Let's talk about the Kennedys, just to name a political family with multi-generational wealth.
In particular, Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy made anti-poverty centerpieces of their political legacies. RFK was practically obsessed with racial and social justice; as a Senator, he spearheaded an economic development project in Brooklyn, and in a speech as a presidential candidate first introduced the concept of the "other America" who'd been passed by, prosperity-wise. Ted Kennedy was probably the biggest proponent of public education this country's ever seen.
The fact that both of these men grew up in a wealthy, influential family didn't blind them to the importance of policies that allow others to advance and build their own wealth.
That's what was running through my mind when I watched this:
It's like a bad sequel to that 2008 flop, "Sarah Palin is Better For Women Than That Guy Who Wrote the Violence Against Women Act, Even Though She Doesn't Care About Rape Victims, Just Because She Has a Uterus."
I'm sure that some of these GOP presidential hopefuls really did grow up in humble circumstances. But that doesn't automatically make them more attuned to the needs of Americans who are currently unemployed, under-employed or buried in debt. I'm a lot more interested in how the policies they say they'll support will affect those financially struggling Americans.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
Newts are slithery and disgusting, but that's neither here nor there
It's been an interesting couple of weeks for those of us who regularly read newspapers and news magazines back in the mid-90s. As Newt Gingrich emerged as the latest favorite GOP candidate who's not Mitt Romney, I found myself wondering just how long it would take the people who apparently were telling pollsters that Newt was their top choice to remember what he was actually like the last time he held public office.
Washington, 1994-98. I was a teenager with my own subscription to Newsweek. He was the Georgia Representative who rode the 1994 GOP midterm gains all the way to Speaker of the House, where he proceeded to cave to President Clinton over the 1995 federal government shutdown. This was just the first act, though. Speaker Gingrich later distinguished himself by railroading an impeachment inquiry of President Clinton through Congress, even as he himself was cheating on Wife #2 with decades-younger aide and eventual Wife #3. And then, after the midterm voters in 1998 reminded the GOP that they were sent to Congress to pass legislation, not hold hearings on the president's sex life, Gingrich resigned as Speaker.
To recap: Gingrich rode to power on the strength of the "Contract with America," a multi-point pledge to reduce the size and role of federal government. In 2000, Edward H. Crane of the Cato Institute wrote in Forbes that "Over the past three years the Republican-controlled Congress has approved discretionary spending that exceeded Bill Clinton's requests by more than $30 billion. The party that in 1994 would abolish the Department of Education now brags in response to Clinton's 2000 State of the Union Address that it is outspending the White House when it comes to education. My colleagues Stephen Moore and Stephen Slivinski found that the combined budgets of the 95 major programs that the Contract with America promised to eliminate have increased by 13%."
In other words, Gingrich as the leader of the majority in Congress failed to do, by at least one estimate, most of what he promised he'd do.
I guess he was too busy policing the morality of the twice-elected executive, who - it's true - fooled around with an aide and lied about it. The problem is that the guy wasting millions of taxpayer dollars investigating whether the president had schtupped an aide was himself sleeping with an aide. AT THE SAME TIME.
I understand the people who will never be able to admire Clinton because of what he did and lying to the American people about it. But I do feel the need to remind those people that Gingrich did the same thing, only more than once. If you're asking yourself what kind of man can lie to voters with a straight face about Clinton, then you have to ask it about Gingrich, too.
Oh, and it gets better. Guess what else Gingrich lied about?
Washington, 1994-98. I was a teenager with my own subscription to Newsweek. He was the Georgia Representative who rode the 1994 GOP midterm gains all the way to Speaker of the House, where he proceeded to cave to President Clinton over the 1995 federal government shutdown. This was just the first act, though. Speaker Gingrich later distinguished himself by railroading an impeachment inquiry of President Clinton through Congress, even as he himself was cheating on Wife #2 with decades-younger aide and eventual Wife #3. And then, after the midterm voters in 1998 reminded the GOP that they were sent to Congress to pass legislation, not hold hearings on the president's sex life, Gingrich resigned as Speaker.
To recap: Gingrich rode to power on the strength of the "Contract with America," a multi-point pledge to reduce the size and role of federal government. In 2000, Edward H. Crane of the Cato Institute wrote in Forbes that "Over the past three years the Republican-controlled Congress has approved discretionary spending that exceeded Bill Clinton's requests by more than $30 billion. The party that in 1994 would abolish the Department of Education now brags in response to Clinton's 2000 State of the Union Address that it is outspending the White House when it comes to education. My colleagues Stephen Moore and Stephen Slivinski found that the combined budgets of the 95 major programs that the Contract with America promised to eliminate have increased by 13%."
In other words, Gingrich as the leader of the majority in Congress failed to do, by at least one estimate, most of what he promised he'd do.
I guess he was too busy policing the morality of the twice-elected executive, who - it's true - fooled around with an aide and lied about it. The problem is that the guy wasting millions of taxpayer dollars investigating whether the president had schtupped an aide was himself sleeping with an aide. AT THE SAME TIME.
I understand the people who will never be able to admire Clinton because of what he did and lying to the American people about it. But I do feel the need to remind those people that Gingrich did the same thing, only more than once. If you're asking yourself what kind of man can lie to voters with a straight face about Clinton, then you have to ask it about Gingrich, too.
Oh, and it gets better. Guess what else Gingrich lied about?
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
A Christmas wish
A - I hope that I am fortunate enough to have children.
B - I hope that I have the sense not to humiliate them on the Internet.
Seriously, the things that random Americans would say about my family's home videos...
(though I have to say... I totally welcome black beans and a Waffle House hat, if anyone's buying...)
B - I hope that I have the sense not to humiliate them on the Internet.
Seriously, the things that random Americans would say about my family's home videos...
(though I have to say... I totally welcome black beans and a Waffle House hat, if anyone's buying...)
Needles in a haystack? Deport all the hay.
Earlier today, I posted on my Facebook page a link to a story in today's New York Times about how a number of American citizens have been wrongfully detained by immigration enforcement. Some of them are naturalized citizens, and some are natural-born, native Americans who happen to have non-Anglo Saxon names. The fact that this is happening in America should scare the hell out of anyone who prides herself or himself on living in the "land of the free."
The quote that jumped out at me, and which I pulled out in my Facebook post, was this:
"United States citizens can also be tagged in a Secure Communities fingerprint check because of flukes in the department’s databases. Unlike the federal criminal databases administered by the F.B.I., Homeland Security records include all immigration transactions, not just violations. An immigrant who has always maintained legal status, including those who naturalized to become American citizens, can still trigger a fingerprint match."
I have dear friends, past and former co-workers and classmates and family members who fall into that category: "has always maintained legal status, including those who naturalized to become American citizens." Apparently, any one of them could potentially be swept up and confined to an ICE detention facility for days at a time, and maybe even deported. Not because they're skirting the system, but because they did everything right - got their green cards, became citizens. Not because DHS honestly (no matter how erroneously) believes the woman who came over from Germany to finish high school back in the 50s (hi, Irma!) might be a threat. But because DHS has a sh*tty filing system.
Ok, imagine this: You bought a handgun. Lots of criminals and dangerous people have handguns, but you're not one of them. You bought yours legally after the required waiting period, and you have all the right paperwork. But, when you get pulled over for speeding and the officer spots the totally legal handgun in your car, you get arrested - excuse me, "detained" - anyway, just because you MIGHT be one of those bad gun-owning guys after all.
Of course the difference is that, if for some reason a handgun owner who gets caught without the right paperwork gets taken down to the station, that person gets to call his or her lawyer and then go home. That guy who was born in L.A. who gets arrested for shoplifting a $10 bottle of perfume gets sent to an ICE jail for days without any contact with the outside world, and it takes an ACLU suit to get the government to LOOK AT ITS OWN RECORDS and get him out.
Let's talk about the shoplifting. The people in the Times story entered the system in the first place because they were arrested on minor criminal charges. So a lot of the people commenting on the article wrote some version of "they were breaking the law, so they deserved what they got." Except, no, unless the U.S. suddenly just turned into Stalinist Russia. In America, we don't imprison people for days at a time on suspicion that they committed a crime, and we sure as hell don't deport them. We have something called due process. (Oh look, Tea Party! It's that Bill of Rights y'all love so much!) That means that the guy who shoplifted the perfume spends the night in jail, is arraigned the next day, gets a fine and/or a court date, etc., etc. He does NOT get lost in a federal rabbit warren even after the judge in his case has ordered his release.
And the people who are arguing otherwise are guilty of the "You did something wrong, then something bad happened to you; I'm not doing that wrong thing, and therefore nothing bad will ever happen to me" fallacy... or worse. If that line of reasoning is appealing to you, I'd like to remind you that the people in this story are American citizens, just like you. I hope you never look suspiciously Canadian to the wrong federal agent.
This is an entirely separate issue from the discussion of how our country handles people who are here in this country illegally. This administration has found and deported over 1 million of them, more than any previous administration. The policy is a major strategy in the "war on terror," even though most of the people involved are not dangerous, just people who've overstayed their visas. But we have these laws for a reason and we need to enforce them. I sincerely hope that the administration figures out a way to do so without violating the civil rights of actual Americans.
(Seriously, have they never heard of Excel? I'm just saying, if your average college development office can tell in five seconds how many geology majors with lifetime giving of over $1,000 live in a particular ZIP code, you'd think the Department of Homeland Security could find a way to ID people who are only in its system because they took the time to follow the rules and get naturalized.)
The quote that jumped out at me, and which I pulled out in my Facebook post, was this:
"United States citizens can also be tagged in a Secure Communities fingerprint check because of flukes in the department’s databases. Unlike the federal criminal databases administered by the F.B.I., Homeland Security records include all immigration transactions, not just violations. An immigrant who has always maintained legal status, including those who naturalized to become American citizens, can still trigger a fingerprint match."
I have dear friends, past and former co-workers and classmates and family members who fall into that category: "has always maintained legal status, including those who naturalized to become American citizens." Apparently, any one of them could potentially be swept up and confined to an ICE detention facility for days at a time, and maybe even deported. Not because they're skirting the system, but because they did everything right - got their green cards, became citizens. Not because DHS honestly (no matter how erroneously) believes the woman who came over from Germany to finish high school back in the 50s (hi, Irma!) might be a threat. But because DHS has a sh*tty filing system.
Ok, imagine this: You bought a handgun. Lots of criminals and dangerous people have handguns, but you're not one of them. You bought yours legally after the required waiting period, and you have all the right paperwork. But, when you get pulled over for speeding and the officer spots the totally legal handgun in your car, you get arrested - excuse me, "detained" - anyway, just because you MIGHT be one of those bad gun-owning guys after all.
Of course the difference is that, if for some reason a handgun owner who gets caught without the right paperwork gets taken down to the station, that person gets to call his or her lawyer and then go home. That guy who was born in L.A. who gets arrested for shoplifting a $10 bottle of perfume gets sent to an ICE jail for days without any contact with the outside world, and it takes an ACLU suit to get the government to LOOK AT ITS OWN RECORDS and get him out.
Let's talk about the shoplifting. The people in the Times story entered the system in the first place because they were arrested on minor criminal charges. So a lot of the people commenting on the article wrote some version of "they were breaking the law, so they deserved what they got." Except, no, unless the U.S. suddenly just turned into Stalinist Russia. In America, we don't imprison people for days at a time on suspicion that they committed a crime, and we sure as hell don't deport them. We have something called due process. (Oh look, Tea Party! It's that Bill of Rights y'all love so much!) That means that the guy who shoplifted the perfume spends the night in jail, is arraigned the next day, gets a fine and/or a court date, etc., etc. He does NOT get lost in a federal rabbit warren even after the judge in his case has ordered his release.
And the people who are arguing otherwise are guilty of the "You did something wrong, then something bad happened to you; I'm not doing that wrong thing, and therefore nothing bad will ever happen to me" fallacy... or worse. If that line of reasoning is appealing to you, I'd like to remind you that the people in this story are American citizens, just like you. I hope you never look suspiciously Canadian to the wrong federal agent.
This is an entirely separate issue from the discussion of how our country handles people who are here in this country illegally. This administration has found and deported over 1 million of them, more than any previous administration. The policy is a major strategy in the "war on terror," even though most of the people involved are not dangerous, just people who've overstayed their visas. But we have these laws for a reason and we need to enforce them. I sincerely hope that the administration figures out a way to do so without violating the civil rights of actual Americans.
(Seriously, have they never heard of Excel? I'm just saying, if your average college development office can tell in five seconds how many geology majors with lifetime giving of over $1,000 live in a particular ZIP code, you'd think the Department of Homeland Security could find a way to ID people who are only in its system because they took the time to follow the rules and get naturalized.)
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Cranky thoughts on two TV shows
I keep writing and rewriting a post about "The Office," and here "Boardwalk Empire" comes and makes my point for me.
Ok - I was a late convert to "The Office." (And, before we go on, I mean the show that airs every Thursday night in the country where I live. As far as I'm concerned, clarifying that you "like 'The Office,' but only the U.K. version" is an even bigger "I'm a raging douchebag" identifier than referring to your drink as "SoCo." Moving on.) Frankly, my former supervisor was so freakishly similar to the Michael Scott character, even in name, that watching the show was just too painful. But eventually my Ed Helms crush won out, and "The Office" became must-see viewing.
This season has been lackluster. (No, not because Steve Carrell left. Grow an original thought.) I think every TV show gets to the point where the audience knows the characters so well that we watch just because we love spending time with these people, and I really do love all of these characters. But lately I've been thinking that the issue with "The Office" is that this particular group has been together for so long that it's becoming harder and harder to find stories to tell about them. You know that relationship where you just start having the same fight over and over for 27 years? That's "The Office" right now.
Perhaps it's because I've recently changed jobs myself, and so every day is an awkward comedy of learning to relate to a whole new set of quirky individuals... but "The Office" needs to lose some people. Yes, I know I just wrote one paragraph ago that I love all these characters, but that doesn't change the fact that some of them need to go. Yes, it will suck, but doesn't that happen in real life? Even as we constantly come to know new people, we drop others from our orbit. The only place where this doesn't happen is on TV shows past their fifth seasons, which just keep adding and adding characters.
Which is why I want to pat the writers of "Boardwalk Empire" on the back. Throughout tonight's second season finale, I was worried that we'd lose one or more of my favorite supporting characters, just because the story was headed that way. And "Empire" does have some brilliantly written characters, and an excellent cast. I started watching it because of Steve Buscemi and Michael Shannon, but I kept watching because of Kelly MacDonald and Shea Wigham, both of whom I've loved in everything I've ever seen them in. I was convinced that Wigham's Eli Thompson in particular was not long for the show, and I was preemptively mourning his loss. He's just so fun to watch.
Well... not wanting to spoil anything here for an episode that just aired an hour ago, I'm just going to say that "Boardwalk Empire" impressively wrote off a major - as in top of the credits - character. It did so in a way that was (at least for me) a total surprise, and yet that made perfect sense in retrospect. It wasn't just that this character didn't have many more places to go dramatically; it was that, looking back on everything that's happened in the last two seasons, what happened in those last 10 minutes almost seemed inevitable... but only when looking back.
And the best part is that I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen next. The writers just blew the story wide open in the best possible way; they're like kids who just got a $10,000 shopping spree in FAO Schwartz, and I can't wait to see what toys they bring home to play with.
"The Office" is very different from "Boardwalk Empire," but its writers could learn something here. Murder your darlings. Don't get attached. Tell the story, however it affects those actors you really like hanging out with every day.
Ok - I was a late convert to "The Office." (And, before we go on, I mean the show that airs every Thursday night in the country where I live. As far as I'm concerned, clarifying that you "like 'The Office,' but only the U.K. version" is an even bigger "I'm a raging douchebag" identifier than referring to your drink as "SoCo." Moving on.) Frankly, my former supervisor was so freakishly similar to the Michael Scott character, even in name, that watching the show was just too painful. But eventually my Ed Helms crush won out, and "The Office" became must-see viewing.
This season has been lackluster. (No, not because Steve Carrell left. Grow an original thought.) I think every TV show gets to the point where the audience knows the characters so well that we watch just because we love spending time with these people, and I really do love all of these characters. But lately I've been thinking that the issue with "The Office" is that this particular group has been together for so long that it's becoming harder and harder to find stories to tell about them. You know that relationship where you just start having the same fight over and over for 27 years? That's "The Office" right now.
Perhaps it's because I've recently changed jobs myself, and so every day is an awkward comedy of learning to relate to a whole new set of quirky individuals... but "The Office" needs to lose some people. Yes, I know I just wrote one paragraph ago that I love all these characters, but that doesn't change the fact that some of them need to go. Yes, it will suck, but doesn't that happen in real life? Even as we constantly come to know new people, we drop others from our orbit. The only place where this doesn't happen is on TV shows past their fifth seasons, which just keep adding and adding characters.
Which is why I want to pat the writers of "Boardwalk Empire" on the back. Throughout tonight's second season finale, I was worried that we'd lose one or more of my favorite supporting characters, just because the story was headed that way. And "Empire" does have some brilliantly written characters, and an excellent cast. I started watching it because of Steve Buscemi and Michael Shannon, but I kept watching because of Kelly MacDonald and Shea Wigham, both of whom I've loved in everything I've ever seen them in. I was convinced that Wigham's Eli Thompson in particular was not long for the show, and I was preemptively mourning his loss. He's just so fun to watch.
Well... not wanting to spoil anything here for an episode that just aired an hour ago, I'm just going to say that "Boardwalk Empire" impressively wrote off a major - as in top of the credits - character. It did so in a way that was (at least for me) a total surprise, and yet that made perfect sense in retrospect. It wasn't just that this character didn't have many more places to go dramatically; it was that, looking back on everything that's happened in the last two seasons, what happened in those last 10 minutes almost seemed inevitable... but only when looking back.
And the best part is that I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen next. The writers just blew the story wide open in the best possible way; they're like kids who just got a $10,000 shopping spree in FAO Schwartz, and I can't wait to see what toys they bring home to play with.
"The Office" is very different from "Boardwalk Empire," but its writers could learn something here. Murder your darlings. Don't get attached. Tell the story, however it affects those actors you really like hanging out with every day.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
I'm a Christian, and Rick Perry doesn't speak for me
Oh, my hell, what an ignorant asshat.
And I say that not as a Democrat, not as a supporter of LGBT civil rights, but as a devout Christian who's sick and [expletive deleted] tired of bigots like Rick Perry insisting that they speak for my faith, when what they're really doing is hijacking a 2,000-year-old belief system to rationalize their own hatred and inadequacy.
Aside from the fact that Perry rehashes the lie that children can't observe their religion in public school - not true, although non-Christian observants still have to fight for their right to do so - and aside from the blatant lie that the Obama Administration is waging a "war" on religion - where? when? - and aside from the fact that what Perry said about the late unlamented "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is blatant hate-speech - why not just rant about those n***** welfare queens and their baggy pants while you're at it? - there's the fact that this ad is meant to persuade people to elect him president of the United States of America.
Not Sunday School teacher. Not head deacon of the West Texas Tabernacle of the True Redeemed Snake Handlin' Reformed Baptist Whatevers. President. Which, the last time I checked, is a civic office heading the Executive Branch of the federal government. And, since we don't live in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, our government is a secular one.
Most Americans like the notion that the person who holds such power and responsibility has some sort of belief system to fall back on, but nowhere is it written that the president has to be a Christian. In fact, the men who created our government from scratch back in 18th century Philadelphia deliberately did NOT write an official religion into the Constitution, or any sort of religious test for holding public office.
This Christian thinks it's pretty insulting to suggest that followers of my faith have a monopoly on ethics, morality or good behavior. Any of us could list people who've called themselves Christians and behaved horribly. There's a reason that Jesus taught his followers not to pray in public - because simply proclaiming "I'm a Christian! Done!" is just too easy, at least compared with actually living the faith.
Perry is entitled to his beliefs. It's free country, and ensuring that freedom is a major piece of the job Perry's applying for. Meanwhile, he's no theologian, and shouldn't pretend to be.
And, while I'm pissed off at Rick Perry, I might as well say that any grown man who takes a gun with him jogging anywhere other than Baghdad has a tiny dick. There, I said it.
And I say that not as a Democrat, not as a supporter of LGBT civil rights, but as a devout Christian who's sick and [expletive deleted] tired of bigots like Rick Perry insisting that they speak for my faith, when what they're really doing is hijacking a 2,000-year-old belief system to rationalize their own hatred and inadequacy.
Aside from the fact that Perry rehashes the lie that children can't observe their religion in public school - not true, although non-Christian observants still have to fight for their right to do so - and aside from the blatant lie that the Obama Administration is waging a "war" on religion - where? when? - and aside from the fact that what Perry said about the late unlamented "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is blatant hate-speech - why not just rant about those n***** welfare queens and their baggy pants while you're at it? - there's the fact that this ad is meant to persuade people to elect him president of the United States of America.
Not Sunday School teacher. Not head deacon of the West Texas Tabernacle of the True Redeemed Snake Handlin' Reformed Baptist Whatevers. President. Which, the last time I checked, is a civic office heading the Executive Branch of the federal government. And, since we don't live in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, our government is a secular one.
Most Americans like the notion that the person who holds such power and responsibility has some sort of belief system to fall back on, but nowhere is it written that the president has to be a Christian. In fact, the men who created our government from scratch back in 18th century Philadelphia deliberately did NOT write an official religion into the Constitution, or any sort of religious test for holding public office.
This Christian thinks it's pretty insulting to suggest that followers of my faith have a monopoly on ethics, morality or good behavior. Any of us could list people who've called themselves Christians and behaved horribly. There's a reason that Jesus taught his followers not to pray in public - because simply proclaiming "I'm a Christian! Done!" is just too easy, at least compared with actually living the faith.
Perry is entitled to his beliefs. It's free country, and ensuring that freedom is a major piece of the job Perry's applying for. Meanwhile, he's no theologian, and shouldn't pretend to be.
And, while I'm pissed off at Rick Perry, I might as well say that any grown man who takes a gun with him jogging anywhere other than Baghdad has a tiny dick. There, I said it.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Choose logic
I'm the middle child of five, all girls. The oldest four of us are very close in age, and the youngest is seven years younger than I am. So, our family dynamic was first like that of a basketball team, and then later like that of a basketball team ganging up on a toddler because we were bigger than her. Except that basketball players are adults, and we were children right at that age where each of us genuinely felt that we were the center of the universe and SHE'S ON MY SIDE OF THE CAR SEAT!!!
Which is to say, my parents had to be master mediators. If you have more than one kid, you're probably very familiar with those bitter disputes that end with "...then NO ONE gets to ride in the front seat/pick the TV show/hang the Patrick Swayze poster on her side of the room."
It's basic Fairness 101. When you have two or more opposing entities, you give them all the same privileges, or you give all of them no privileges at all.
And consider that my introduction to what might be the simplest case the ACLU has ever argued. This year, our GOP-led General Assembly continued its waste-no-time approach to its first controlling majority in more than a century and ok'd a state-issued anti-choice specialty license plate. The plate, reading "Choose Life," would raise money ($15 of every $25) for the Carolina Pregnancy Care Fellowship, whose website says it is "the legally designated agency for disbursement of plate funds." CPCF openly advocates against abortion rights... and that's their prerogative. It's a free country.
The problem is that the General Assembly had previously rejected six attempts to issue a plate benefiting a pro-choice organization. Now, personally I don't think the DMV should be in the business of shilling for ANY non-profit group, but if it is going to do that, logic dictates that it be objective.
Not just logic, though. The law, too. The ACLU argues that the state can't facilitate speech by one side and not the other. And this week a federal judge agreed, issuing an injunction that prevents the "Choose Life" plates from being offered.
CPCF and its supporters have every right to buy and display their plates, but not if every other advocacy group on the same issue is silenced. The government doesn't get to play favorites.
Which is to say, my parents had to be master mediators. If you have more than one kid, you're probably very familiar with those bitter disputes that end with "...then NO ONE gets to ride in the front seat/pick the TV show/hang the Patrick Swayze poster on her side of the room."
It's basic Fairness 101. When you have two or more opposing entities, you give them all the same privileges, or you give all of them no privileges at all.
And consider that my introduction to what might be the simplest case the ACLU has ever argued. This year, our GOP-led General Assembly continued its waste-no-time approach to its first controlling majority in more than a century and ok'd a state-issued anti-choice specialty license plate. The plate, reading "Choose Life," would raise money ($15 of every $25) for the Carolina Pregnancy Care Fellowship, whose website says it is "the legally designated agency for disbursement of plate funds." CPCF openly advocates against abortion rights... and that's their prerogative. It's a free country.
The problem is that the General Assembly had previously rejected six attempts to issue a plate benefiting a pro-choice organization. Now, personally I don't think the DMV should be in the business of shilling for ANY non-profit group, but if it is going to do that, logic dictates that it be objective.
Not just logic, though. The law, too. The ACLU argues that the state can't facilitate speech by one side and not the other. And this week a federal judge agreed, issuing an injunction that prevents the "Choose Life" plates from being offered.
CPCF and its supporters have every right to buy and display their plates, but not if every other advocacy group on the same issue is silenced. The government doesn't get to play favorites.
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