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Loading ...RachelWatch: Constitutionalist minority-rights dorks in crisis
Grand Obstructionist Party
Rachel talked about her internal conflict over the fact that, with an opposition party that seems to be about nothing but opposition, the filibuster rule is becoming kind of a pain in the butt.
I am in full agreement on the crazy beauty of the old-fashioned phonebook-reading filibuster. I would also like to see more cane fights in the Senate chamber.
New York Times columnist Frank Rich visited to talk about the fact that in the middle of their post-election panic, many Republicans are clinging so hard to their old way of doing things that they seem unable to process the idea that our nation’s change in circumstances might warrant a new strategy. Kind of like the people who stuck to business as usual when all the wells around Pompeii suddenly dried up.
GOP in Exile
Rachel noted that California’s sequoia-sized budget troubles stem in large part to the decision to cap property taxes back when she was five. Still a little testy on the subject, she explained that she remembers the occasion well because it resulted in her town library being closed for a week.
I absolutely believe that 5-year-old Rachel was thoroughly pissed off by a library closing. I also secretly believe that this is when young Miss Maddow learned to jimmy locks and climb up walls with a grappling hook.
Democratic Speaker of the California State Assembly Karen Bass stopped in to deliver a few choice words about the influence of talk radio and party politics over practical needs. She also warned that by the time you read this, work may have been halted on 276 state projects.
All of the imperiled projects have an impact on public safety, including the suppression of the poorly thought-out Bodega Bay Birds revival, putting some mats down around Anaheim’s famous loop-the-loop freeway exit, and the Bay Bridge Troll-Removal Initiative.
Plus the nine guys currently stuck in the La Brea tar pits are going to have to hang in there for a little while longer. Don’t struggle, fellas – it just makes you sink faster.
Rachel teased her story on the auto industry collapse with a statement by Sam the Eagle from The Muppet Show. I cannot wait to find out what wisdom can be had from Lew Zealand.
Ms. Information
All right, stop: Hammertime. Japanese finance minister and sudden international celebrity Shoichi Nakagawa resigned his post after the “cough medicine” hubbub. Let’s all cross our fingers for a speaking tour.
Aerosmith told Congressman Eric Cantor’s office to stop using their song in their Rocktastic Republicans video. In other words, Aerosmith is more embarrassed by Eric Cantor than Cantor was about song lyrics concerning getting “saddle sore” with a hooker.
Rachel finished by giving a much-deserved nod to high school athlete Darius McNeil, his coach, and his team for a truly heartwarming moment of sportsmanship. If she seemed to be getting a little misty at the end there, I’m sure it was just because of that Aerosmith thing.
Demise-istan
“Wicked smart” Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security advisor to President Carter and Wise Old Man incarnate, came by to talk about Obama’s decision to send 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
He made some excellent arguments – actually managing to gently school Dr. Maddow at one point – about the dangers of being too heavy-handed or patronizing, and explained why the Afghani public attitude toward U.S. occupation is veering increasingly toward “bite us.”
After watching this segment, I would pretty much take his advice on anything, even though I’d always be a little bit afraid that he’d tell me it’s time to throw my ring into Mount Doom.
End of the Road?
At the top of Rachel’s report on the state of the auto industry, we learned that she is willing to sacrifice fuel efficiency if it means she can have the giddy joy of asking for a “Dodge Duwango” at the rental counter. I cannot fault her for this.
Jonathan Linkov of Consumer Reports dropped in to discuss how maybe American automakers should have had a backup plan instead of focusing exclusively on the Men Who Are Insecure About Their Genitals market.
Cocktail Moment
The cocktail moment was in fact a Rachel Wonks Out moment. You’ve never seen someone so happy about designated high-speed rail corridors in your life.
It is important that a site like 365 support the only openly gay news/opinion person to break through the very fortified heterosexual main stream media barricade. Just because we are lesbian/gay, etc. does not mean that we should close ourselves out to any type of news that does not contain the word gay or gay topic!
Besides, she is brilliant, and bases her information and opinions on facts, something of a rarety in the business!
I don’t have cable, so I can’t watch Rachel, hence, I do appreciate 365 giving us a highlight of her show. I think it is totally appropriate for 365 to offer this info to us, thank you!
Burnf, in other words you want fake balance. You want 365gay to pretend that there’s a conservative side that would be willing to support pro-LGBT issues in order to appear “fair and balanced”.
And it’s liberal bias…not Democratic bias. It just so happens that lots of Democrats are lean liberal and lots of Republicans are very conservative. That’s how the parties currently map. And LGBT issues are liberal issues. LGBT issues are not under the conservative tent.
Does this mean LGBT Republicans are not part of the LGBT group? Nope. It’s just that the LGBT community and Gay Rights Movement cannot support conservative politics without also supporting an anti-gay agenda. Though individual LGBTs are free to do so. But there’s no trade-off, no benefit for the LGBT community in doing so. Conservatives, both D and R, campaign on being anti-gay rights. Individual LGBTs may support them for other reasons though.
The extra articles that show up on this site are far biased towards the democratic party. If there was balance and differing views, an attempt by people from within the community to discuss today’s issues from both sides and moderate mid positions, I’d be fine with articles and clips like these, but if this site only runs biased articles, it will drive moderates like myself and republican LGBT away from this site, and send out an already far too pervasive message that we’re not part of the group.
You can either only allow news that’s actually related to gay issues, or you have to balance out opinions with opposing views. If you don’t, you lose credibility and alienate audience.
Rachel has done stories on Prop 8, she covered the Rick Warren pick rather extensively, and also had openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson on, as well as humorist Kate Clinton. She may not cover LGBT issues every night, or every week but she does cover it. It’s just mixed in with other content. And by mixing it in, and just being her obviously gay self she’s able to maintain a broader liberal audience.
When gay people show that, yes we do care about other issues, we are able to form alliances with straight people who also care about those non-LGBT issues.
When we hyperfocus on ourselves, we end up being the only ones focusing on ourselves.
Bunny Snuggles, I know she’s a lesbian, but that doesn’t make what she says LGBT news.
It’s like when Ruby Sachs decides to just rail on some social issue. I come here to read about what affects our community, not to get biased opinions. That’s my criticism of this being here. Nothing she says here has anything to do with our community.
She’s fun to listen to and endearing. If this site needs more material because we’re no longer in the Bush anti-gay era, then maybe they should add a section that shows the work of prominent LGBT people. I just wouldn’t label it as news.
Oh…dear Brunf…it is more than enough that MSNBC hired an openly Gay woman (unlike a closeted Silver Fox I could mention on CNN) — not that they would like Rachel to mention her “orientation” directly or even imply it too frequently.
Rachel did make note of her “partner” once that I saw. But, I’d imagine the “phobes” at MSNBC would consider her too much of an activist if she is caught doing anything terribly germane about GLBT issues. Or even critique the media as to why the mainstream media is ignoring our issues. Why that would label her as too PRO-HOMO. Right?
You know Black reporters and Afro-American TV personalities never get to talk about race issues in the media. Do they? Right?
….yeah, right!
Now, our new Black US Attorney General talks about how people are “cowards” in that they don’t say how they really feel about race issues.
Hmmmmm…speaking of “cowards”…it seems to me that Obama and the Democraps in Congress have a yellow streak a mile wide on the GLBT civil rights issues. And why nobody ever points out that when they talk about Blacks and discrimination that there really is only ONE minority group that it is legal to persecute and to discriminate against — and that minority is US (GLBT Americans) — all thirty million plus of us.
They just keep making us invisible — the so-called “liberal” news media, gutless Democraps, and lying Obama. And we let them.
But we have our token Rachel…so let’s be happy.
I find the filibuster thing interesting. It is obstruction, so it needs to be curtailed. I shouldn’t be banned, though. Perhaps we need to set a limit on the number that can be raised per congress, like time outs in a football game.
That said, again nothing talked about her is about glbt, so why is it on this site..?