Ok, so Eric Cantor says he will stop being Majority Leader on July 31. Who replaces him?
Technically next in line is the #3 in the House, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California. Cantor says he’s supports him, which may or may not be a good thing for McCarthy.
Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas, a Boehner loyalist, says he’s running. And the Tea Party is lining up behind another Texan — Jeb Hensarling.
“We [California] are on track for having the worst drought in 500 years.”
B. Lynn Ingram, Berkeley professor of earth and planetary sciences.
I’m guessing there weren’t 38 million people living in California 500 years ago.
“If the president thinks that we are going to have a clean raising of the debt limit, he’s now living on another planet.”
GOP Congressman Devin Nunes of California
And Nunes isn’t even one of the crazy ones!
It’s not a total victory, but today’s two Supreme Court decisions on gay marriage are definitely gains for those supporting the right.
In the California Proposition 8 case, the Court ruled 5-4 that those seeking to defend the proposition (which bans gay marriage) lacked the standing to do so. Since they don’t have standing either before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court, that means the district court decision allowing gay marriage was not reversed. It was a narrow and limited victory, but a victory nonetheless. The state of California would have had standing to defend the proposition voted for by its citizens, but it chose not to.
In the Defense of Marriage Act case, the Court acted more broadly and decisively in striking down the law, holding 5-4 that the federal government must recognize gay marriages from states where such marriages are legal. Besides being a victory for gay marriage, it is also a victory for states’ rights.
A new study, “Freedom in the 50 States,” done by George Mason University supposedly measures economic and personal freedoms and found North Dakota to be our freest state.
Um, tell that to someone who wants the personal freedom to have an abortion.
The next freest were South Dakota, Tennessee, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma.
The least free were New York, California, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Rhode Island. I’ve been in California for the past thirty years and have always felt quite free here, thank you very much.
Anybody think lots of people are about to flee the oppression of Hawaii for balmy North Dakota? Me either.
For more, see “Americans Are Migrating to More Free Republican States,” John Merline, Investors Business Daily
From “A Sikh Temple’s Century,” Bhira Backhaus, NYT:
“The Stockton Gurdwara in California — the first Sikh temple in the United States — is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Immigrants from Punjab, India, purchased the lot on Grant Street in early 1912.
“Once in a while, I bring out a black and white photograph of the gurdwara taken a few decades later. The members of the early families fan out on the steps leading up to its main entrance. I scan the faces, picking out my mother, my sister, brothers, cousins, aunts and finally, myself.
“On Saturday nights, when my white girlfriends were off to the movies on dates, I drove my mother to the nearby gurdwara for quiet evening services. I would roll my eyes as I changed out of my jeans into a salwar kameez outfit that I prayed no one but my Indian friends would witness me wearing. But I can recall very clearly the comfort of having my mother sitting beside me during the service, her bowed head draped in a white veil, the feeling of peace that washed over me when the hymns and chanting began.
“Eventually I left, in pursuit of an education…. And I married outside the Sikh community, causing a painful breach with my parents that had just begun to heal when they passed away. But when they reached out to me at last, I understood that I still belonged to the community, always had.
“The Sikh communities in California have flourished over the years. When I visit home now I am impressed by how comfortable the new generation seems in this country, whether they are developing advanced medical therapies for patients or dancing late into the night to bhangra beats. They have chosen to preserve their heritage while moving forward in the world.
“But people still sometimes ask me, why can’t they assimilate more? Dress like us. Talk like us. Perhaps, some seen to believe, that would prevent the sort of tragedy that happened in Wisconsin. I never have an easy answer. But I do know this: to wipe away what has come before, who we have been over the centuries, also means to forget who our own mothers and fathers were. It means that how they conducted their lives — the families they raised, the homes they built — didn’t matter. It denies us that basic human impulse, to remember their stories, the unique timbre of their voices. It would be as if they had never existed at all.”
If I were the Bay Bridge, I would really hate the Golden Gate Bridge.
Embattled Farmers 