Super Congress? Why not:
‘Super Congress’: Debt Ceiling Negotiators Aim To Create New Legislative Body
I really thought I had this story figured out: Obama and Boehner go head to head over spending cuts and tax incentives for the wealthy. They drag it into the 25th hour, Boehner cries at some point and finally the two sides strike a deal.
A new body of congress with super powers? You can’t write this stuff.
Stay tuned.
A recent story has come out regarding purported marriage scams by Marines out of Camp Pendleton, California:
Marines Face Charges Of Marrying For Financial Gain
The real story here isn’t about the alleged scams themselves, but why are we hearing about this now? Any service member past or present is intimately familiar with the term ‘contract marriage’ – where two individuals who otherwise wouldn’t get married decide to strictly for the purpose of gaining additional benefits. This is prevalent among the armed services.
The kicker here is that Ashley Vice a female Marine Corporal being charged with fraud is a homosexual who was living with her girlfriend while collecting benefits for being married to a man.
Prosecutions for contract marriages in the military are few and far between, in fact I’ve never heard of one. So it’s hard to ignore potential discrimination in this case since it’s a rare case and involves a gay service member.
1st Lt. Maureen Dooley, a Marine spokeswoman at Camp Pendleton, has this to say:
“The bottom line is that every Marine knows if they violate the law, they will be held accountable for their actions.”
“Regardless of sexual preference, we will hold all Marines accountable and to the same standards.”
Cookie cutter stuff, while a Public Affairs Officer isn’t a deciding authority in whether to charge the Marines – the 1st Lt. is affiliated with a Catholic Church in Durham, CT as indicated in this church newsletter snippet:
Given the catholic churches track record on gay rights I can hardly find Maureen to be impartial to the subject.
The one that really had authority to run with this is commanding officer Ian Clark of HMLA 369, a light helicopter squadron attached to Marine Air Group 39 (MAG-39), part of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing (3rd MAW). He had the authority to deal with this at the command level and chose not to.
With our armed forces this really flows from the top down, current Commandant of the Marine Corps – General James Amos is a devout Christian who was against repeal of the don’t ask don’t tell policy.
Today’s military is largely headed by Christian fundamentalist, see the US Air Force Academy. So while we can argue semantics and that all Marines are treated equally – this is hardly the case. Regardless of policy change – gays will still be battling for equal treatment in the armed services, based solely on the personal beliefs of those in command that choose who and who not to punish.
Oh, she entered into a contract marriage AND she’s gay? Let’s throw the book at her. All while a cultural aspect that has existed in our armed forces (contract marriages) for some time is thoroughly ignored. You see, it’s different when straight man and women pretend to be married – it just is.
We’d love more of this! <video>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKP05AyfRsI</video>
That poor 2 year old…
…oh boy, how about some sanity….look, obviously our system of government is a failure, and we need to try something else. Let’s make Obama “king for life” and hang every elected Senator and Representative we can get our hands on! The last straw was CLEARLY just a few months ago when something happened…I’ll let others decide what that “something” was, but I think someone should be detaining Octo-mom, Perez Hilton and Terri Shiavo (if she’s not alive then grab Eric the Midget instead) until we get everything sorted out.
This is a great idea. Having the government support local farming rather than the big producers means higher quality, chemical-free food, and an increase in the amount of money spent within peoples’ communities. Many policies can be implemented that would have a similar effect, with buying power grown organically through jobs and by creating incentives for people to spend more of their money locally.
It is true that the government would be ‘in the business of’ picking winners and losers. You or I could actually be in the running for once. (and I have for you a completely unrelated video – it starts out with a black tv anchor trying to act like a Gumbel)
Now compare the coherence of that interview to this one
You volunteered for the military, so eat shit and be thankful for it! This guy is arguing that since a teenager volunteered for the Army, it means they really want to be a soldier for the rest of their life…right…no dead-enders here, just “professional soldiers”…it doesn’t get any more delusional than this:
It’s hard to get around the fact that this is an example of Obama playing on the stupidity of the media to get Hillary off of the television screen. It is a fact that by having him up in front of microphones, the utility of his most famous You Tube clip as a weapon for Hillary and the right becomes diminished. Clearly it is time for everyone to talk about Reverend Wright.
Airtime is oxygen to a campaign.
I guess you can’t have a radio show and be controversial at the same time…she should sue Air America. To me it looks like she’s doing an appearance somewhere. So if her contract doesn’t stipulate what she can and cannot do when she’s not on the air…eh, I don’t even care really, I just wanted to post this video because as much as I’d like to ignore this election for the next couple of months, Hillary’s campaign makes me feel like Randi in this clip. It’ll probably be pulled shortly, but while it lasts:
There’s this idiot over at Control Congress named bb who back in November agreed to wager on which party would win in 2008. I’ve been working hard lately, so the blog world is pretty much dead to me. Never forgetting about an opportunity to take money from a fool, I check back in after a long hiatus to remind everyone…and being the little baby that he is, of course he’s backing out. A couple of comments were posted, and then tonight I think about ten pounds of stress was unloaded in the span of under 200 words…here’s a taste:
bb, you thought you knew something about the world, and like most of the ideas you and other right-wingers push in lockstep year after year, when it’s time to act, you either:
A) Go through with it and end up looking foolish
or
B) Back out and go off to talk some more shit about something else you know nothing about
The Iraq war is a fine example of right-wingers putting their money where their mouth is, and look how that turned out. At least you can recognize the fact that you’re not smart enough to predict how things are going to turn out before you push in all of your chips…that said, knowing the right-wing mentality, no amount of failure and disaster will ever convince you of the fact that your thoughts and ideas are wrong.
You meddle in areas of seriousness, where adults are discussing important things, and slip in a dick joke (read: “* adverb adjective Liberal *â€) every now and then.
Your bullshit is of no consequence to me – besides the scientific thrill of conducting an experiment to see precisely how full of it you actually are – so you can wipe your ass with that greenback in my honor and then stick it in the collection plate for all I care. I didn’t mean for you to mistake my engaging you in a wager as anything more than the opportunity to make some money…sincerely, I’d rather cut off my own feet than toss treats at your stupid repetitive yap from now until November.
To prevent this retard from somehow finding his way over here, I’ll just point you to ‘Control Congress’ on my blogroll. Rest assured, he’s by far the dumbest you’ll find over there. Everyone else is great, and most of them have a healthy sense of humor.
“…Dwarf thieves had infested Swedish buses,9 Lithuania was pondering changing its name,10 and a plot by retired Turkish Army officers to kill Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk was foiled. 11 Police in Malda, India, were battling avian flu by conducting a poultry massacre. “We have planned to collect ‘backyard chickens’ from the houses in the evening and kill all of them late at night,†said the district’s deputy director of animal-resources development, N. K. Shit.12 George Piro, the FBI field agent who interrogated Saddam Hussein, recalled his last meeting with the Iraqi dictator, when the two smoked cigars and Saddam kissed Piro on the cheek three times. “It made me feel,†he said, “somewhat awkward.†(by Christian Lorentzen)
Scott Horton is without a doubt my favorite writer at the moment. Harper’s online has his work up for free on the site’s front page. You can find out why John Yoo hasn’t come over for dinner lately. Keynesian economics, Leo Strauss, J$hn Ashcr$ft, Afghanistan, “Blitzwasser†or hot-water incident (so named for the kettles of boiling water that the citizens threw at federal tax collectors), Don Siegelman…
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