Equality At Last!

How New York Legalized Gay Marriage

With the stroke of a pen just before midnight on Friday, Governor Andrew Cuomo legalized gay marriage in New York, making the state the sixth and by far the largest to have a same-sex marriage law on the books. 

The victory is all the more remarkable because it comes just two years after gay marriage supporters badly miscalculated their support in the same chamber, watching their same-sex marriage bill go down by a 24-to-38 margin after a dramatic floor debate.

Bravo New York! New York becomes the largest state in the United States to pass a gay marriage bill. This is a seminal moment for LGBTQ rights in America and worldwide. This has been a long time coming for one of America's largest gay communities. After it was passed celebrations erupted in the streets of New York City. Including at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, an important landmark for the gay rights movement.

Repeating History

Pew Research: Record Support For Afghanistan Troop Withdrawl

For the first time since Pew Research began asking the question in 2008, a majority (56 percent) now say they want the U.S. to remove American troops from Afghanistan "as soon as possible," while 39 percent say they they want to leave troops "until the situation has stabilized." That result represents a reversal since last year, when leaving the troops in place was preferred by a majority of 53 percent to 40 percent.

With news that President Obama will be addressing the nation on Wednesday night about Afghanistan there is speculation out there that a troop withdrawal could be announced. Last week it was reported that the US State Department is talking directly with the Taliban, possibly seeking a peace deal. The 10 year old war is becoming increasingly unpopular with the American public. At best the war has become a stalemate, at worst a quagmire. The death of Osama Bin Laden last month has given the Obama Administration sufficient political cover to start discussing an accelerated drawdown of troops from Afghanistan. As reported in the Bob Woodward book Obama's Wars, Obama wants to withdraw from Afghanistan by the time he leaves office. He's keenly aware of what the Vietnam War did to Lyndon Johnson's legacy and desperately wants to avoid that same fate. There are certain factions within his administration, most notably the Pentagon and State Department, that are weary of a withdrawal. But with the retirement of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense and the pending departure of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State if Obama wins a second term; institutional resistance to a withdrawal won't nearly be as strong. 


My best guess is that we'll see a Vietnam-like peace deal that includes a withdrawal of a majority of NATO troops from the country. The moderate factions of the Taliban will allowed to participate in government in exchange for disarmament. I think we will still keep certain military bases open such as Bagram in order to keep an eye on neighboring Pakistan and for strategic reasons. I'd imagine that the CIA will also continue to have a large presence in the country so that the U.S. can continue to conduct Drone attacks along the border region. But of course convincing the Taliban to accept a peace deal can be a tall task. They've rejected previous overtures by the U.S. government for peace talks. It's hard for me to imagine that they would accept any deal where foreign troops remain in the country. My gut feeling on this is that by 2016 there won't be any U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Amish Man Arrested For Sexting

A sign of the Apocalypse?

HuffPo:

William Yoder arrived to a Milford, Indiana restaurant via horse and buggy and was arrested for sending nearly 600 sexts, nude photos and explicit videos to the girl he planned to meet, per ABC News.

Do Ideas Really Matter Anymore?

I first heard about this story last night. I'm not sure if I'm refusing to believe that it happened, or wrestling with a gnawing feeling that I shouldn't be surprised at all.

I have a hard time believing it because, as this Atlantic online piece suggestions, Professor Juan Cole was never a serious threat to the Bush Administration. Now, let me admit that his book Engaging the Middle East is a favorite of mine, and I don't read his blog, Informed Comment, nearly enough. But public intellectuals and professors haven't had a serious impact on political life in the United States in far too long. Which is precisely the problem with our culture today.

People like Juan Cole, or before him Howard Zinn (as just one example), are largely marginalized. I do remember on the eve of the Iraq War watching Professor Zinn deplore the idea of invading Iraq, the very night Baghdad was first being attacked. I had the sense that, while this debate was on PBS, and he was being allowed to say what he wanted, that in the end it really didn't matter. The war was already starting.

When was the last time you saw someone like Noam Chomsky on television? A conservative voice like Andrew Bacevich gets on every once in a while, but not nearly enough. Our culture is too tied to "liberal" and "conservative" ideas that make sense in Washington, that require only minuscule understanding so that they make easy, ready to dispense talking points. The Bush Administration, worried about a professor? Why, when being a public intellectual today is so easily dismissed?

Richmond Fed Flys the Rainbow Flag, Religious Right Jumps the Shark

Richmond Times-Dispatch

In a letter to Richmond Fed President Jeffrey M. Lacker, Marshall says the homosexual behavior "celebrated" by the bank "undermines the American economy." 

"What does flying the homosexual flag, or any other similar display, have to do with your central banking mission under the Federal Reserve Act passed by Congress?" writes Marshall, one of the General Assembly's most conservative members.

Flying a Gay Pride flag over the Richmond Federal Reserve undermines the American economy? I hate to abuse the Picard facepalm but this was just too appropriate:

Pat Robertson -- pro-legalization?

A group of world leaders that included former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and former chairman of the Fed Paul Volcker, called for a shift in the way the world approaches illegal drugs. It's the largest collection of world leaders to call for decriminalization to date. But perhaps the most interesting part of the article is this quote:

Yahoo! News

Christian talk show host Pat Robertson caused a stir in December when he endorsed on "The 700 Club" faith-based rehabilitation programs instead of jail time for drug use, and even appeared to support the legalization of marijuana. "I'm not exactly for the use of drugs, don't get me wrong," he said. "I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot--that kind of thing--it's costing us a fortune and it's ruining young people."

Now I know we're at the end of days. Pat Robertson is pro-decriminalization? Did someone sneak him a pot brownie by accident? Perhaps the last key demographic in support of the War on Drugs has been evangelical Christians. Despite's Robertson's age his opinion carries a great deal of weight among evangelicals. It's one thing to have your run-of-the-mill hippies and libertarians criticizing the War on Drugs, it's another thing entirely to have right-wing evangelicals start criticizing it. I think its safe to say now that the tide is turning. With prisons overflowing, governments struggling to make payroll, and public opinion coming around; full-scale reform on this issue should happen on a national level within the next 10 years.

Not Good News for Obama or America

The economy just isn't improving like the President would like.

This certainly isn't good news for Presient Obama's re-election chances. If the economy isn't better by next November, 2012, he'll be in serious trouble.

Late 2008 saw considerable talk among liberals about that election being the newest "realignment" election, in the sense that American politics were making a fundamental shift from one political wing to the other. Plenty of examples abound, with historians still debating the merits of several of them being realignments (for a good discussion, look here). But that talk, it appears, was premature.

Then again, President Reagan was in trouble after 1982, and President Clinton was dead meat in January 1995. So, all one can say is that we have a very, very long election season ahead of us.