Year: 2014

Legalizing Gay Marriage Would ‘Impose Significant Public Harm’ on Florida [UPDATED]

Buck Banks

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi jogging in her undies.
She’s a cute little button-nosed blue-eyed blonde, but don’t be fooled by the packaging. Pam Bondi, Florida’s (or should I say Rick Scott’s) attorney general has asserted in court papers that recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states would “impose significant public harm.”

Bondi’s assertion is in response to eight gay couples who were married in other states, but whose unions are illegal in Florida, who have filed a discrimination suit in federal court. Florida’s legal leader suggests the judge toss the suit.

Bondi’s reasons for objecting to the suit:

Bondi’s office says the state has a legitimate interest in defining a marriage as between a man and woman because Florida’s voters adopted an amendment in 2008 that banned same-sex marriages.

The filing also says same-sex marriage recognition would create significant problems for the state’s pension and health insurance programs.

Equality Florida responded to reports of Bondi’s legal argument this way:

[…]

God Might Tell Herman Cain to Run Again

Buck Banks

I do not know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future. And I trust in God.

— Pizza mogul Herman Cain, “who at one point topped all Republican challengers during the 2012 Republican presidential primary before dropping out amidst allegations of multiple affairs, suggested on Saturday that he would return to the campaign trail in 2016 if called upon God to do so,” the Huffington Post reports.

Boehner Claims to Not Be ‘Qualified’ to Debate Climate Change

Buck Banks

It’s a strange form of reasoning. Very few of us are scientists, which is exactly why we tend to defer to scientific judgment. It might make sense to question expert consensus in a field where you are an expert, but if you know very little about it, you probably want to just go along with what the experts think. Scientists do, in fact, have a nearly unanimous view of anthropogenic global warming. Scientists likewise believe that chugging Liquid Drano is bad for your health, which is why, precisely because of my lack of scientific training, I hold off on the Drano Cocktails.

— Jonathan Chait, writing in New York Magazine in response to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) telling the Huffington Post “I’m not qualified to debate the science over climate change.”

113th Congress Has Taken Most and Most Expensive Junkets Ever

Buck Banks

2,844

Number of trips nonprofits have funded for lawmakers during this Congress, “including the most expensive such trip ever funded — a $49,635 trip to Australia for Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC) and his wife in February. That trip was paid for by Defence Teaming Centre Inc., an Australian defense industry nonprofit,” according to the Washington Post.