Quick Hits

So I'm still on blogging hiatus for a while, but I have some free time today, and I saw a couple of things recently that were worth posting on.

The first is that both Iowa and Vermont (courtesy of their state Supreme Courts, and state legislature, respectively) have both legalized gay marriage within the last week. Forget abortion-- soooo 1990s!-- this is the 'culture war' wedge issue that the religious right will be working from for the next decade. I remain hopeful that 2006 and 2008 were not aberrations, and that America as a whole is moving past this insanity and embracing the inevitable... meaning realizing that letting gay Americans have equal rights for marriage and family will not cause God to turn us all into pillars of salt or whatever.

Jon Stewart had a great segment on how the right-wing is going absolutely bonkers in the wake of the Obama presidency. Google 'Obama tea party' for just a small taste, and/or watch 10 seconds of Glenn Beck. Or listen to Rush Limbaugh tell a caller that you're not a real Republican if you oppose torture. Or watch conservatives call military spending increases a "cut". Etc etc.

Ed Schultz has a new show on MSNBC; last night he had a report on the Employee Free Choice Act and how Congress is allowing it to be killed. Have a Democratic Senator in a conservative district? Call 'em up; raise hell.

On that note, I'll add that I'm still very frustrated with the way the economic rescue is going (though I won't add much... my posts in recent months speak for themselves). Last year, I was hoping we'd be seeing a New Deal/FDR-esque push for a new green economy to put Americans back to work and get the country moving again. Instead, Obama has allowed himself to be dragged down into bailout mode, and so is missing the forest for the Wall Street trees. A shame, though there is still time to correct. I'll add that the European leaders during the G20 were correct in insisting that pushing now for tighter and stricter financial regulations is more important-- long-term specifically-- than pushing for more stimulus, like Obama wanted. President Obama ran as the anti-Bush... one way he can be just that? Allow for constant course-correction. Please.

So I read this article about Obama climate change plans... and all I thought of was this.

Finally, last week I attended one of the Radio City 'Speaker Series' shows... it featured Anderson Cooper moderating a discussion with Mike Huckabee, Arianna Huffington, and D.L. Hughley. Someone in the audience snuck in a camera and it's on YouTube: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.