Category Politics

Happy birthday, Mr. President

Pat Ryan 5 Comments

If you gave this backstory to a character in a novel it would be justifiably criticized for being unbelievable, too over the top:

An East Coast child of Ivy League privilege, son of a U.S. senator, postpones college to enlist in the Navy and gets shot down over the Pacific and dramaticallyGeorgebush rescued on film but serves through until the end of the war, then goes to Yale where he is the captain of the baseball team and graduates Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in economics in just two and a half years before taking his wife and growing family to West Texas and making his fortune in the oil business before running for office and becoming the first Republican to represent Houston in the U.S. House; and after he loses a run for the Senate his party calls on him to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and then during the Watergate crisis the national party chairman, and then the chief liaison to Communist China, and then the director of the CIA; and when he runs for president but loses in the primaries, the guy who wins the nomination picks him as his vice president and he serves eight years as VP before winning the White House on his own and presiding over the end of the Cold War; and then he turns his attention to an international non-profit organization trying to solve social programs through the promotion of voluntary service to others.

Yeah, sure…very believable.

But it’s all true.  And today, George Bush turns 90 years old.  Despite the fact that he’s pretty much wheelchair-bound these days he celebrated with a tandem parachute jump (pictures included!) this morning before hosting a party for 200 that will feature Irish tenor Ronan Tynan.

The man is still a great example, perhaps especially to young people “who weren’t even born when he left office” and who are disenchanted with the American political system.

It starts with what Bush said to a group of young people in one of the last speeches he gave as President: “What all of us seek in our life is meaning and adventure. It’s through service that all of us can find both.”

Mary Kate Cary, a former Bush White House aide and the executive producer of a film about Bush that airs on CNN (twice) this Sunday, June 15, gives us a taste of what some prominent folks have to say in her film about Bush and his legacy of doing for others, and for the right reasons.

What I have to say is, thank you.  And, happy birthday!

The inexorable march of justice

Pat Ryan 5 Comments

Another one bites the dust…

Another one bites the dust…

A federal judge struck down Pennsylvania’s ban on same-sex marriage Tuesday, handing gay rights advocates their second legal victory in as many days and striking the last remaining ban in the Northeast.

The state’s laws, which ban same-sex marriages, were struck down as unconstitutional by U.S. District Court Judge John Jones III, who ruled in favor of the 23 plaintiffs whose lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and others.

“We are a better people than what these laws represent,” Jones wrote of same-sex marriage bans in his ruling, drawing comparisons between the civil rights movement and the modern gay marriage movement. ”It is time to discard them into the ash heap of history.”

(snip)

The ruling, from US District Judge John Jones, makes Pennsylvania the second state this week and 11th state since the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling on same-sex marriage to have its ban overturned in court.  But it’s possible the ruling will eventually be put on hold as it works through the appeals process, which would prevent future same-sex couples from marrying. (The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania is urging Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, to not appeal the ruling.)

Jones, like judges in previous same-sex marriage cases, cited the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution and deemed Pennsylvania’s statutory ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional. Unlike many other states, the state constitution in Pennsylvania doesn’t have a provision barring same-sex marriages.

So, where do we stand?

same-sex_marriage_us_map

What’s with Montana and North Dakota?

Dear Pat Ryan,

Pat Ryan 3 Comments

I just thought I’d check in to see how things are going with you.  Some of us have gotten a little curious because we haven’t heard much of anything from you in a while now and we started to wonder what was going on.  I mean, if you say you’re going to write a blog, it is customary to actually write something from time to time.  You know, something to make the customers realize that you’re not stone dead, or ignoring them, or “too busy with work and other things” to be bothered keeping up with your commitments.  C’mon, just six damn posts in the last four months?  What’s the deal?

I mean, fercryingoutloud, in just the last few months you’ve passed up the chance to say something about:

You’ve sort of led people to believe that you cared about civil liberties and the whole gay marriage thing, or were at least interested in the subject, but when

you observe radio silence.  I mean, you gotta understand why the people would at least wonder if you’ve given up, or converted or something.

You even let this great picture on Twitter go by without any acknowledgement!

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So anyway, I’d just like to say I hope you get your shit together and try to be a little more regular contributor in this space, or the owners may start thinking seriously about changing the name up there at the top of the page.

This just in: Arizona governor vetoes “religious freedom” bill

Pat Ryan 2 Comments

Good for Gov. Jan Brewer, for taking a stand against hate and discrimination.  Nobody over the age of reason is falling for this “religious freedom” argument.  It’s a sign—a good sign—that the extremists see the writing on the wall, and are getting more desperate.

Hell, even a judge in Texas has struck down the state’s ban on gay marriage!  What more evidence do you need that things really are changing…

First the good news, then the better news, then the bad news

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

The good news is this: Congress has reached a budget deal.  Yes, the U.S. Congress.  And not when facing a deadline.  America’s guests have done a thing that is rare in this day—their jobs.  Here are the details; I’m most enthused at the idea that enough members showed enough maturity and leadership to actually work out some agreement, one which means we and the world can go two years without having to fret about a government shutdown.

Now to the better news, which I would actually classify as a Christmas miracle if I were given to assuming that God takes sides in American politics (or sports): the mainstream Republican Party is showing signs of finally standing up to the conservative extremists.  Speaker of the House John Boehner was the first to publicly, honestly, express his exasperation with the tea partyish crowd that has pushed the GOP so far to the edge of American politics that they have to stand on each other’s shoulders a mile high in order to see the center.  He reportedly got even more “honest” in private:

“They are not fighting for conservative principles,” Mr. Boehner told rank-and-file House Republicans during a private meeting on Wednesday as he seethed and questioned the motives of the groups for piling on against the plan before it was even made public.

“They are not fighting for conservative policy,” he continued, according to accounts of those present. “They are fighting to expand their lists, raise more money and grow their organizations, and they are using you to do it. It’s ridiculous.”

The conservatives of course defended themselves, which is perfectly fine; I hope the center and the far right keep this back-and-forth going ad infinitum (we’re already well past ad nauseum).  For however long they fight with each other—and these things don’t last as long as you might wish them to—it keeps them from concentrating their fire outside the circle; maybe that keeps the extremists from winning more elections and coming into real power to remake America in their own frightening image.

One more politics thing: did you see who was cited by PolitiFact for the Lie of the Year?  Yep, our president.  Selected by a reader poll from among ten finalists, “If you like your health plan, you can keep it” was chosen by 59%, the winner going away and embarassingly ahead of popular favorites like “Congress is exempt from the healthcare law” (Ted Cruz), “No U.S.-trained doctors will accept Obamacare” (Ann Coulter) and “Muslims are exempt from Obamacare” (chain email).  President Obama’s catchy little reassurance actually worked its way up over the years from “half true” to “pants on fire” and now Lie of the Year.  Congratulations, Mr. President, for finding a way to help the self-defeating conservatives survive the circular firing squad.