Friday Open Thread [5.24.13]
It is the beginning of a long weekend — for me, this is the first long holiday weekend of the year. From here on out, there is a scheduled holiday weekend pretty much every other month now. Yay!
The Boy Scouts split the Gay Baby and decided to accept openly gay scouts, but that they would still discriminate against openly gay adult leadership. I suppose this is a step in the right direction, but it is a completely weird message to send to these kids. You are worthy to be a part of us if you are under 18 years old and gay, but if you are over 18 and gay you aren’t worthy to be a part of us. The Assemblies of God are predicting that there will be a mass exodus (!) from scouting now. It was really interesting to listen to the NPR report on this decision this morning. The people lamenting the fact that their values of gay bigotry are dying don’t have a clue. One of the signature American experiences is of *increasing* acceptance and inclusion of its citizens. Too bad these bigots don’t love their country enough to get with those values. But this isn’t over until gay adult leadership are just as welcome as gay scouts.
Harry Reid has one small win in beating back the McConnell filibuster obstruction. Sri Srinivasan was finally approved as a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals by 97-0. That’s a unanimous vote, people, meaning that the planned filibuster was just about gunking up the works. This is pretty despicable from people are are supposed to be governing.
Elizabeth Warren has a bill in the Senate that would provide student loans at the same rate that the Feds lend money to banks. This is nothing but awesomeness. Since it is Memorial Day weekend, you might see Senators Coons and Carper out and about. Please ask them if they’ll support this great bill.
Locally, Harris McDowell wants to build a companion ship for the Kalmar Nyckle. That’s fantastic, but I’m hoping that he’ll give a raise to state workers OR restore the staff that schools are getting ready to lose support staff. Priorities, people!
What interests you today?
Elizabeth Warren is really coming thru as promised and it’s great. McConnell doesn’t care about government, for him and the rest of the Republicans this is war and the filibuster is his primary weapon.
Don’t get Democrats who say, “wait. We’ll need the filibuster when R’s get in the majority”
1) R’s will not get more seats than they hold right now. They are content to be a regional party.
2) democrats wouldn’t use the filibuster this way anyway. So “saving” it is pointless.
Have a great weekend everyone. Hit me up on FB or twitter if you are going to the beach.
I also don’t get it b/c the first thing the Rethugs would do should they get the majority is to do away with the filibuster.
The least the sheep who masquerade as D senators could do would be to enable Obama to place some judges on the court who don’t view the law as promoting Rethuglican orthodoxy.