The Supremes Decline to Carve This Turkey

The Supreme Court today declined, without comment, to rule on a challenge to the nation's only law sanctioning gay marriages. The year-old decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage stands ... until the voters of Massachusetts decide to amend their own constitution or until the U.S. Congress decides to amend ours or until Jesus comes back and jerks all the born-agains out of the line of fire so that Satan can have his way with what's left.

This Could Get Interesting

Barbara Allen is stepping down after six years as chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party. According to this a.m.'s News & Observer, two candidates to replace her have already announced: Jerry Meek, a Raleigh lawyer and the party's first vice chairman, and David Parker, a Democratic National Committee member and a Statesville attorney. Meek, at least, has been to Watauga County and shows an interest in party life outside Raleigh.

The N&O says Gov. Mike Easley will play a big role and that the ability to raise money might out-weigh every other consideration. In the money race, two other names emerge: Ed Turlington, a Raleigh lawyer, who was general chairman of Edwards' presidential campaign, and Howard Lee, the chairman of the State Board of Education and a former state senator.

Parker has already labeled himself ideologically in an interesting way, by labeling Meek. According to the N&O, while complimenting Meek on the job he has done as the state party's first vice chair, Parker said that Meek "represents the progressive wing of the party. The party needs to adopt an aggressive moderate stance that will elect Democrats in the state of North Carolina."

Let's see ... "progressive" vs. "aggressive moderate." We're not sure but what "aggressive moderate" might mean "obnoxious conservative," but we'll wait to see how this plays out.

Whom Do We Boycott First?

Won't vouch for the accuracy of what follows (but should be easy enough to verify). It comes to us reportedly from the Wes Clark blog (thanks, Alice!):

SHOPPING?

Price Club/Costco donated $225K, of which 99% went to Democrats;

Wal-Mart, $467K, 97% to Republicans;

K-Mart, $524K, 86% to Republicans;

Home Depot, $298K, 89% to Republicans;

Target, $226K, 70% to Republicans;

Circuit City Stores, $261K, 95% to Republicans;

Rite Aid, $517K, 60% to Democrats;

Magla Products (Stanley tools, Mr. Clean), $22K, 100% to Democrats;

3M Co., $281K, 87% to Republicans;

Hallmark Cards, $319K, 92% to Republicans;

Amway, $391K, 100% Republican;

Kohler Co. (plumbing fixtures), $283K, 100% Republicans;

Warnaco (undergarments), $55K, 73% to Democrats;

B.F. Goodrich (tires), $215K, 97% to Republicans;

Proctor & Gamble, $243K, 79% to Republicans;

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, $153K, 99% to Democrats;

Estee Lauder, $448K, 95% to Democrats;

Guess Inc., $145K, 98% to Democrats;

Calvin Klein, $78K, 100% to Democrats;

Liz Claiborne, Inc., $34K, 97% to Democrats;

Levi Straus, $26K, 97% to Democrats;

Olan Mills, $175K, 99% to Democrats.


SPIRITS?

Coors, $174K, 92% to Republicans (also Budweiser -- sd);

Gallo Winery, $337K, 95% to Democrats;

Brown-Forman Corp. (Southern Comfort, Jack Daniels, Bushmills, Korbel wines -- as well as Lennox China, Dansk, Gorham Silver), $644, 80% to Republicans;

Southern Wine & Spirits, $213K, 73% to Democrats;

Joseph E. Seagrams & Sons (includes beverage business, plus considerable media interests), $2M+, 67% Democrats.


HUNGRY?

Pilgrim's Pride Corp. (chicken), $366K, 100% Republican;

Outback Steakhouse, $641K, 95% Republican;

Sonic Corporation, $83K, 98% Democrat;

Tricon Global Restaurants (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), $133K, 87% Republican;

Brinker International (Maggiano's, Brinker Cafe, Chili's, On the Border, Macaroni Grill, Crazymel's, Corner Baker, EatZis), $242K, 83% Republican;

Triarc Companies (Arby's, T.J. Cinnamon's, Pasta Connections), $112K, 96% Democrats;

Waffle House, $279K, 100% Republican;

McDonald's Corp., $197K, 86% Republican;

Darden Restaurants (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Smokey Bones, Bahama Breeze), $121K, 89% Republican;

Hyatt Corporation, $187K, 80% to Democrats;

Mariott International, $323K, 81% to Republicans;

Holiday Inns, $38K, 71% to Republicans.

More Republican Cognitive Dissonance

Saw the article on Friday in the Raleigh News & Observer headlined "Evangelical victory worries GOP strategist" and was treated to the spectacle of Jesse Helms' former political strategist, the man who helped build the North Carolina Republican Party, bemoaning that "Bush courted the evangelical vote and turned these elections, in fact, into a referendum on the religious and cultural nature of America. This is my problem."

Now it's his problem! We're getting a trifle weary of these Republicans (bless their hearts!) who are now confessing a small case of jitters over what they've helped achieve.

The speaker of those words was one Arthur Finkelstein. Yes, a right-wing Jew who was, according to the News & Observer, "one of former Sen. Jesse Helms' closest political advisers."

To be fair, perhaps he never intended his words to go public in this country, since he gave this interview to Maariv, a daily newspaper in Israel, and his comments had to be translated from the Hebrew, which, incidentally, the New York Post obliged us by doing and from whence the N&O got its story.

More? Finkelstein said, "From now on, anyone who belongs to the Republican Party will automatically find himself in the same group as the opponents of abortion, and anyone who supports abortion will automatically be labeled a Democrat. The political center has disappeared, and the Republican Party has become the party of the Christian right more so than in any other period in modern history. Bush's strategy secures the power of the American Christian right not only for this term. In fact, it secures its ability to choose the next president."

Right-wing Republican operatives crying in their schnapps over victory. That's one thing. Jesse Helms getting his sage political tactics from an American Jew ... that's another thing. But the biggest source of psychic racket in this little piece is the fact that Finkelstein is gay.

The American novelist Philip Roth has very recently dealt with the paradoxes inherent in any underclass of people actively participating in the triumph of the very people who would gas 'em out of existence ... in the novel "The Plot Against America," in which Roth does a "what if" on the notion that if American hero (and quiet anti-Semite) Charles A. Lindberg had run in 1940 against Roosevelt and beaten him, what would that alternative history have been like for American Jews. A major collaborator in the Nazi-fication of American under Lindberg, Roth imagines, is a Jewish Rabbi.

Make what you will of Finkelstein's alarm that the Religious Right has taken over the Republican Party. His homosexuality, along with his Jewishness, in service to Jesse Helms might keep a team of psychoanalysts hopping for weeks.

Pressure Mounts for a Ballot Paper-Trail

Even before the N.C. Commission charged with looking at the state's balloting process has its first meeting in December, there are already strong voices in the group calling for mandatory paper-trails for all computerized devices. 'Course, it doesn't much matter what this commission comes up with if the state legislature doesn't take action ... which after the national embarrassment of what happened in Carteret County we expect it will. And quickly, too, we hope! Here's the article from today's News & Observer.

Many Well-Stuffed Gobblers To You!

Happy Thanksgiving. You can use this space to sketch out your list -- meager as it may be -- of what you're thankful for, and we'll be back in the saddle by Sunday.

Congressional Pork for B'Rock

Going through an account of some of the 14,000 "earmarks" (i.e., "pork") that was added to the Omnibus spending bill, imagine our surprise to discover that li'l ole Blowing Rock Community Arts Center will get $200,000 ... small potatoes, actually, compared to the zillions doled out by Congresscreeps to their districts ... AFTER raising the debt ceiling to accommodate the bloating!

What isn't immediately apparent is whether Richard Burr or Cass Ballenger or some other dead hand of the law put the money into the bill. We'll try to find out.

Breeder Nation

CBS News last night did a segment on the growing movement among "Christian" pharmacists who are refusing to fill birth control pill perscriptions for women, as a matter of "conscience." They feel "emboldened" by the election of The Holiest President in American History. Let the carpet-bombing of women's reproductive rights commence! Actually, it clearly already has. The U.S. Congress, or rather the Republican Overlords of the House of Reps, stuck their abortion gag order into the Omnibus Spending Bill (along with explicit permission for political operatives to go snooping through tax returns, but they've agreed to take that out). Oh, well. Young American women will have to discover for themselves where we're headed with these New American Mullahs steering the ship of state.

In the meantime, Prevention magazine has a pretty exhaustive round-up of the anti-birth control movement among pharmacists. You might want to inform yourself and watch for developments at a pharmacy near you.

When They Say 'Freedom,' They Mean THEIRS

From the same guys who don't want young women to know about abortion, and in fact from the very same bill that contains the language shutting down information on abortion -- the omnibus spending bill just passed last weekend -- comes news that the House Republican leadership slipped in a provision to allow themselves a quick look at any American's tax returns. It's against the law to reveal or divulge any tax return, but the House Republicans wrote themselves a wee exception that would have rendered them immune from prosecution. The WashPost has a full story this a.m. on the scandal, but it's been percolating for a couple of days in the blogosphere, particularly over at Talking Points Memo.

Just as with the "Tom DeLay Rule," it's very hard now to find any Republican Congressman who admits either knowing about the provision or approving of it ... though they all voted in favor. Josh Marshall has pretty much fingered Rep. Ernest J. Istook Jr. (R-Okla.) as the writer of the provision, and like any struck dog, Istook is yowling in pain. (Actually, it was Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) who said Istook did it.)

They don't want women to know there's such a thing as abortion, but they want to be able to paw through IRS returns with impunity. And you think our fears of a police state are paranoid delusions! They ARE paranoid. But delusional? We think not.

And now, having been outed in the press, they have to come back after Thanksgiving to repeal that provision, which was the Senate's stipulation. Gawd knows what else is hidden in that 1,000+ page wad of wood pulp!