Purple Hazy Crazy Days of Summer

Happy Opening Day of the Olympics, everybody, and here's hoping for more pre-game infotainment from Mr. Gaffe-o-Matic Mitt. There is much to be disconcerted about today, so let's get right down to it.


The New York Times and Amazon, both winners in the Scrooge Sweepstakes for screwing over their employees, have teamed up in a great publicity stunt. Via an ostentatious front-page spread on the Times homepage, Billionaire Jeff Bezos has just donated a tiny fraction of his Amazonian fortune to the marriage equality initiative in Washington State. As reader Kat points out, liberal commenters at the Times are in ecstasy, and already have their wallets opened wide in gratitude because a Republican plutocrat has embraced gay rights. So what if he treats his wage slaves so abysmally that ambulances have to be on standby to rush them to the hospital when they collapse from heat exhaustion at his distribution centers? All, apparently, is now forgiven.


Trumpets and violins I hear in the distance.... Omitted from the article, but exactly coinciding with its trumpeting of the Bezos philanthropy, The Times is offering readers a $15 Amazon gift card for every friend they can get to subscribe to The Experience. (h/t Nan). Spend often, and spend liberally! Play some Jimi Hendrix, and forget all about the sweating peons packaging your goodies. Hold your breath wondering if Times employees will now see their salaries and pension benefits restored.



Go Beyond Your Measly Little World







Well.... Are You????

I Am, My Corporate Person Friends

"Since corporations are now people, I'd like to marry Amazon" (comment from a Times reader)

Obama Biden His Time on Gay Marriage (*Updated)

I don't usually watch the Sunday morning blatherfests. I just read the recaps, starting with Jason Linkins' hilarity and then I go on to the Bobbleheads. If any of the segments seems especially entertaining, I might catch a few clips later in the day on the Internet.


Well, it looks like the Osama retrospective is winding down at least, because as Joe Biden did the musical chairs talk show circuit and plopped down at MTP, he only mentioned one time that Bin Laden is still dead. (As far as I know, that is. I mean, he may have repeated himself for all I know, but I have not been able to bring myself to actually watch. It's not that I don't not know, or still can't believe that Osama really is kaput, y'understand.)


But Biden still managed to make front page news on the New York Times homepage. He announced that he, personally, feels "comfortable" about gay marriage. This Bidenism was no doubt initially calculated to send a signal to all the people disappointed in President Obama's "evolving" stance on the issue. Psssst.... the Prexy is down with all you LGBT rich donor people and the 80% of the country in favor of same sex marriage. But it is not yet politically expedient for him to say so during this election year. He might have to spend some of his hoarded political capital. Karl Rove and Fox and the gang might gang up on him and call him anti-family and stuff. From The Times: 

"I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties,” Mr. Biden said in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” 

(snip) 

Gay and lesbian voters, while generally supportive of Mr. Obama, have grown frustrated with his reluctance to take a clear stance for same-sex marriage. He has come under increasing pressure to do so from gay donors, one of his more lucrative fund-raising sources.

Even sending a minion out to telegraph the president's lukewarmth apparently has Team Obama second-guessing itself. Aides hastily released a statement insisting that gaffe-happy Biden's views are purely his own and that moreover, he is marching in evolutionary lockstep with The Boss:

“The Vice President was saying what the President has said previously – that committed and loving same-sex couples deserve the same rights and protections enjoyed by all Americans, and that we oppose any effort to rollback those rights. That’s why we stopped defending the constitutionality of section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act in legal challenges and support legislation to repeal it. Beyond that, the Vice President was expressing that he too is evolving on the issue, after meeting so many committed couples and families in this country.”

 Talk about threading the needle! Jeeze. Though, when you close-read what Biden actually said, he parsefully means that once same-sex couples have actually tied the knot without the blessing of the federal government, who is he to say they are not thereafter entitled to the same civil rights as everybody? I mean, barn door and spilt milk and all.


Whatever. The circular meanderings, the craven calculating caution of this slow-jammin', market-driven, evolving dissolving president know no bounds. And that is a real no-no for Brave New World Warrior Prince.

*Update, 5/9: Congratulations to the LGBT community and amazingly too, to the mainstream press corps, for hounding the president into personally coming out in favor of marriage equality. Credit due to Obama for risking battleground states early in the campaign season. It was a careful juggling act of principle, expediency, optics, and the potential loss of millions of gay donor dollars. All those old homophobes from North Carolina were so going to vote for him before the Coming Out Party, right? One evolution down, a hundred more to go. Let us now force him to evolve into ending the wars, the drone strikes, the warrantless wiretapping and cyber-spying, the war on whistleblowers, beginning to prosecute the banksters, to strengthen Social Security and the safety net, to develop nausea at the mere sound of the words "bipartisan" and "Reagan".... yeah, yeah, I'm wasting my breath. 

The White House Gay Marriage Evolution Chart...Is Now Complete!