With people knowing full well who and what he is

Decades ago I heard the aria Lascia ch’io pianga from the opera Rinaldo by George Frederick Handel. I first heard it in the 1994 movie Farinelli. It’s a beautiful tune and I thought I could arrange it for handbells (because that’s what I do). But I did only the basics before changing music programs (the first time was 23 years ago) and the file didn’t transfer. A new music program with a better way to read old files revived my interest and I spent this afternoon pulling it into my program. I had heard the aria sung in its original Italian on the radio and hadn’t paid much attention to the English translation. While working on it today I took a moment to read the English. And it is appropriate for today:

Here let my tears flow! Let hope my soul know, My heart is longing For Liberty. Assuage the sorrow to chains belonging O, grant tomorrow That I may be free.

Yeah, the nasty guy will squat in the Oval Office again. That is difficult to take. The Michigan House flipped to Republican, so no more improvements in LGBTQ rights. I’m glad Democrats did quite a bit while they could. The lame duck session could be busy. Democrat Elissa Slotkin will replace retiring Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow, winning a tiny margin while the nasty guy took the state. But the US Senate flipped to Republican with a decent (rather than thin) margin. As of this writing the US House hasn’t been called yet. We may see the nasty guy take office with unchecked power. There are a few other bright spots. Sarah McBride easily won to be the first transgender person in the House, filling Delaware’s single seat. Yes, she is a Democrat. Abortion rights were on the ballot in ten states and passed in seven. Those that approved their proposals are: Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York. Those that did not are South Dakota, Florida, and Nebraska. Florida is important because it got 57% of the vote but needed 60% to be approved. Nebraska is interesting because the ballot had to opposing measures. A majority approved a ban after the 12th week. The proposal to ensure abortion rights got only 49%. To be approved a proposal had to cross 50% and have more votes than the other. And South Dakota simply didn’t pass it. That’s the end of my good news. There is very much the possibility Congress will pass a national abortion ban and the nasty guy will sign it, even though lately he’s been saying he won’t. Even if they don’t manage that, Project 2025 calls for banning mifepristone, one of the two drugs used in medication abortions. Kos of Daily Kos posted just before 6:30 this morning. Articles on Kos usually are topped by an image. For this post the image is solid black.

In 2016, people were dazzled by Donald Trump, and he ran up against a great but unpopular candidate. In 2020, Trump barely lost, but hey, incumbency has its advantages. And here we are, with people knowing full well who and what Trump is, and they still voted for him in big numbers. Vice President Kamala Harris was not a flawed candidate. She was near spotless. And she was objectively more popular than Trump. (Exit polling shows Trump’s favorability at 44/54, with Harris at 48/51.) And we did what we needed to do. And it was still not enough. All the money in the world, all the door-knocking in the world—none of that could overcome the reality that more people were convinced that Trump was the better choice.

So don’t accuse Harris of this or that supposed failing. This is too big for that to matter. Even so, Democrats will hold a postmortem to try to figure out why they lost. We liberals need to rebuild, to create a movement that can weather the worst Republicans can do. And we need to listen both to what people say and what they aren’t telling us. Some racists and misogynists are hopeless. And some are not. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos wrote this morning:

Dear Benjamin Franklin, This letter concerns our republic. We regret to inform you that, despite your most fervent wishes, we were unable to keep it. Sorry. We tried. Best to you and the other Founders, We The People ... JEERS to our profoundly broken country. This election should’ve ended last night in a landslide for the presidential candidate of truth, fact, and decency, even with a bunch of mail-in votes pending. I really don’t know what to say. Holy cow, seeing a massive chunk of our fellow countrymen choose hate and ignorance and outright gaslighting over the alternative is not what I signed up for.

Well a bit more good news: Maia Sandu was reelected president of Moldova, in spite of Russia’s attempt to undermine her and the country’s election. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, included some quotes worth mentioning. From a tweet by Osita Nwanevu:

Many Americans of all races do not believe our norms and institutions work, and a message about protecting them from a force promising to upend them will not be effective.

That got me thinking. I’ve said many times in various ways that Republicans invest strongly in the social hierarchy, with themselves and their financial backers near the top. People invested in the hierarchy oppress those below them because they believe the size of the gulf between themselves and those below is how their worth is measured. But that does not mean Democrats are the party that will subvert and eliminate the hierarchy. Yes, they welcome the working class and people of color. But they had chances to subvert, or at least blunt some of the oppression of, the hierarchy and they didn’t take them. They didn’t pass voting reforms (including rules to end gerrymandering). They didn’t tax the rich. They left the Senate filibuster intact. They allowed Republicans to deny approval of federal judges (Biden got a huge and diverse class approved, but many more languished in the Senate). The Department of Justice didn’t go after the nasty guy fast enough. They didn’t challenge monopolies (the meatpacker monopoly affects huge numbers of farmers in rural America). There are many other similar things I can’t think of right now. At our last lunch together my friend and debate partner talked about the young men in the 1980s and 90s who decided college was not for them. How are those men faring now, thirty and forty years later? Did we give them a path to a decent life or were they forgotten and left to low wages? Do they have resentments today, resentments they hope the nasty guy will fill? Back to Dworkin’s roundup. Heath Mayo tweeted:

Whatever happens, one thing is clear: Trumpism is now the GOP permanently. There is no battle for the future of that party. It believes different things now and doesn’t think character matters—and Americans appear to have plenty of appetite for it. It has no incentive to change.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo:

I wrote yesterday that I thought Harris ran a near flawless campaign. I still think that. And that removes one excuse. If she had run a mess of a campaign that would be one thing. She didn’t. I think she ran about as good a campaign as possible. I’m sure some people will blame her. I don’t think that will be fair. But big picture it doesn’t matter. Trump is the exception. Nobody gets a second chance to run for President. So blame her or not, it doesn’t matter. She won’t be running again. The reality we need to keep in mind is that incumbent parties have been losing in basically every industrial democracy since the pandemic. From one perspective it’s no surprise that the U.S. appears to be following that pattern. But Trump, with his degenerate, autocratic ways was the option.

A tweet from Matt Ortega:

Classic Vidal Gore quote and he was right. “We live here in the United States of Amnesia. No one remembers anything before Monday morning. Everything is a blank. They have no history.”

For a while I wondered if Republicans won by fraud. I was thinking about Ohio in 2004 that tipped the Electoral College to Bush II, who got another four years. See the book What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election by Robert J. Fitrakis, Steven Rosenfeld, Harvey Wasserman published in 2006. I just read the description again and the level of Republican fraud was more involved and more extensive than I knew (and I had heard about the book back when it was published). So did that happen on a much more massive scale this year? Part of me wants to say, nah, the votes for Harris were down even in solidly blue states. Also, Michigan’s elections are overseen by Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. But in Michigan there are a lot of county election panels run run by people who supported the Big Lie in 2020. The next few weeks will be interesting, because this stuff won’t remain hidden (and partly because some people like to brag). I’ve been thinking of this morning’s news and what it means for the country and the world. Say goodbye to the robust economy that Biden guided us into. The nasty guy is promising tariffs which would cause inflation and retaliation. He has also promised mass deportations, depriving the economy of workers. Say goodbye to your neighbors from Central and South America. Being a citizen won’t matter. Say goodbye to health care. He has talked about bringing back the worst of insurance plans before the Affordable Care Act was signed. Say goodbye to safe women’s health. Say goodbye to the social safety net. He has promised to bring Elon Musk and his chainsaw to clear away anything that doesn’t help those at the top of the hierarchy. Say goodbye to efforts to curb global warming. He continues to chant “Drill, baby, drill.” Say goodbye to environmental protections. Corporations want permission to pollute. Say goodbye to consumer protections, what corporations call “regulations” which they declare are evil. Say goodbye to your transgender friends. If they don’t flee they could well be driven to suicide. Say goodbye to the filibuster. Republicans have been wielding it to great effect over the last few decades, blocking many Democratic initiatives to help the country. Yet, enough Democrats let them, declaring the filibuster to be more important than whatever democracy-preserving plan they were trying to pass. Republicans already blocked use of the filibuster for judges and justices. In the upcoming Congress they will have more than 50 but less than 60 votes. This should mean Democrats could use the filibuster against them. And Republicans will make sure that can’t happen. Say goodbye to Ukraine. Say goodbye to Gaza. Say goodbye to NATO. Say goodbye to a government for, by, and of the people. Say goodbye to civility. I wonder if, before four years are over, I’ll be saying goodbye to this blog. I’m not going to get my Christmas wish of never hearing his voice again. But I doubt he’ll live long enough to finish out his term. He’s declining too rapidly. Which means a new vice nasty will take over. And he’ll be worse.

Rethinking: Aliens invade and humanity pulls together to fight them

I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data. The number of new cases per day peaked at 1388 this week. This has been a steady rise since the end of June, though a much slower rise compared to the outbreaks last October and March. The number of deaths per day has been 12 and under for eight weeks, since mid June. Deaths have not been rising following the rise in cases. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos, working on research by ProPublica, reported that the Republican tax cut for the wealthy in 2017 was a custom fit for particular billionaires – just 82 households saved over $1 billion. The bill started with a general outline. Then it went through hundreds of hands, blatantly and directly influenced by lobbyists, who inserted deals to help out particular rich people. Some of these deals were touted as benefiting mom-and-pop businesses, though most of the benefit went to the top 0.1%. Sumner wrote:

The Republican Party exists to service these people, and Trump’s tax bill gave them exactly what they wanted. At this point, Republicans exist only to defend that bill, and billionaires are willing to tolerate a little insurrection and a few hundred thousand deaths. It doesn’t just keep their taxes low, it keeps their taxes net-negative.

From my understanding the purpose of these tax cuts wasn’t so much to keep the money in the hands of super rich people, but to keep the money out of the hands of poor people, to make their lives more miserable. The tax cut also prevents (as Republicans keep telling us) the US government from having enough money to offer service to the poor to relieve their oppression. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that just a few days after the Senate voted on the bipartisan infrastructure package they voted on the outlines of the $3.5 trillion infrastructure package that will bypass a Republican filibuster. The outline passed 50-49 because one GOP senator was not there. But bypassing the filibuster means that the amendment process cannot be shut down and Republicans threw all they could at it. The actual vote was at 4:00 am. McCarter wrote of one particular statement made after the outline passed:

That work done, Sen. Joe Manchin, promptly became the turd in the punchbowl of Biden's aspirations Wednesday morning, with a statement outlining his concerns. His "serious" concerns over the "grave consequences" for the future of spending that much money. Manchin apparently hasn't had time to read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report about the grave consequences we're already living with due to not spending trillions of dollars to avoid climate change. Manchin's deficit peacock shrieks are unwittingly and darkly ironic. He decries the "negative effects on our children and grandchildren" of adding to the national debt, ignoring the fact that our children and grandchildren are facing a world where basic existence is under threat. He says the economy, based on absolutely no concrete evidence, is "on the verge of overheating." How rich is that? No, inflation is not the "overheating" thing to worry about right now.

Chitown Kev, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Laura Zhou of the South China Morning Post. China recalled its ambassador to Lithuania because that little country set up diplomatic offices in Taiwan. China insists Taiwan isn’t a separate country, but one of their own provinces. Zhou wrote:

Hours after Beijing‘s announcement, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said that as a sovereign country, Lithuania would decide its foreign policy for itself and urged Beijing to change its decision. “Sino-Lithuanian relations should be based on the principle of mutual respect. Otherwise, the dialogue turns into one-sided ultimatums, which is unacceptable in international relations,” he told the Baltic News Service. “At the same time, as a sovereign state, Lithuania itself decides with which states or territories to develop economic and cultural relations, without violating its international obligations.”

Kerry Eleveld of Kos has another story about governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas are making sure the children of their state cannot be protected from COVID. One new detail is DeSantis received $7 billion from the federal government to help the state’s schools reopen safely. He has spent none of it. The White House is looking to give money directly to school districts. Eleveld wrote:

The fact we are even forced to discuss the politics of putting kids' lives at risk is unfathomable. But that is exactly where the extremist ideology of today’s Republican Party has landed us. The message of DeSantis and Abbott is crystal clear: Sorry, kids, you're on your own. The GOP has turned into such a pro-plague death cult that both governors are more than happy to put children’s lives on the line to score a few political points with their base. ... DeSantis, Abbott, and other GOP governors are now the face of the delta surge, brought to you by an extremist anti-science, pro-pandemic Republican Party. If justice indeed exists in this universe, the GOP's willingness to sacrifice the lives of children in service of political gain will sink the party in 2022 just like it sank Donald Trump in 2020.

Lauren Floyd of Kos reported that dozens of parents from a half-dozen counties have sued DeSantis over his ban of mask mandates. The Florida constitution says that public officials must “ensure that Florida’s schools operate safely” according to the suit. A judge will hear the suit promptly. Sumner has his own post about Abbott and DeSantis (I’m old enough to think about Abbott and Costello and it seems I’m not that far off) and added Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota. SD includes the town of Sturgis, where a huge motorcycle rally happening about now will definitely not be masked for the second year. It was a superspreader event last year, with attendees taking the virus back to their home states. This year the virus spreads faster and is deadlier. Sumner wrote:

Every author or filmmaker who ever created a book or a movie around the theme of “Aliens invade, and humanity pulls together to fight them” needs to do a major rethink. Because we just had that scenario. And one of America’s two major parties chose Team Alien.

A couple days after the earlier post Eleveld reported what has happened in Florida over those two days. One thing that happened, as Eleveld wrote:

Explaining that the delta variant is "airborne," DeSantis offered simply, "We just have to understand when that's happening, these waves are something you just have to deal with." Sorry folks, we’re sitting ducks here. That was the message from DeSantis, as if getting vaccinated and masking up—the two most highly effective preventative measures—weren't worth a mention.

That, and everything else, prompted Eleveld to give a new name to Florida’s top guy: Gov. DeathSentence.

Cast doubts on all virus death numbers

A couple of Native American tribes in South Dakota set up checkpoints going into their reservations. These traffic stops on US and state roads require tests for the coronavirus before proceeding. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (R) demanded that if the checkpoints weren’t removed in 48 hours there would be legal action.

The tribes declined her request, saying it interfered with their efforts to protect those who live on the reservation. There is quite a concern already – the Navajo nation in Arizona has been hard hit by the virus compounded by most homes not having running water and the health system for natives being seriously underfunded for decades.



Dartagnan of the Daily Kos community talks about a Washington Post article about how desperate the nasty guy is to reopen the economy. He then discusses the corporate view of things. They’re not worried about the safety of workers – the workers whose physical distance needs will be compromised by showing up (and that doesn’t include the management making these decisions). Besides, with unemployment this high there will be others willing to take the job if existing workers refuse to come in or get sick.

What they’re worried about is legal liability, of being sued by workers who get sick. I’ve mentioned this before. Dartagnan sees one way out of the problem – follow guidelines on how to keep workers safe. These used to come from the CDC, but the nasty guy squashed their report. I thought of another solution – don’t open until it’s safe.



Laurie Garrett, who has written about plagues, tweeted her White House contacts say there will be two tactics used to reopen America and get the nasty guy reelected.

1. Cast doubts on all virus death numbers and try to get Americans to disbelieve their health departments and the CDC reports.

This is top level gaslighting. Some in the virus task force are already starting to do this. Yeah, declare the count too high when many people see evidence the count is too low.

2. Use Executive Orders to “create demand” for certain manufactured good by outlawing some products and mandating the purchase of replacements.

An example is to ban truck rigs more than ten years old, forcing truckers to buy new rigs. Another is to ban electrical equipment from “foreign adversaries.”



The blog Calculated Risk discusses finance and economics. After the jobs numbers for April were posted last Friday this blog displayed four charts showing the economy collapsing.

One of those charts is one I saw after the Great Recession. In its new form it gives an indication of what we’re in for. The chart shows a dozen recessions starting with the one in 1948. For each one it shows the percent of job loss from the previous employment peak and continues the line until the job numbers finally match and exceed the peak before the recession.

The shortest return to pre-recession levels was the one in 1980, which was about 10 months. Alas, there was another recession in 1981 and that one took about 2½ years to rebuild the workforce. The 2001 recession took four years to rebuild, the Great Recession took more than six years. The chart only shows the huge drop in this year’s employment, down 14% in two months, more than twice the drop of the Great Recession and significantly faster than any of the other recessions.

This is going to take a while.



Quote of the day:

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.
~~Herman Melville, Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs (1854)

Hyunsu Yim tweeted about the success that South Korea has had controlling the virus. But there was a new cluster of cases traced to a gay nightclub. There isn’t much LGBT visibility in the country (meaning it isn’t very welcoming of LGBT people). So this news means gays are being threatened and it could become deadly.



Joan McCarter of Kos reports that when the Senate created the CARES Act, in which a half-trillion went to bail out corporations and $300 billion when to “small business” loans (much gobbled up by not small businesses) the GOP senators did not ask how to pay for it. But now that the House is writing a bailout for the people – direct payments, unemployment help, rental and mortgage help, and student loan help, at least – those GOP senators are suddenly screaming about how to pay for it and the need to cut Social Security. Of course they did. We knew this was coming.



Walter Einenkel of Kos reports on a new study showing all the money the Gates Foundation spent on education reform was a bust.

One of the myriad problems with billionaires like Bill Gates pouring tons of money into reshaping our education system is that people like Bill Gates are not educators. They rarely have even a small amount of education in what education is and should be.

The Gates Foundation money was spent mostly to force legislation to force taxpayer money away from traditional public schools. In that effort was to evaluate teachers by the test scores of their students.

The Foundation spent $215 million and required school systems (taxpayers) to spend $575 million more. Short answer: It didn’t work. Slightly longer answer: This wasn’t philanthropy because Gates was making the world better for rich people.

Cost in dollars

Another snowstorm snarled the evening commute. My rehearsal was canceled, so I didn't have to be out in it. Our previous snowstorm was just Wednesday-Thursday of last week. But Sunday got up to 55F (12C) and it all melted.

Two years ago we had a record amount of snow. This year we've had about a third of that.



A federal jury trial ruled against Dow Chemical Company in a class-action lawsuit (I heard the award was over $1 billion, but don't have a source). Dow appealed to the Supremes, figuring with five conservative justices they would fare pretty well.

Then Justice Scalia died. And the GOP is vowing to block a replacement.

Suddenly taking the case to the Supremes didn't look like such a good idea. A 4-4 split would mean the lower court's ruling stands. So Dow settled for $835 million. Paying out that huge amount looks like the safer bet.

Other corporations are likely to make similar calculations.



I've reported on the sordid tale of Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat, two representatives to the Michigan legislature who were kicked out after having an affair and attempting to use a strange scenario with gay elements to cover it up. The two now face charges of perjury and lying under oath. Each could face at least 5 years in prison.



The South Dakota Legislature passed a bathroom bill – transgender students were to be banned from using the restroom of their gender identity. The House passed it 58-10. Thankfully, Gov. Dennis Daugaard vetoed it. The House could easily override the veto. Thankfully, in the Senate not so much.



The latest in the Flint water crisis is newly released emails show Gov. Rick Snyder knew about the contamination long before he said he did and long before anyone started doing something about it. That prompted Melissa McEwen of Shakesville to write:

Naturally, despite the dire warnings and urgent recommendations, nothing was done. Because it was deemed too costly.

In dollars. The cost of lives didn't seem to be part of the considerations.

Once again, I will note that this is what class warfare actually looks like. It isn't asking wealthy people to pay more taxes. It's sacrificing the health, and sometimes the very lives, of poor people so that wealthy people don't have to pay more taxes.

Alabama!

Yes, same-sex couples in Alabama have started to marry, though – considering it is Alabama – the process hasn't been smooth.

The 11th Circuit denied a stay. So did the Supremes, though Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia dissented. This time Thomas wrote 3 pages for his dissent, saying that since the matter is before the Supremes it is improper for the court to allow marriages to proceed. Yes, he was criticizing his colleagues. And, yes, allowing Alabama same-sex couples to marry makes it harder for the Supremes to come to the conclusion he wants.

You may remember Roy Moore, Chief Justice of the Alabama Supremes. He was the one that installed a big Ten Commandments monument in the lobby of the Alabama Judicial Building. More than a decade ago he refused an order from a federal court to remove it. As a result he was removed. But in Alabama Supreme Court Justices are elected and in 2013 voters returned him to their high court. They like their bigots. So in a state where its Marriage Protection Amendment was approved by 80% of voters in 2006 Moore feels he is on safe political ground when he announced an order prohibiting probate judges from issuing marriage licenses. We don't need no stinkin' US Constitution! Comparisons were quickly made to George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door to prevent integration.

Moore posted on his Facebook page that citizens who see a judge breaking Moore's order should tell the governor (since Moore can't dish out punishment himself). Gov. Bentley responded by saying he will take no action against judges who defy Moore's order.

Some of the probate judges apparently liked the cover Moore gave them and have been refusing licenses to same-sex couples. And to show they aren't bigoted, some of those have decided to not issue marriage licenses to anyone, gay or straight. It didn't take long for one of the judges to be sued. It also didn't take long for the federal judge who overturned the ban to order that sued judge to issue licenses, and same-sex marriages have begun in Mobile. Even so, perhaps about 50 straight couples are being denied licenses each day this mess continues.

As all this confusion plays out, a same-sex couple in Autauga County did get a license, but the judge refused to perform the ceremony. If I do it for one couple I have to do it for everyone! Rev. Anne Susan Diprizio saw the couple's distress and offered to perform the ceremony. Proceedings began and she was arrested.

Gay couples in Texas are asking the 5th Circuit that since Alabama didn't get a stay, could you get rid of ours? Couples in South Dakota and Missouri are asking the 8th Circuit the same thing.

As of yesterday 47 of Alabama's 66 counties have marriage equality. Another 6 aren't issuing licenses to anyone, 8 give licenses only to straight couples, and the last 5 aren't telling reporters.

And the marriage map is looking pretty good – now if we could turn the red areas to purple...

Of course, we're not done with the crazy. Liberty Counsel petitioned the Alabama Supreme Court to stop same-sex marriages. The court agreed to take the case on a 6-2 vote (Chief Justice Moore didn't vote). It could be entertaining since a state court can't trump a federal court on issues of the US Constitution. So a ruling that Liberty Counsel likes could be swiftly smacked aside.

Finally before the court

The Supremes have announced they will take the marriage equality case from Michigan and combine it with the other 6th Circuit cases from Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The court has focused the cases down to two questions, the core of the cases:

1) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex?

2) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?

That "require" bit implies the opposite – might a state choose to permit same-sex marriages or might it choose to ban those marriages? The two questions mean the Supremes will focus on what matters to all of us and not be derailed by issues of standing, which is why they didn't rule in the California case 18 months ago.

The Supremes have scheduled a generous 90 minutes for oral arguments to Question 1 and an hour for Question 2. It makes sense – they are hearing four cases. Those oral arguments will be heard sometime during the week of April 24, with a ruling by the end of June.

Do we start planning for big parties in July? My sister and her partner would be delighted to do so. The tea-leaf reading to discern how the Supremes will rule has begun. Some, like Ari Ezra Waldman of the blog Towleroad lists his reasons why he believes the court will rule in our favor:

1. The Supremes let stand marriage equality rulings in 3 Circuit courts. Doubtful the court would allow thousands of same-sex couples to marry and, several months later, take it back.

2. The Supremes refused a stay in Florida, even though the 11th Circuit hasn't ruled yet.

3. Through a series of cases Justice Kennedy has championed our rights. He has already destroyed the arguments under the remaining state bans.

Others aren't so sure, including several of Towleroad's readers. Why two questions? Isn't the second covered by the first? Is the court not so sure of the answer to the first question? Or are they just hiding their intentions? Or are they making sure bigoted states, such as Texas, get the point?

Justice Kennedy may be a big champion of gay rights, but he is also a big champion of state's rights. And in this case the two are in opposition. Which will he choose?



In other marriage news...

There is a second Michigan marriage case. This one is to require that the state recognize the 300 couples who married last year in the one-day window between the district court ruling and the circuit court stay. Today a district court judge ruled the state must recognize those marriages, though he added a 21 day stay. There are now petitions circulating to demand AG Bill Schuette not appeal.



The ban of same-sex marriage in South Dakota was ruled unconstitutional. The decision looks familiar: (1) Marriage is a fundamental right which (2) the Supremes have said many times, and (3) that right had been denied to same-sex couples, (4) for no compelling reason.

Ari Ezra Waldman is disappointed that a stay was issued with the ruling, seemingly automatically. Yeah, that used to be routine. But the refusal by the Supremes to intervene in Florida has changed that reasoning. South Dakota is in the 8th Circuit, and like the 11th Circuit in the Florida case, hasn't heard a marriage equality case.



In most civil cases, such as these marriage equality cases, the losing side must pay the attorney's fees of those that won. So far various states have awarded a combined $800K with another $2.6 million in requests pending. So much for GOP legislatures and governors being fiscally prudent.



I wrote about Cecil Bell, the Texas state legislator who wants to declare that Texas has sovereign immunity when it comes to same-sex marriage and the US constitution. Since that idea isn't getting very far he has another. He wants to revoke salaries of state employees, such as clerks and judges, who issue or recognize same-sex marriage licenses. Strange that Bill Chumley of South Carolina has a matching bill for his state.

A change of heart

Challenges to same-sex marriage bans in South Dakota and Montana have been filed. That means the only state with a ban and without a challenge is North Dakota.

The Dem governor of Montana thinks this is a great development. The GOP AG disagrees.

The challenge in South Dakota has some unique features. In addition to challenging the ban it also challenges the Defense of Marriage Act part 2 which allows states to refuse to recognize marriages performed in other states. In the challenge to the ban it adds a third way it violates the 14th Amendment: a right to travel -- with some bans still in place marriages disappear when crossing state lines.



I've written about the rainbow Equality House that more than a year ago appeared across the street from the venomously anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church. At the time my friend and debate partner was sure the house would have some effect on the WBC clan. I've also written about the story that WBC founder Fred Phelps was excommunicated shortly before he died. Fred's grandson Zacharias Phelps-Roper, who has left WBC, now links the two. He says Fred had a change of heart and was overheard complementing the work the Equality House was doing. That was the cause of the excommunication.



There was a time -- a decade ago -- when the GOP used gay rights as a wedge issue. Their string of marriage protection amendments in 2004 showed how well that worked. But Nicholas Riccardi of Associated Press shows how much opinion has shifted. It is the Democrats who are using gay rights as a wedge issue. Examples: Democratic Senator Mark Udall of Colorado is hitting his challenger for casting votes limiting gay rights. In Arizona, the scene of the failed license to discriminate bill, Democrats will be using it as an issue to hammer on GOP legislators who voted for it. A few conservative strategists, especially those with a Fundie bent, insist the courts are speaking contrary to the people's wishes and the public is on their side. Don't pay any attention to the polls that say otherwise.

We've come a long way.