I wanted to thank you for shinning a spotlight on our fight here for full equality in Mississippi. I am Jamie Owens, lovers with Kurt Hebert. We are one of the couples featured on your show applying for a marriage license. I wanted to say that the moment Barbara Dunn said we were denied the license I felt like every single hurtful word or hateful thing that had ever been done to me because of me being Gay slapped me in the face and broke my heart all over again. To say that my love and my life with Kurt is DENIED broke my heart. I knew that was why I came. I needed to understand that no matter where you live or where you go in life, someone will say you're living wrong. I have the full belief through my life experiences that I AM NOT LIVING MY LIFE WRONG. I believe that LOVE is the key to life and the key to understanding people or things that you don't. It is not just about Equal Rights; it's also about Human Rights. I believe all Humans should have the same rights.

I wanted to also say that when she said "denied," NO ONE LAUGHED. We felt empathy and understanding from Barbara Dunn and all the employees. The entire day was full of LOVE and support from everyone we came in touch with. Even by people passing in cars on the street. Marriage Equality must be in every State in the Union. I love Kurt and I am building my life with him. We are American citizens and tax payers. We want equal protection under the law. I will continue to seek legal representation to fight this and seek a LEGAL Mississippi Marriage License that says Approved!!!!

He signs the letter, "A Loving Human, Jamie Owens."

Totally worth it: Interview with Jamie Owens, loving human, on Mississippi's public radio network.

Below, video from the Campaign for Southern Equality's trip to the Jackson, Mississippi, marriage bureau.

Watch on YouTube

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Published on July 25, 2013 15:00

* A terrible crash: "The driver of the train that crashed in Spain, killing at least 80 people including one American, was detained and put under formal investigation Thursday after security video showed the train derailed after speeding around a tight curve. Excessive speed has been identified as the likely main cause of the accident, official sources told Reuters as hospitals treated dozens of injured passengers, including at least five Americans."

* Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure: "President Barack Obama used the Port of Jacksonville as a backdrop for his latest economic policy speech, using an infrastructure project there to illustrate his call for greater investment in similar projects."

* Student loans: "After a series of delays, the Senate passed legislation Wednesday to fundamentally restructure government student loans and reverse the sharp hikes in interest rates that went into effect on July 1. The vote was 81-18, with more than a dozen Democrats voting against the White House-backed plan. The compromise proposal, which would link interest rates to market prices, was vehemently opposed by liberal Democrats who maintain that its provisions are unfair."

* Hmm: "A private spokesperson for Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) on Thursday refused to discuss the terms under which a Virginia businessman gave $120,000 in loans to the governor and his family."

* Smart move: "San Diego Mayor Bob Filner (D-Calif.) has been disinvited from being the keynote speaker at an event on military sexual assault, after three women came forward this week and accused him of sexual harassment. Filner was scheduled to speak at an Aug. 30 charity event for the National Women Veterans Association of America."

* In related news: "Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday denounced Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and Bob Filner (D-Calif.), two of her former House colleagues who are now embroiled in sex scandals, for behavior she calls 'reprehensible.'"

* Florida's most high-profile Democrat: "Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) said Thursday that Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' law, made famous by the death of Trayvon Martin, leads to more violence and should be changed."

* Neil Irwin asks a question with underappreciated significance: "Yellen vs. Summers: Who would be a better Fed chair?"

* I honestly can't imagine why Ohio's state Attorney General, Republican Mike DeWine, would be this needlessly cruel. (Update: here's the latest on this story.)

* After investing a lot of energy in the argument over Republicans sabotaging federal health care law, it's good to see related thoughts from Cohn, Beutler, Drum, and Bernstein.

* And Krugman is on board with the assertion that economic ideas don't have to be "new" to be good.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

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Published on July 25, 2013 14:30

King is 'hateful,' 'ignorant,' and getting exactly what he wants

Last year, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) was comfortable equating immigrants with dogs. This week, King characterized most young, undocumented immigrants as "drug mules," then reiterated his support for the comments after they generated controversy, then on the House floor today, endorsed the remarks once more, as seen in the video above.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) isn't pleased.

"I want to be clear, there's no place in this debate for hateful or ignorant comments from elected officials," said Boehner, who first excoriated King's language in a statement Tuesday night. "Earlier this week Rep. Steve King made comments that I think are deeply offensive and wrong. What he said does not reflect the values of the American people or the Republican Party."

Boehner acknowledged that comments like King's complicate Republicans' efforts to pass legislation through the House to address the issue of illegal immigration. "It does make it more difficult but I'm going to continue to work with members who want to get to a solution as a opposed to doing nothing at all," he said.

Does Boehner deserve credit for distancing himself from King's bigotry? Certainly. But while I'm happy to credit the Speaker for doing the right thing by criticizing the right-wing Iowan, I hope we won't lose sight of the larger context.

When King pushed a measure to deport Dream Act kids in June, it was Boehner and the House Republican leadership that brought the measure to the floor, and it was the House Republican conference that actually passed it.

When King demanded the House GOP rejected the bipartisan Senate reform bill, it was Boehner and the House Republican leadership that declared the Senate version D.O.A.

In other words, I'm glad the Speaker of the House sees Steve King's bigotry as "hateful" and "ignorant," but I'd even more glad if the Speaker of the House weren't letting Steve King win the policy fight.

Roll Call had a report this morning that asked, "How do you solve a problem like Steve King?" It quoted Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) saying in response, "You can't."

But you can, actually. If John Boehner and the House Republican leadership ignored Steve King's demands and passed comprehensive immigration reform, the "problem" posed by the unhinged Iowan would, in fact, be solved.

The Speaker today said King makes immigration reform harder. That's backwards -- he should make reform easier, because to kill the legislation now would mean letting bigotry win.

What's more, the Speaker probably realizes this, but when he uses words like "hateful" and "ignorant" to describe King, Boehner makes it seem as if King were some fringe kook that the American mainstream shouldn't take seriously. Indeed, he was rather explicit on this point today, saying King's bigotry "does not reflect the values of ... the Republican Party."

But as Benjy Sarlin explained quite well, the problem with the argument is that it's wrong.

From their reaction (and King's long history of inflammatory comments), you might be tempted to think the Iowa Republican is a fringe voice in the House immigration debate with little influence on his party.

He isn't. In fact, when it comes to the undocumented youth, there's a decent argument that he's the de facto policy leader.

Let's put it this way: John Boehner can condemn Steve King or he can let Steve King win. Right now, the Speaker is trying to do both.

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Published on July 25, 2013 13:21

Facing a 'Groundswell'

Getty Images

Ginni Thomas

If you've ever found it curious that far-right media activists all seem to say the same thing at the same time about the same issues, it's not your imagination. David Corn offers an explanation.

Believing they are losing the messaging war with progressives, a group of prominent conservatives in Washington -- including the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and journalists from Breitbart News and the Washington Examiner -- has been meeting privately since early this year to concoct talking points, coordinate messaging, and hatch plans for "a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation," according to documents obtained by Mother Jones.

Dubbed Groundswell, this coalition convenes weekly in the offices of Judicial Watch, the conservative legal watchdog group. During these hush-hush sessions and through a Google group, the members of Groundswell -- including aides to congressional Republicans -- cook up battle plans for their ongoing fights against the Obama administration, congressional Democrats, progressive outfits, and the Republican establishment and "clueless" GOP congressional leaders.

There's quite a bit to Corn's scoop, including the fact that Groundswell really has no use for Karl Rove's effort to protect more electable Republicans in GOP primaries.

There's also quite a cast of characters at play, led in part by Ginni Thomas, and including an ignominious assortment of cringe-worthy clowns, including former ambassador John Bolton, former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), Ken Blackwell, Frank Gaffney, Jerry Boykin, and Capitol Hill staffers, including a top aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

Groundswell has collaborated with conservative GOPers on Capitol Hill, including Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Cruz and Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), a leading tea partier. At its weekly meetings, the group aims to strengthen the right's messaging by crafting Twitter hashtags; plotting strategy on in-the-headlines issues such as voter ID, immigration reform, and the sequester; promoting politically useful scandals; and developing "action items."

That may make Groundswell sound kind of scary, but there's reason to believe these right-wing activists -- surprise, surprise -- aren't especially sharp.

Notes from a February 28 Groundswell gathering reflected both their collective sense of pessimism and desire for aggressive tactics: "We are failing the propaganda battle with minorities. Terms like, 'GOP,' 'Tea Party,' 'Conservative' communicate 'racism.'" The Groundswellers proposed an alternative: "Fredrick Douglas Republican," a phrase, the memo noted, that "changes minds." (His name is actually spelled "Frederick Douglass.") The meeting notes also stated that an "active radical left is dedicated to destroy [sic] those who oppose them" with "vicious and unprecedented tactics. We are in a real war; most conservatives are not prepared to fight."

The right's preoccupation with manufactured fake scandals, however, is coming into sharper focus.

The notes from the March 20 meeting summed up Groundswell griping: "Conservatives are so busy dealing with issues like immigration, gay marriage and boy scouts there is little time left to focus on other issues. These are the very issues the Left wants to avoid but we need to magnify. R's cannot beat Obama at his own game but need to go on the offense and define the issues." The group's proposed offensive would include hyping the Fast and Furious gun-trafficking controversy, slamming Obama's record, and touting Benghazi as a full-fledged scandal.

To be sure, there's nothing illegal or necessarily untoward about this kind of coordination, but the fact that these folks feel the need to get together to plot and scheme, as part of their perceived "war" with the left, explains quite a bit about the problems with much of the political discourse.

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Published on July 25, 2013 11:40

July 24, 2013

Ahead on the 7/24 Maddow show

Tonight's guests include:

Bruce Hanes, Register of Wills in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples

Steve Kornacki, host of “Up with Steve Kornacki” weekends on MSNBC and senior writer at Salon

Here is a tune. And here is executive producer Bill Wolff with a preview of tonight's show:

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Published on July 24, 2013 16:03

Wednesday's Mini-Report

Today's edition of quick hits:

* We'll have more on the gas rig explosion in the Gulf on tonight's show.

* Egypt: "President Obama, in his first punitive response to the ouster of Mohamed Morsi as president of Egypt, has halted the delivery of four F-16 fighter planes to the Egyptian air force. Mr. Obama, administration officials said, wanted to send Egypt's military-led government a signal of American displeasure with the chaotic situation there."

* Detroit: "Federal courts will decide if Detroit is eligible for what would be the largest municipal bankruptcy ever, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, suspending challenges to the Chapter 9 filing in state court."

* Guantanamo: "Two weeks ago, the Pentagon claimed that 104 of the remaining 166 men at the Guantanamo Bay prison were on hunger strike. Since then, according to Department of Defense figures, 35 hunger strikers have mysteriously abandoned their protest, leaving 69 prisoners still on strike, with 45 being force-fed twice a day."

* Snowden: "Just over a month after he landed in Moscow and on the same day that he may finally win permission to leave an airport transit zone and officially enter Russia, an Iranian organization has invited Edward Snowden to visit Iran."

* San Diego: "A psychologist in the San Diego Unified School District on Wednesday became the third woman to publicly pose allegations of sexual harassment against San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, KPBS reported."

* Alabama: "A federal judge has postponed enforcement of a key part of Alabama's new restrictions on abortion clinics until March 24, 2014. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson extended a temporary restraining order in the case after attorneys on both sides of the lawsuit agreed to an extension through that date."

* And on Capitol Hill, Trayvon Martin's father "told lawmakers Wednesday that he hoped conversations stemming from his son's death would help 'stop someone else's child from being killed.'"

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

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Published on July 24, 2013 14:30

Obama makes his case for the middle class

After a whole lot of buildup from the White House, President Obama delivered one of those rare speeches that has its own name: "A Better Bargain for the Middle Class." If you missed it, the entirety of the video is above, and the transcript is online here. (If you're really curious, here's the speech as it was written on the page, which varied quite a bit from how it was delivered. Obama rarely sticks to what's on the teleprompter, but he adlibbed more than usual today.)

It's pretty difficult to summarize an hour-long speech in a brief blog post, and as you might expect, Obama covered a lot of ground, stressing his vision for the "cornerstones of middle-class security" -- specifically, a good job with decent wages and benefits, a good education, home ownership, retirement security, and health care security. The same speech highlighted the president's approach to "a new foundation for stronger, more durable economic growth," which includes, among other things, a more level playing field for consumers and investors.

The differences between this speech and others you've probably heard him deliver on similar topics were minimal, but Ezra Klein raised a good point about the mistaken assumptions about the "pivot" to jobs.

The "pivot" here isn't back to a topic Obama never left. It's to a different way of looking at the jobs problem. Obama said it himself. The key line in Obama's speech was this one: "What we need isn't a three-month plan, or even a three-year plan, but a long-term American strategy, based on steady, persistent effort, to reverse the forces that have conspired against the middle class for decades."

This speech marked the Obama administration's pivot from emergency measures to create jobs right now to a more long-term agenda for creating jobs. The speeches Obama previewed Wednesday are on manufacturing, health care, education, home ownership, retirement security, and social mobility. All are worthy topics. None of them offer much hope to someone who's jobless right now.

In economist terms, Obama is moving from trying to fix "cyclical" problems -- namely, the joblessness caused by an awful recession -- to "structural" problems.

Quite right. This was a very forward-thinking speech. While Republican leaders regularly present a vision of a different kind of America -- one without a safety net, without access to affordable health care, without retirement security, without education, without environmental protections, without the right to organize or bargain collectively, but plenty of Ayn Rand-approved "freedom" -- this was the president's opportunity to sketch out a more progressive alternative.

This is not to say, however, that Obama ignored the here and now.

"Tomorrow, I'll also visit the Port of Jacksonville, Florida to offer new ideas for doing what America has always done best, which is building things.... We've got ports that aren't ready for the new supertankers that are going to begin passing through the new Panama Canal in two years' time. If we don't get that done, those tankers are going to go someplace else. We've got more than 100,000 bridges that are old enough to qualify for Medicare.

"Businesses depend on our transportation systems, on our power grids, on our communications networks. And rebuilding them creates good-paying jobs right now that can't be outsourced."

But the speech was premised on the notion that we've endured a terrible crisis, struggled through, and came out the other end. We took a beating, but now we're back on our feet, we've brushed ourselves off, and we're ready for what's next.

And what Obama thinks should be next is a center-left approach, built on the belief that lasting prosperity comes from an economy that rejects a top-down model in which we help the rich and wait for wealth to someday trickle down, but focuses instead on a "middle-out" model that emphasizes the middle class. (The president used the phrase "middle class" 25 times in this speech.)

If the president's detractors have anything even remotely as compelling, I'm eager to see it.

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Published on July 24, 2013 14:07

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