replace it with civil unions.

Didn't they pretty much do that in France? I believe a civil union there is more attractive.

 

[empty vessel]

For someone who is always advocating for how we need to save journalism from its woeful state, I'd think you'd be able to identify the point I was making.

I understand the point you were making. I'm not sure what the point of making it was.

 

[eznark]

I understand the point you were making. I'm not sure what the point of making it was.

The point was less about the original article and more about the follow up post which seemed to claim the source of said story was infallible.

My point was that it's terribly pathetic journalism.

 

[RustyNails]

But Obama confused me late in his speech, because he devoted most of it to calling for shared sacrifice among the wealthy and large corporations, rejecting an all-cuts approach, and then heaped praise on Reid's plan, which is revenue-free - all cuts.

I think he was talking about the plan which Boehner walked away from. At least, that's what I thought he was talking about.

 

[elrechazado]

I understand the point you were making. I'm not sure what the point of making it was.

Luckily for all of us, you aren't the point police, but thanks for the meta commentary on my post I guess? Using a shitty article based on vague sources as a definitive source to "prove" a point wasn't impressive to me. Is that a problem for you? May I keep posting dad?

 

[mckmas8808]

For someone who is always advocating for how we need to save journalism from its woeful state, I'd think you'd be able to identify the point I was making.

But is it hard to see why S&P would do something like that?

 

[elrechazado]

But is it hard to see why S&P would do something like that?

In my opinion, you would have been better served making a point yourself instead of attempting to cite to authority, when that authority is laughably incompetent.

 

[happyfunball]

I'll say it again, the ONLY substance from each of these speeches came at the end of Boehner's response where he suggested that he finally blinked and will pass Reid/McConnell:

And this week, while the Senate is struggling to pass a bill filled with phony accounting and Washington gimmicks, we will pass another bill – one that was developed with the support of the bipartisan leadership of the U.S. Senate.

Obviously, I expect that bill can and will pass the Senate, and be sent to the President for his signature. If the President signs it, the ‘crisis’ atmosphere he has created will simply disappear. The debt limit will be raised. Spending will be cut by more than one trillion dollars, and a serious, bipartisan committee of the Congress will begin the hard but necessary work of dealing with the tough challenges our nation faces.

This sounds exactly like Reid/McConnell, 1.5T in cuts and setting up a deficit panel.

While the plan is still crap, it was considered the "Plan B" for much of this time and it appears to finally be in progress and will finally end this crap.

 

[Mumei]

So the difference is nomenclature with no rights being legally different. Gotcha.

Not really.

Unless you aren't American (which is always possible!), I'm sort of surprised you don't know that civil unions and marriage are not equivalent legal categories.

In Goodridge, the court said in its decision with regards to a proposed civil unions bill:

"The bill would have the effect of maintaining and fostering a stigma of exclusion that the Constitution prohibits. It would deny to same sex 'spouses' only a status that is specially recognized in society and has significant social and other advantages. The Massachusetts Constitution does not permit such invidious discrimination, no matter how well intended." The court in Perry came to much the same conclusion regarding replacing SSM with some other substitute like domestic partnerships or civil unions, and came to the conclusion that what California currently had (which included many of the same rights and obligations of marriage at the state-level) was unsatisfactory.

I don't know where you got this idea that the creation of a separate legal category to categorize people who already fit in an existing legal category is done for any reason other than stigmatization.

Now in the real world, there are substantive differences between civil unions and marriage - most notably that marriage is something that travels with you, whereas civil unions are recognized on a state-by-state basis and the federal government uses marital status in determining benefits for a whole host of things (well over 1100) and does not recognize civil unions at all.

But the point that Gaborn was trying to make was that even if they were entirely equal in terms of rights and obligations, they would still be unequal insofar as the reason for their creation is stigmatization, and that despite what you seem to be implying that is an important legal difference.

 

[eznark]

I'll say it again, the ONLY substance from each of these speeches came at the end of Boehner's response where he suggested that he finally blinked and will pass Reid/McConnell:



This sounds exactly like Reid/McConnell, 1.5T in cuts and setting up a deficit panel.

While the plan is still crap, it was considered the "Plan B" for much of this time and it appears to finally be in progress and will finally end this crap.

Hasn't Obama already rejected this two-step bill with a 12 person Blue Ribbon Committee?

 

[happyfunball]

Hasn't Obama already rejected this two-step bill with a 12 person Blue Ribbon Committee?

No, I believe he said it was a good backup plan.

Obama backs 'Gang of Six' on debt, describes Reid/McConnell plan as a backup

 

[eznark]

No, I believe he said it was a good backup plan.

But hasn't it always been Boehner's plan (at least for the last day+)? This is different from the Reid plan.

 

[segarr]

Ha! I knew obama was gonna disappoint. Seems he still likes capitalism.

Of course he does. When did he ever suggest he wasn't? Did you buy into the teabaggy rhetoric? How he got pinned as some socialist, marxist, commie is pure politics and fear of a black president giving handouts to black people. It's Clinton's "welfare queen" bullshit wrapped up with a new bow.

The debate on entitlements stems from the same fears; These low-income whites either don't give a damn or don't realize they're going to get hit by destroying social security as well. Of course they'll vote for the same Republican politicians who don't give a crap about them.

I fear a future America where the elderly are dying from hypothermia and kids are starving to death. It really seems like the right wants to go back to that.

 

[Tesseract]

obama should walk to the hill and camp out with the american people.

 

[GhaleonEB]

No, I believe he said it was a good backup plan.

Obama backs 'Gang of Six' on debt, describes Reid/McConnell plan as a backup

He praised the framework, but has explicitly - and repeatedly - rejected a short-term ceiling raise, as he did again tonight.

 

[happyfunball]

But hasn't it always been Boehner's plan (at least for the last day+)? This is different from the Reid plan.

Different from Reid and Boehner, close to McConnell's plan that every Republican called him a bitch for doing.

 

[RustyNails]

You didn't miss much. Just the blame game with no compromise in sight.

Can you reword that a little bit better? From your post, I got that both parties are equally to blame for not reaching an agreement.

 

[happyfunball]

He praised the framework, but has explicitly - and repeatedly - rejected a short-term ceiling raise, as he did again tonight.

As far as I understand, this plan is pretty much a long-term ceiling raise with some dog and pony shows in between to let the Republicans say they voted against the raise.

 

[Elfforkusu]

It's genuinely frightening that "compromise" is on the map at all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the overwhelming reason for the debt the Bush tax cuts and the wars? e.g, Republican shit?

 

[TacticalFox88]

Never has a political cartoon been so accurate

 

[Plumbob]

"Separate but equal is inherently unequal" so of COURSE there is a fundamental difference.

Devil's advocate, but didn't they reach that conclusion reached because students at black schools received a poorer education due to access to fewer resources? What would be the equivalent resource disparity between civil unions and marriages?

 

[eznark]

As far as I understand, this plan is pretty much a long-term ceiling raise with some dog and pony shows in between to let the Republicans say they voted against the raise.

I think you might be confusing the proposals. The one Boehner is going to pass is a $1.6 trillion increase immediately. In order to increase again, a 12 person commission will need to find cuts to offset the raise. Or maybe I am confusing the proposals.

 

[Technosteve]

So if the goverment defaults interest on treasury bills will increase. Hmmmm goooo replubicans?

 

[segarr]

Can you reword that a little bit better? From your post, I got that both parties are equally to blame for not reaching an agreement.

Which is nuts. "compromise" to the Republicans seems to be "give us everything we want, (unless President Obama is for it, then we don't want it) and if you don't we'll storm out the room."

 

[happyfunball]

I think you might be confusing the proposals. The one Boehner is going to pass is a $1.6 trillion increase immediately. In order to increase again, a 12 person commission will need to find cuts to offset the raise. Or maybe I am confusing the proposals.

You know, I think you are right, I was mistaken. I took that developed with support of Senate leadership to mean Reid/McConnell since the rest of the specifics seemed to fit.

Nevermind then, continue the lamenting. We are fucked.

 

[Gaborn]

Devil's advocate, but didn't they reach that conclusion reached because students at black schools received a poorer education due to access to fewer resources? What would be the equivalent resource disparity between civil unions and marriages?

I think you need to read Brown v Board again. EVEN IF the schools were equal, received equal funding and were EXACTLY the same separate but equal is INHERENTLY unequal. That means if you separate people for no reason other than because you don't like them that is unconstitutional.

 

[A Human Becoming]

Can someone explain the Cut, Cap and Balance Act? I keep reading information on it, but I'm not sure what's so bad about it besides no tax revenue.

 

[Technosteve]

The super committee sounds dumb as hell they become the most powerful politicians in office as soon as this committee is created.

 

[Mumei]

I think you need to read Brown v Board again. EVEN IF the schools were equal, received equal funding and were EXACTLY the same separate but equal is INHERENTLY unequal. That means if you separate people for no reason other than because you don't like them that is unconstitutional.

He doesn't even need to read the whole decision; the pertinent passage covering this question is actually featured on the Wikipedia page for Brown:

Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does... Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system... We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.​

 

[RustyNails]

List of congressmen's websites that are down:

The website DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com confirms that the following websites are among those affected:
-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
-House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)
-Rep. Elliot Engel (D-N.Y.)
-Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho)
-Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)
-Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.)
-Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
-Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)
-Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)

Remember when Obama told to Cantor's face that he's gonna take this to the American people? Yeah, wasn't kidding:

What we're seeing here confirms what the American people think is the worst about Washington: that everyone is more interested in posturing and political positioning and protecting their base than solving real problems. Eric, I could get well above the numbers the GOP is talking about with revenue increases. I am not afraid to veto this and I will take that message and defend it to the American people. If we default, it will be a tax increase on every American. My responsibility is to the American people. I have reached the point where I say, 'Enough.' I have sat here long enough and no other President - Ronald Reagan wouldn't sit here like this. I've reached my limit. We've reached the point where something's got to give. You've either got to compromise on your dollar for dollar insistence or you compromise on the big deal, which means raising taxes. Eric, don't call my bluff. I will go to the American people on this. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this.

 

[Cyan]

Well, sell your stocks and buy gold and grain

If you didn't do this two years ago you are a fool and should probably just keep your money in that index fund.

Reality check:

S&P 500 at today's close: $1,337.43
S&P 500 at close two years ago: $979.26

Not bad for a fool.

 

[empty vessel]

There is no way to compromise. The only relevant question is whether the US is going to raise the debt limit. This is a binary proposition: either it is or it fucking isn't. The current Republican position is no. The Republicans already agreed to the current budget, so that has nothing whatsoever to do with this. This is about whether we pay for what the Congress has already spent (which for most of the last 17 years has been either under sole Republican control or under partial Republican control). And the Republican position is that we are not paying for what they agreed to spend.

You can't compromise on the question: should we raise the debt limit? It's a yes or no question.

This is the simplest of logic.

 

[TacticalFox88]

List of congressmen's websites that are down:

Remember when Obama told to Cantor's face that he's gonna take this to the American people? Yeah, wasn't kidding:

Holy fuck, he actually said that? Where the fuck have you been?!

 

[MrGame&Watch]

I think that although it's completely unrealistic, I believe Americans needs to really think hard about tweaking the current republic system we have. You can't get anything meaningful done when there's every motivation in the world to make the President fail by the minority.

Fuck china of all places seems like the model these days.