Your generous
donations help keep
this site running.
Visa/MC/PayPal accepted.
We've got everything from hippies to Satanists to cover this week, so let's just dive right in, shall we?
The Supreme Court heard a monumental case on marriage equality, which could indeed be their last case ever on the subject (if Justice Kennedy votes the way many expect him to, resulting in gay marriage in all [...]
The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on a marriage equality case tomorrow. At this point, it almost seems anticlimactic. Either the Supreme Court will rule that gay marriage is a constitutional right everywhere in America, or they'll try to punt and say that all states have to recognize all marriages from other states, but don't have to perform their own gay marriages if they don't want to. Either way, gay marriage will become a reality in some awfully conservative states (whether couples have to take a vacation to another state to achieve it or not). The only question now is whether marriage equality will achieve a final and total victory, or just a partial victory. Either way, losing the progress that has already been made seems almost inconceivable at this point.
We'll get to other political news in a moment, but since last week contained the date 4/20, we're going to first run down all the marijuana news. Coincidentally or not, there was a lot of it this week. So let's just begin by "getting into the weeds" of politics, as it were (the ponies come along later, never fear).
Yesterday, the news broke that the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, Michele Leonhart, will be resigning her post. Leonhart has long been controversial, openly contradicting the White House and President Obama at times. She was seen as out of step since both Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have moved the federal stance on marijuana closer to the new reality of states now legalizing it for adult recreational use. But it wasn't her controversial positions that forced her ouster, it was instead the news that D.E.A. agents in Colombia had been accepting from the drug cartels themselves not just gifts of fancy weapons but also "sex parties" with strippers and prostitutes. This, obviously, is unacceptable behavior.
Strange but true, the "Scooby van" is now part of our political lexicon. Hillary Clinton herself is apparently to blame for this one, as this was the playful name she came up with for the van she used to get from New York to Iowa this week. The media, as it will be doing for the next year and a half over pretty much any new aspect of Hillary Clinton's campaign (and we do mean "any new aspect at all -- even the laughably trivial"), quite predictably, freaked out.
Yesterday, Senator Marco Rubio became the fourth candidate to officially announce his intentions for the 2016 presidential run. He now joins Ted Cruz and Rand Paul in his own party, and Hillary Clinton across the aisle, as official candidates. I have to say, one thing about Rubio's candidacy is impressive, even if you don't agree with anything the man stands for. Rubio is going "all in," in poker terms. If he doesn't win his party's nomination and go on to win the White House, then he will almost certainly be out of a job when the dust settles. That shows a degree of commitment that few other politicians ever make these days, casting aside a cushy Senate seat for the chance at becoming president. As in poker, he's shoved all his chips to the middle of the table for one bet that could leave him at the top or flat broke. And, I have to say, that in and of itself is an admirable thing.
So, apparently, Jeb Bush used to think he was Hispanic. At least, that's the box he checked when he registered to vote, a few years back. While immediately created much online amusement (my favorite: "It's pronounced 'Heb' Bush"), it does raise an interesting but tangential question -- and not just for Bush -- in the upcoming presidential primary process: Do Republican ballots in all states require full legal names for candidates?
Senator Rand Paul announced today (to absolutely nobody's surprise) that he is running for the Republican presidential nomination for 2016. He joins only one other official candidate, Senator Ted Cruz, who made his own announcement a few weeks ago. On the Democratic side, nobody has officially thrown their hat in the ring. Such announcements are happening much later this presidential cycle, due to quirky financial advantages of our crazy campaign finance legal system (if it can even be called that, anymore, after the Supreme Court's evisceration). But I'm getting distracted, and veering off the topic at hand, which is paying proper attention to those candidates who actually are declared candidates. Since nobody else has officially stepped up to the podium yet, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul deserve at least a moment in the spotlight.
President Barack Obama is finally earning his Nobel Peace Prize, it seems. A few months back, he announced a major shift in U.S. policy towards Cuba, ending a half-century of frostiness, and this week the outlines of a deal to avoid a war with Iran were unveiled, thawing a relationship that froze over back in 1979. Both of these foreign policy accomplishments go a long way towards deserving the Nobel Peace Prize Obama was prematurely awarded in 2009. At the time, many (this column included) joked that the Nobel committee was really awarding the prize to Obama for the sole achievement of "not being George W. Bush." But it seems now that by the time he ends his term in office, Barack Obama will indeed have earned the world's foremost peacemaker's prize. Since this is Good Friday, perhaps a Bible quotation is in order: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God."
Barack Obama's job approval poll numbers slipped a bit in March, ending a streak of good news in polling for the president which reaches back to last September. But while the numbers turned slightly negative, the overall outlook for Obama was looking up by the end of the month. This means Obama has a better than even chance of gaining ground again in April. But before we get to predicting the future, let's first take a look at the chart of the recent past.