Category Archives: Politics
NPR Seeks Tea Party Invitation
NPR faces the same federal defunding fate as cowboy poets. Former NPR executive Robert Schiller was caught on tape calling members of the Tea Party gun toting racists. That cost him his next job at the Aspen Institute (he was already leaving NPR). NPR CEO Vivian Schiller (unrelated) got the axe too.
Some of NPR’s top guns, including Robert Siegel, Scott Simon, and Nina Totenberg, put out an open letter denouncing Robert Schiller’s comments. Here’s an LA Times story.
I wonder if cowboy poets tote guns.
Poetic Justice
Looks like Congress is going to have to balance the budget one Cowboy Poetry Festival at a time. That’s where Harry Reid has drawn his budget cut line in the sand.
Or as Mark Steyn put it,
Once upon a time, the cowboy embodied the rugged individualism of the frontier. In Harry Reid’s world, he embodies dependency without end.
Here’s the rundown in The Week.
Rule of Law
The president has ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and ordered the Justice Department not to defend it.
What is the DOMA you ask? Well, according to the WSJ…
it was passed in 1996 by large majorities in both houses of Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton.
The law says the federal government will only recognize marriages that are between a man and a woman. States can still allow same-sex marriages—and five states plus the District of Columbia have done so. But people married under those state laws aren’t accepted as married under federal law.
Same sex couples get unfavorable death tax treatment under the law…
For example, a woman inheriting money from her deceased same-sex partner doesn’t get the tax benefits that federal tax law allows for a person inheriting from a spouse.
A Washington Post editorial, however, points out the two edged swordiness of the president’s approach by asking if a future Republican president might refuse to defend Obamacare from constitutional challenges.
