If I recall, Obama ran against Hillary saying it was time for change.  He was expressly saying that the time of the Clintons was over.  So much for that thought, as he really has the liberal bloggers panties in a twist this week.  Why you ask?

Today Obama offered Eric Holder, the deputy attorney general in the Clinton Administration, the Attorney General post. There’s still talk of Hillary Clinton being asked to be Secretary of State. We already know former Clinton aide and current Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (D-IL) will be Obama’s chief of staff.

Add to that the fact that Obama supported that piece of shit Judas Joe Lieberman.  What the hell?  This is not change, this is more of the same shit.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the gutless useless Democrats at this point.

I hope I am wrong.

One of my former professors had an editorial today in the LA Times discussing proposition 8.  He proposes going federal with a challenge to the ballot initiative recently passed by California voters making gay marriage illegal in the state.  But he has an interesting angle:  he argues that we should use a prior gay rights case as sort of the camel’s nose under the tent.  That case arose out of Colorado, regarding “amendment 2.”

Following the enactment of Colorado’s Amendment 2, its opponents filed suit claiming that it unlawfully singled out gays and lesbians as a class to deny them rights that other citizens not only possess but take for granted. These rights include access to housing, government services, public accommodations and public and private employment opportunities without regard to an individual’s race, sex, religion, age, ancestry, political belief or other characteristic that defines each of us as a unique human being. Amendment 2, the opponents argued, therefore denied gays and lesbians the equal protection of the laws, which is a guarantee of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

To the surprise of many, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed.

Professor Gray picks up on something that I had not quite realized, that is that Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion striking down Amendment 2 as unconstitutional.  Anthony Kennedy is the key swing vote on the court–we know that there are four solid votes for gay rights and four solid votes against it.  The decision really would be up to Kennedy.  And to make matters worse, Kennedy loves this kind of shit, I honestly think he gets massive errections (even at his age) just thinking about the fact that he is the key swing vote on the United States Supreme Court.

Kennedy, however, is at his heart a very conservative jurist.  He has flourishes of progressivism, which arise out of his deep respect for the international community and what other western societies are doing.  Thus, he voted against the execution of mentally disabled people, and recently against executing pedophiles.  He cares about how we are perceived on the international stage.

Therefore an argument could be made that maybe Kennedy would go with the liberals and protect the rights of gays by giving them the constitutional right to marry.  However, Gray points to other things that may not bode well for the gay rights crowd:

This is not to say, of course, that the federal courts would hold Proposition 8 to be in violation of the U.S. Constitution. There are differences between the marriage ban and Colorado’s prohibition of all sexual orientation anti-discrimination laws. As Kennedy noted in Romer vs. Evans, Amendment 2 “has the peculiar property of imposing a broad and undifferentiated disability on a single named group.” Proposition 8, in contrast, was narrowly focused on one civil right — marriage. Moreover, any court — especially our current U.S. Supreme Court — may be reluctant to rule that Californians do not have the power to amend their own state Constitution as a remedy to a judicial interpretation of that very same document.

That’s right, Kennedy is an old conservative, and there is no telling where his vote will go.  My hunch is that piece of shit Scalia will run his filthy, foul mouth and scare Kennedy into voting against TeH gay.

I think the best bet here is to stay at the state level for now.  After all, the Cal Supreme Court may be eager to smack down a law that just totally reversed a court decision they made just a few months ago.  A federal case is much more risky.

Bush the strumpet is now off shilling free markets to the US public as if that will solve all our problems.  Does this loser not realize that his free market non-sense  is the reason why our economy is so screwed right now?  He did not just let the market go free, he let a bunch of greedy pigs run the market right into the ground.

Bush wants to make sure is buddies around the world can continue to get rich off the American people.  Bush can go to hell.

US President George W Bush says he is pleased with progress in world leaders’ talks on the financial crisis, but has warned of the dangers of protectionism.

Mr Bush said there had been frank discussions and some progress, but there was still more work to be done.

My dad just got called in for jury duty and they told him to bring his own black/blue pens because they stopped providing them “due to the budget crisis.”

I think California is going down the drain. A sinking ship, really.

If you want to see an infuriating video, just look to the end of this post were you will see a totally awesome video of a Ford Fiesta and basically how great this 65/mpg car is.

The car was apparently built for a global market–to be sold here, Europe and Asia. But now, all of the sudden, Ford has decided that the US does not need the Ford Fiesta. Never mind the cheap price tag, never mind the USB port or IPOD plug in, never mind the computer interface or the insanely low emissions, never mind the 65 miles per gallon you will get with this thing. Americans will never see this car! You’d think that Ford, the company that is about to go under and is still trying to sell us these ugly big piece of shit cars, would be hip to this new, cool looking video. The answer to the US market problems. You’d be wrong.

Here’s an interesting article where Ford attempts to justify its stupidity in refusing to bring this car to the US market.

First of all, the engines are built in Britain, so labor costs are high. Plus the pound remains stronger than the greenback. At prevailing exchange rates, the Fiesta ECOnetic would sell for about $25,700 in the U.S. By contrast, the Prius typically goes for about $24,000. A $1,300 tax deduction available to buyers of new diesel cars could bring the price of the Fiesta to around $24,400. But Ford doesn’t believe it could charge enough to make money on an imported ECOnetic.

It is interesting to note that the car costs 8,700 pounds, which would be doubled here. How does that somehow change to $25,700. That makes no sense. Even if all the cars were built in Europe, you’re telling me it costs $10,000 per car to ship them over here? Even if they ship them in bulk. And how hard would it be to just email the specs to Detroit and have them start building them here?

This argument is totally bunk and it stinks. It sounds like excuses to me.

Here’s another gem:

The question, of course, is whether the U.S. ever will embrace diesel fuel and allow automakers to achieve sufficient scale to make money on such vehicles. California certified VW and Mercedes diesel cars earlier this year, after a four-year ban. James N. Hall, of auto researcher 293 Analysts, says that bellwether state and the Northeast remain “hostile to diesel.”

OK. Let’s get this straight, a turbo diesel that is extremely low-emissions and gets about 65 miles to the gallon, and some how that is not going to be allowed in California. That is your argument Ford?

This is a total line of crap. The fact that Ford is selling these cars and can sell them here. Instead they are refusing to bring good cars to the US Market. It’s as if they are trying to fail!

For those of you who may have forgotten, the idiot still occupies the White House, and is still generating idiot news.  First we have this tid-bit where Bush tries to publicly repremand Obama for “leaking” their conversation to the public.  Um, Bush?  Obama is the President-elect now, he doesn’t have to take your arrogant crap like the rest of us have been taking it for the last eight years.

So take your crap and shove it back up there, buddy.

Then we have this proposed auto industry bailout.  On the one hand we need to keep those great working-class jobs going.  On the other hand, we have three incompetent and stupid motor companies.  Did you know that as their numbers tank in the United States, American Auto companies are making record sales overseas?

While they insist on selling us huge trucks with leather and 15 miles to the gallon, folks in Europe, for example, are getting the 65 miles per gallon turbo diesel Ford Fiestas.  I mean what gives here?  Why are they selling these cool cars overseas and shoveling their horse shit on the American people.  The funny thing is, Chevy, Ford, and Chrysler all have the small cars or cool cars with great gas mileage, no development necessary, no research necessary.  Alls they need to do is ship them over here!  Alls they need to do is sell the cars that are making record money in Europe in the good ole US of A.

I mean what the hell is really going on here?  Americans are demanding different cars, these companies have the different cars, but refuse to give them to us.  And now we are suppose to give them another record bailout as well?

How about this:  We pass the bailout with strings–Sell your high mileage cars in the US and we’ll give you some money!

I am semi troubled, to tell you the truth, about Obama’s decision to go with Emanuel as his Chief of Staff.  For someone running a 2+ year campaign on “change,”  Emanuel is definitely more of the same.  This guy is an old Clinton White House hand.  He stinks of old politics, and shows that Obama is not afraid to go to the old well.  So much for “change.”

Of course, I may be far to premature.  Emanuel is known as an attack dog, and maybe Obama just wanted to go with someone who could get it done.  Maybe he wanted to go old school with someone who has a track record.  I think when we start seeing some of his other appointments, we are going to figure out whether this “change” we were all sold was real or not.  Of course, you have to give the man time, but the fact that he ran against Hillary, and then takes a Clinton old-hand for a top job in the White House is a little underwhelming.  Some of the other names that have been floated for EPA and Department of Energy have been likewise irksome.

I hope I’m dead wrong.

Well put:

The blame for the Prop 8 failure does not automatically fall on the door step of ethnic groups the LGBT community feels should have stood with them as a show of reciprocation for their support of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. For one thing, that was four decades past. In the meantime, an awful lot of African, Asian, Central American, Native American, and every other ethnic demographic has been numbered in the LGBT community. And, those have received support from their own. But, their numbers are just as small as those in the LGBT Community. Face it, African Americans make up only 12% of the total population. Fewer than that 12% vote. And, we Africans in America lay pretty similarly across the social strata, from ultra conservative to revolutionary liberal, the same way as any ethnicity in this contemporary society. The reality, however, just like all the other ethnicities in America, we’re predominantly straight. Sure, there are black gays, black lesbians, black trannies, and brothers and sisters swinging both ways. But, the vast majority of us are still doing it straight in the missionary position, and loving it. Some of us support marriage being a right of any two consenting adults. The vast majority of us don’t really care one way or another. And, we too boast a faction who are vehemently against it for religious reasons. But, of course, don’t all the ethnicities?

What strikes me as presumptuous is that the LGBT community always wants to target African Americans for our insensitivity to their plight because many of us resent their comparing being gay to our being slaves. Well, we stand by the argument that they always had the option to pretend to be straight where it was convenient, with no consequences beyond a conflicted conscience. We, on the other hand, could not run from being black, no matter how hard we pretended to be white. And, we’re still paying for skin color today. We’re still penalyzed in many arenas, more actually than the LGBT community in America. That notwitstanding, we know and appreciate their stuggling through the torment and hostility from the ignorant who don’t understand. We know what the harm of the ignorant feels like and don’t wish that evil on anyone. We don’t feel a person should be castigated, abused, mistreated, or deprived of basic human and civil rights and liberties just because of his/her sexual orientation, skin color, religious creeds, or favorite teams preferences.

That notwithstand, for many non-occidental ethnicities, NOT JUST AFRICAN AMERICANS, marriage is more a GOD-ordained religious sacrement than a civil privilege afforded to any two people who wish to commit to the union, no matter how in love that couple might be. These are cultures that forbid the unions of certain heterosexual pairs in their churches, temples, tabernacles, and synagogues. So, try to appreciate why for them, gay marriage is out of the question. These groups, many of whom are not Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Middle Eastern, or any other group commonly accused of being insensitive homophobic anti-gay haters by the LGBT community, are always going to fight legislation of anything they perceive to be homosexual. These are the same true believing zealots camped out at women’s healthcare facilities with their home schooled kids, laden with posters of the sonograph of the thumb-sucking fetus sleeping in its mommy’s womb, screaming “It’s a baby, not a choice.” For the record, it was them who thwarted gay marriage on the 4th of November, and them who organized to campaign against gay marriage and any definition of gay civil union. These were basically white people.

No, the LGBT Community was out-manuevered by a better organized force of white religious fearmongers, many of whom did not even live in California. The LGBT community played a mediocre ground game, presuming to ride Prop 8 in on the campaign crest of the Democratic ticket party’s success, instead of getting out there and educating voters on what a civil union even is. The truth is there was never enough black support available in the whole state of California to turn the tide on this issue, not even if every African American registered to vote in California had cast a vote in favor of gay civil unions. The LGBT community, which is predominantly white, was going to need to have made a concerted effort to reach out to ALL the voters to very carefully and thoroughly deliberate those critical ballot issues impacting the gay community. And, alas, THEY dropped the ball on that, not the Blacks, and not the Hispanics.

Now that the big show is over, the attention is being turned over to Proposition 8.  For those of you unaware, the California Supreme Court a few months ago said that same-sex marriage was a fundamental right in this state.  The anti-gay nuts in this state, however, already had an anti-same sex marriage proposal slated for the election.  And yesterday, we voted to amend the state constitution to say that gays can’t get married.

Well, the big chitter-chatter is over the fact that apparently blacks and hispanics were instrumental in the victory of the anti-gay proposition:

Even as African-American and Latino voters were a powerful force in boosting America’s first black president to victory, in California they also were crucial to passing Proposition 8, a ballot measure labeled, “Eliminates right of same-sex couples to marry.”

The fact is blacks are just as bigotted as the rest of us.  No surprise there.  People think that blacks should be welcoming and accepting of all people because blacks, for the most part, are descended from slaves and people who were chained and shipped over here.

There are many in the black community who hold relatively conservative social values.  The fact is black people are no different than the rest of us and neither are Hispanics.  If things were turned around, i.e. that blacks and Mexicans had conquered the world, established colonies, and established this nation, and the whites were the slaves and people cast out and looked down upon, nothing would be different.

Those who are on the bottom would act exactly as those on the top if given the opportunity.

So enough with the surprise.  The gay proponents ran a very bad, poor, piss-shitty campaign.  They failed to get their message across, failed to establish a strong and consistent campaign.  Proposition 8 passed because of bad politicking, plain and simple.  Leave it to liberals to try to blame blacks while electing the first black president.

Irony, I suppose.