Max

I am shocked that Tom Eplin has totally disappeared since leaving ATWT. He has only done one movie since then, in 2007.

Crazy Todd Akin writes new book, doubles down on "legitimate rape" message.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/todd-akin-new-book-108745.html?hp=f3

I don't really know that much about Cleveland. I've heard some people say it's lost a lot of its business and heard others say it's doing well.

I honestly don't know how well Cleveland's economy is currently doing.

From a political standpoint, Cleveland is obviously the most hostile place in Ohio that the GOP could have chosen (which is why I thought Cincinnati would have been a better idea; however, that city may very well have had certain logistical or economic problems that caused the GOP to reject it). But it's hard to get any more anti-conservative than New York City, which is why I thought it was a mistake for the Republicans to hold their 2004 convention there (although I admit that the anti-Republican protests weren't anywhere near as bad as I imagined).

Though it may have made more sense to hold it in Cincinnati, the GOP has decided to hold its 2016 convention in Cleveland. However, I honestly don't think that the host city or state of a national convention will make any material difference in the outcome of an election. (Just look at 2012, when the Dems and GOP respectively lost NC and FL despite holding their conventions in Charlotte and Tampa.) The obvious exception to this rule may be 1968, when the Dems may have lost IL in part because of their horrendous Chicago convention.

I'm not sure if Cochran and Lott were ever that close.

DRW, I want to say that don't think that the alliance that Cochran has with either Lott or Barbour is based on friendship. Lott and Barbour epitomize the worst of "Good Ole Boy" lobbyists, and they view Cochran as the best way to enrich themselves.

While McDaniel was worse, I honestly think that Cochran could be going senile. It was extremely bizarre when he mentioned "indecent things" done to farm animals. And many were shocked when he had no idea that Eric Cantor was defeated. Honestly, it is absurd that he (and Dick Lugar as well) asked for another six years in the Senate after spending 36 years there. But it's shameful that the establishment candidates are too cowardly to primary them, so instead they are only challenged by right-wing loons.

The nursing home stuff is very sordid, but I can't see that becoming nationalized either.

I should have clarified that the nursing home stuff wouldn't have become nationalized (but, as I mentioned earlier, may have been his biggest liability in Mississippi). McDaniel's past statements would have become nationalized, and other GOP candidates would have been forced to answer for them.

I agree, but I feel like there are broad attacks from the GOP against defense attorneys in general (the Dem nominee for governor in SC is getting these types of attacks). I do think the laughing is offputting. The best she can probably do is apologize.

I commend you for saying this. The best thing for her and her supporters to do would be to fully apologize, and be thankful that this tape came out so early.

Perhaps I am not being objective, but I have a feeling that many Democrats will regret nominating Hillary. If she loses, they'll wish that they went with someone who wasn't perceived as being so calculating and unlikable. And if she wins, they will be spared the greater of two evils, but they will have to constantly worry if she will abandon progressive principles by sending troops to Iraq (if there is a chaotic situation such as the present), approving the Keystone XL Pipeline, making major changes to ObamaCare, etc.

Very interesting results in Mississippi this past Tuesday. Thad Cochran, whose position on programs and outreach for black people in his state is likely somewhere between indifference and posturing against them for votes, began openly campaigning for the black vote in his runoff election, with his campaign even taking the (very, very rare for a GOP primary) step of calling out his opponent for racist language. And boy was there a lot of racist language and kissing up to Confederate groups from McDaniel.

I thought this election result was a big blow to Democratic hopes of retaining the Senate. It was a result that few people expected to happen. Even with the fear that McDaniel might win, I am surprised that so many blacks voted for Cochran. I honestly think that Cochran wouldn't have gotten so much crossover support had he not received so much praise from Democrats and the liberal media. (Praise which I have to conclude is entirely insincere, given that nobody ever paid attention to Cochran prior to this race and given the fact that Cochran is a very close ally of the hated Trent Lott and Haley Barbour.)

I really think that McDaniel would have been absolutely toxic in a general election. His rhetoric is far more firery than even Sarah Palin's, but the Nursing Home scandal--more so than any of his policy positions--would have been his biggest liability. Worse than that, Democrats all across the country would be gleeful over the fact that they would tie each GOP senate candidate at the hip with McDaniel (which is what happened with Akin and Mourdock in 2012). While the GOP thankfully won't have that problem, there's still a chance that Cochran could lose if McDaniel decides to run as a third-party alternative. Given how angry he is, I wouldn't be surprised if he does that.

Is it me or is Hillary Clinton just sort of imploding in a slow motion trainwreck way these last few weeks?

The book rollout was nothing short of a disaster. At this point, I would still say that her chances of winning the presidency are more than 50%, but that's only because there is so much more time to go. If some of Hillary's supporters don't think that she could very well be defeated (if this behavior continues), then they are too zealous in their admiration/support of her to be objective observers.

The "dead broke" comment was the gaffe of the year. It may be literally true, meaning that in 2000, on the Clinton's personal balance sheet, their liabilities exceeded their assets. (Similarly, Donald Trump could have made the same claim when he wanted to declare bankruptcy, but everyone would laugh at him if he said he was "dead broke.") Yet everyone knows that the Clintons were going to move into very nice houses (she incredibly even said "houses") and that they had unlimited earnings potential (because people would pay big money to listen to them give speeches). There was zero chance that they would be beggars on the street.

While "dead broke" gets into Mitt Romney territory, the problems are much bigger than that. Because--apart from resentment of the out-of-touch, wealthy elite--the major issue that the Democrats ran on in 2012 was attacking the GOP for being a "pro-rape" party. And so now a decades-old tape surfaces (whose authenticity no one has disputed) in which Hillary coldly brags and laughs about getting a rapist off.

Predictably, Hillary defenders have come to her defense with the following three statements:

*It was an event that happened a long time ago. - Perhaps this might be an acceptable excuse, but then we need to remember that Democrats brought up an incident (that occurred in 1965) in which Mitt Romney bullied a gay classmate in high school. The liberal media jumped on this and made it top news.

*The rape victim still is choosing to remain anonymous. - This is an odd criticism coming from the left, because normally women's rights groups forcefully argue that rape is such a painful experience that its victims are often reluctant to come forward, even after a long time.

*Rapists deserve legal representation. - From a constitutional standpoint, this is 100% true, but this defense is the stupidest one of the lot for Hillary supporters to suggest. Hillary is not running to lead the American Bar Association. Rather, she is running for the presidential nomination of supposedly the most pro-feminist political party there is. And despite the fact that rapists need lawyers, it doesn't excuse Hillary's heartless laughter about the situation.

In regards to both "dead broke" and this rape case, I think everyone knows that if these blunders were made in 2008, it wouldn't have been Republicans leading the criticism of Hillary. Instead, the liberal Democrats would have objected the most strenuously.

Who even bothers to respond to someone that dense? He is so on the lookout for proof everyone is a racist that he couldn't even recognize my sarcastic comment on this very page for what it was. Everyone else in the thread did, but when your prism through which you look at literally everything is "he's a racist, she's a racist, I'm a racist, you're a racist, wouldn't you like to be a racist too?" you can't expect him to appreciate subtleties of english.

Qfan, this is an excellent response.

Acknowledging the behavior of one side isn't denying the behavior of another. That the problem with false equivalence. You're so busy looking for excuses that you skip what gets said and go right to what you imagine is being said. Bush was mocked for things he said and did. The Republicans hate Obama for what he is: young, black, Democrat. They also hate him for what he represents: a world where white men no longer call the shots.

Bush got the same treatment all presidents get. He got mocked when he said and did stupid things. That comes with the territory. That is vastly different than demanding Obama's birth certificate. Especially when you consider that they wouldn't accept it even when they got it regardless of how that meant that they basically called Hawaii's government illegitimate. And don't even get me started on the Tea Party which was formed solely in reaction to a black man running for office.

I'm not even going to play your little game of "Look over there!" by your trying to blame everyone else in Congress for the wars. Funny how every President is held responsible for the military conflicts during their regime except Bush. Do we blame Congress for Korea or Vietnam or any other military conflict we've gotten into? No we give the responsibility to the Commander in Chief. Only in the case of Bush do we have people who suddenly decide that Commander in Chief is a powerless position.

I acknowledged that some conservatives do hate Obama because of his race, and also acknowledged the intense hatred the right had for the Clintons. I mentioned the Bush hatred because you (incorrectly) seemed to imply that the hatred the GOP has for presidents of the opposing party was somehow unique.

You also seem to contract yourself, because in one post you seemed to suggest that race wasn't the biggest reason for the Obama hatred (it was "just the frosting on the hate cake"), but now the opposite supposedly is true because the GOP hates Obama because he is "young, black, Democrat," and represents "a world where white men no longer call the shots."

There are Tea Party members who are racists, but formation of the Tea Party goes beyond opposition to Obama. These people were truly pissed off at the bailouts of the banks and the auto companies, and oppose big government in all its forms. They feel betrayed by Bush (for doing these things, and for running up the deficit), and have developed a deep and destructive hatred of the Republican Party (which ironically has helped Obama). And far from hating all black people, they have eagerly embraced African-Americans such as Herman Cain who have touted their agenda.

And as long as we are talking about race, we have to admit that there are two sides of the same coin: there are people who won't vote for Obama because of his skin color, and there are people who wouldn't otherwise vote for Obama if not for his skin color.

I've already mentioned the substantive policy objections that the GOP has with Obama, so I won't spend time listing those again. If you're convinced that GOP opposition to the president is race based, nothing can be said that can change your mind.

Of course Bush bears the ultimate responsibility for the Iraq War (which is why he has such a bad reputation), but Congress authorized that war, and all those who supported the war in the wake of 9/11 came to the conclusion that Saddam had WMD. However, back in 2008, a lot of progressives certainly did seem to care about the individual members of Congress who voted for the Iraq War. If they didn't care, Hillary would have been the nominee. It's only now that the anti-war left doesn't seem to care, because Hillary is the only electable Democrat in 2016.

Joe Biden has broken the barrier for all plagiarizers. After he became VP, nobody seems to care anymore if one has plagiarized. We can witness this by the fact that Rand Paul wasn't hurt after his plagiarism scandal. Nor will businessman Tom Wolf, the man who is favored to become the next governor of PA, be hurt by it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/24/tom-wolf-plagiarism-_n_5208267.html

The entire republican party ran to rally behind him and say "he fights for us".

Cruz, Paul, Hannity, Dean Heller, and a few others I never heard of do not constitute the entire party. A lot of Republicans were smart to avoid him, and they won't be hurt at all by this debacle.

PS: Obama's color has no bearing on why republicans hate him with a passion.

I think we all know that there are some people who don't like the idea of a black president and that there are also some people for whom the reverse is true. (This is why Obama lost 59% of the white vote in 2012 and also why African-American turnout was at an all-time high last election.) Obama pretty much admitted this in an interview:

“There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black President,” Obama said. “Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I’m a black President.”

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/27/140127fa_fact_remnick?currentPage=all

But in many cases, race doesn't explain why certain people hate or love this president, even though there are people who want to assume otherwise.

In any event, I am surprised that you want to point fingers at "racist" Republicans, Qfan, given that Roman has unfairly demonized you when you have previously criticized this president.

Obama's color is just the frosting on the hate cake. They hate all Democrats. They hated Bill Clinton and tried to de-legitimize his presidency. They hate Hilary too. The fact that Obama is black just ratchets up the hatred and affects how they express it but it goes much deeper than that.

I give you a lot of credit for acknowledging that Obama wasn't the first president subjected to immense hate from the other side. I remember the Clinton hate to be every bit as intense as the Obama hate. Although birth certificates weren't demanded, the Clintons were accused of murder on several occasions (which I think more slanderous than the birther stuff).

And let's not pretend that Democratic partisans didn't show Bush the hate (which goes well beyond Florida 2000). To this day, some fringe nuts can't accept that Bush was legitimately elected in 2004 (as he won Ohio by over 100,000 votes). These nuts were the "tolerant" ones who mocked his (supposed) dyslexia and called him a chimp. And they were also the ones who wanted him to rot in a jail cell for "war crimes," even though Hillary, Reid, Biden, Kerry, and others all looked at the intelligence and came to the same conclusion as Bush did.

I love Elizabeth Warren but it annoys me to see people trying to push her into a presidential run. We need her in Congress. Her and a few hundred more like her. What good would it do to have her in the White House if she ends up with a Congress full of loons?

I certainly don't want Elizabeth Warren as president. But I honestly can't understand this reasoning, as she can obviously accomplish far more of her agenda as president than as a member of Congress. (And the chances of her being replaced by a non-liberal are extremely slim, so her exiting Congress to become president shouldn't be a concern.)

I'm more fascinated however with the new Elizabeth Warren book and all the buzz surrounding her and whether or not she will run for President. Personally I take her at her word that she's not going to run. However Mika B. from Morning Joe is annoying me to no end about Elizabeth Warren and her lil nods and winks. I get it Mika...you're a fangurl for Elizabeth Warren. But lets not pretend like Hillary Clinton isn't popular in her own right and authentic about what she believes in or what a Clinton 16 message would center on.

I think that Hillary is very popular, but only within the more moderate half of the party. IMO, the more stridently liberal half deeply distrusts her because of her allegedly racist campaign in 2008, her husband's legacy of triangulation, her neo-con tendencies, and her Wall Street ties. However, this activist wing of the party knows that Hillary is the only Democratic nominee who can win in 2016, so they'll hold back any serious reservations they have about her until after her election. Although I do think that chances favor Hillary winning in 2016, I just don't see how she can possibly keep the fragile, modern-day Democratic coalition in place through 2020. If she governs as a moderate, she will invite a primary challenge in 2020 (most likely from Warren), but if she moves too far the left in order to appease the Warren wing of the party, she'll lose her appeal to independents.

I think that Warren would love to run for president in 2016 but knows that Hillary would be too difficult to beat in a primary. I am guessing that the purpose of this book is to keep her issues (as well as herself) relevant throughout 2016, and to force Hillary to pay attention to the progressive wing of the party. If Hillary loses in 2016, this book not only positions Warren well for a run in 2020, but also positions herself nicely as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party post-Obama.

I don't know what else to call people who view education with suspicion. That's what the people of Fox news do, sell illiteracy and ignorance to bumpkins. I think it was presidential front runner Rick Santorum who said Obama was a snob because he hoped more people would go to college. Well if a front runner and a Fox favorite can say such an idiotic thing and still be a front runner and Fox favorite, while Bill O"Reilly panders to refugees from an Andy Griffith convention by calling everyone "folks" what do you think me here in Manhattan is going to think of the audience that laps that crap up with a spoon? That they went to Oxford? That they study quantum physics when they aren't busy denying global warming and climate change? Get real. It is a network for idiots.

A lot of people are questioning the value of a college education. It has little to do with being an "idiot." I personally spent over $100K and got a 3.9 GPA at a respected university, only to wind up with a yearly salary that I felt was lower than what I deserved. I then got laid off (as all overhead personnel did) after the company I worked for was acquired by a larger business. Upon looking for other jobs, I can tell you that my degree and GPA meant next to nothing to employers. So, I am soon going back to graduate school, and thus, my whole undergraduate time was a waste. (And the graduate degree may still not lead to a good job; in that case, I will have to study for the extremely difficult CPA Exam.)

If instead, a person decided to skip the enormous cost burdens of college and decided to enter the workforce immediately upon graduating high school, they most likely would have a lot more money than me. Thinking that college is "the only way" is very much an elitist attitude (though I am not suggesting that you necessarily feel this way), and it is also highly outdated, since a college degree really doesn't mean what it used to.

What is wrong with calling people "folks"? It is just a formal way of being polite (that I sometimes use in conversation). I never thought that it referred to rural America. And if it does, so what? Not everybody thinks that big cities are the ideal.

Very little of FNC's airtime is devoted to talking about global warming. I personally disagree with the far-right position that states that global warming doesn't exist. But I also don't agree with the liberal position that seems to suggest that global warming is solely or primarily caused by humans. I personally think there is a middle ground, and that the human effects are combining with natural occurrences in the ecosystem to cause the current climate changes. Sorry if this makes me a simpleton.

Who said I hated FNC's conservative politics, Max? Just b/c I feel they're irrelevant within the landscape of cable news networks, that doesn't mean I necessarily hate whatever ideologies the network espouses. IMO, the issue isn't that they present a news-view that "slants right," as it were. What I mean by "irrelevant" is that they might have a lot to say to the rest that IS important to hear if not for the fact that they tend to be strident to the point of minimizing and ridiculing other views (not just liberal views, mind you, but any views that are directly opposed to those Roger Ailes and his underlings) all while operating under the ironic banner of "fair and balanced." And what they offer on a regular basis is not so much "news" as it is opinions expressed very loudly (but that's something, I think, we could accuse most networks these days of doing).

If I came across as someone who believed otherwise, however, I apologize.

Khan, you needn't apologize for anything. Thank you so much for your explanation.

Rather than being stridently right-wing, I personally wish that FNC would just be a right-of-center network (to serve as a mirror image to the left-of-center mainstream media). However, I'm still glad that Fox News is around, because otherwise there would be no conservative news outlet on the air. I completely understand how you find FNC's stridency and vilification of the other side so repugnant, because that is exactly how I feel about MSNBC.

We'll have to disagree about the concept of irrelevance. FNC's #1 raking is in itself enough to make the network relevant. The network's conservative bias also makes it relevant, because it gives a different perspective than elsewhere on television and because it is consequently hated by many others who disagree with the network's views (though I am sorry for assuming that you hated the network's views). The lower rated MSNBC is also relevant, because it serves as the biggest megaphone for the left. (MSNBC was once irrelevant: prior to Keith Olbermann, it was non-ideological and had very low viewership.) CNN is the cable news network struggling for relevance.

I think that's BS. Any type of position that Elisabeth is qualified for, whether it be on FOX News or one of the main networks, shouldn't involve politics. That day is done for The View. She should've been looking for a fluff hosting gig on one of these networks and let her politics take a backseat. Nobody really cares what she has to say in that regard because she doesn't have a strong enough knowledge for it to matter. Had she played her cards right I could've definitely seen her eventually on the less political The Talk or Today in one of their later hours.

We'll have to agree to disagree, but I don't think that the anchor position on Fox & Friends is a lesser position than being a reporter doing fluff pieces for The Today Show (a position that is far from guaranteed to lead to a main anchor position on that show). And being a panelist on The Talk hardly seems like a step-up, either. (If anything, I think that her Fox gig is better than the other two jobs that you mentioned.) I am personally not a huge fan of Elisabeth's, even though I do agree with her politics. Nevertheless, she has proven to be a benefit to Fox & Friends:

Two Fox News programs, “The Five” and “Red Eye,” posted their best ratings since they launched in 2011 and 2007, respectively. “Fox & Friends,” which saw an anchor change this year, marks 13 years as the top-rated cable news morning show, and has grown in both total viewers and the demo since Elisabeth Hasselbeck debuted in September.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/2013-ratings-fox-news-1-for-12-straight-years-sheds-viewers-too_b208937

When I brought up Stephanopoulos and Cuomo (and their elevation to status as the main anchors of morning news programs), I wasn't trying to compare their talents to those of Elisabeth's. Rather, I was trying to dispel this incorrect notion suggested by many here (though, in fairness, you have not suggested it) that the mainstream media has some sort of raging conservative bias.

And without Rosie Elizabeth was nothing and now she languishes in obscurity on some fake Fox morning show nobody watches except hicks.

Do you realize how snotty and elitist you sound when you dismiss conservative FNC viewers as "hicks"? How is this any better than Palin's insinuation that people in cities aren't "real Americans" (which is something that you have often complained about)?

Ain't that the truth, lol! I loved how everyone involved attempted to spin it, too, as a step up for her career. Since when is a move to a cable "news" network hardly anyone in the media industry takes seriously -- and one, I might add, even its' own board of directors have written off as one w/o growth potential (according to an NPR interview w/ the author of a book about BTS life there, FOX has pretty much given up on FNC ever reaching beyond their old-skewering, ultra-conservative audience) -- an upgrade? Elisabeth would have been better off transitioning to a part-time gig at Sbarro!

I would hardly call an interview conducted on liberal outlet NPR with liberal journalist Gabriel Sherman (whom I am assuming is the author of the book that you are referring to) to be an objective source of information on any business decisions made at FNC. I understand that you hate their conservative politics, but whatever Fox News is doing certainly seems to be working, as they are trouncing their competition. Would you instead recommended that FNC adopt the "highly successful" business practices of MSNBC and CNN?

I feel like Fox News was an easy choice for Elisabeth since we all know she was getting fired, but it wasn't the smart choice. I feel like now she's stuck with it, whereas she should've tried to get a gig on NBC or CBS doing a fluff part of one of their newscasts.

I'm sure that going to FNC is easier for Elisabeth as opposed to going to one of its competitors. However, Elisabeth should be cut some slack for this because she had a thankless job at The View for a great many years (as the person the liberal panelists and audience loved to hate).

Regardless of how "pathetic" some feel her new gig at Fox & Friends is, it is a step-up from being a correspondent who does fluff pieces for the networks. Perhaps she did try to get an anchoring gig for a morning show at a "respectable" network, but the allegedly "conservatively-biased," mainstream media has a habit of only hiring Democrats for those types of jobs (e.g., George Stephanopoulos, Chris Cuomo).

I wouldn't be surprised if The View is cancelled within a few years (assuming that ratings fall after Barbara leaves). Losing Elizabeth and Joy have been big blows, and the show seems less relevant to the nation's political and cultural discussion. A cancellation will also allow ABC to expand GMA to three hours.

I'd forgotten about him too.

That pouty Our Gang face Kristen Alderson makes does not wear well.

Oof that scene is awful.

Some worthless scriptwriter took "Don't Take Away The Music" a little too literally.

LOL!

+1

I had totally forgotten about Baz until reading about him on another message board. Here's some typically dreadful RC dialogue:

Definitely some of Baz's mannerisms and characteristics found their way into GH's equally terrible Felix. (For instance, Baz gloating about how great his music is reminds me of how Felix crowed over what a superb job he would do with the Nurses' Ball.)

"classicdaysof80s" has posted some great 86-87 AW episodes, such as these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFIjqFx8yN0

Comments:

*After reading the synopses on the AWHP, I think that these two episodes aired around 5/15/87.

*For those who care, Brad Pitt makes an appearance at around the 21 minute mark.

*There are some really tense scenes involving Donna and the Hudson Brothers. A dark secret between Donna and John causes major tension.

*It's too bad that Reginald wasn't on the show longer. While I usually don't like campy characters, I always thought that AW did a better job with such over-the-top characters than any other soap. (For one thing, AW's OTT characters were usually portrayed by really good actors. Also, AW often involved the likes of Cass and Felicia in many realistic storylines.)

*M.J. was a boring character, but I enjoyed Adam.

*The Sin Stalker attacks Felicia.

No. It's the free market in action. Conservatives love the free market until it works against them then they cry about bullying.

They better get used to it. Since SCOTUS has seen fit to decimate decades worth of campaign finance law people are going to be paying a lot more attention to who funds what causes and past donations are going to be used against people in the present.

When conservatives talk about the free market, they mean that people are free to choose from among different alternatives, and that the company which puts out the best product should be the leader in a particular business segment. This is a far different idea than a group of people deciding to boycott a company because they disagree with the political beliefs of a CEO (who never discriminated against anybody in the workplace).

Nevertheless, I'm glad that you brought up the "free market in action" argument, since I have seen that elsewhere on the internet. A huge problem with this "justification" can be illustrated with the Phil Robertson (who, unlike Eich, is a truly contemptible character) incident: liberal groups threatened a boycott of A&E if Robertson remained on air, so A&E banned him (not because the network actually cared about gays, but because it was concerned about its image), and the liberals said this was an instance of the free market at work. Then, the subsequent backlash was far greater, so A&E lifted the ban. How many liberals then stated that A&E's action (to lift the ban) was also a demonstration of free market principles? And if Mozilla later decides to reinstate Eich as CEO (to appease those who may later decide to boycott Mozilla as a result of their anger), will you be OK with that, because that too represents a case of the "free market in action"?

Not too surprised to see Bill Maher, who has made a career out of sneering contrarianism (and is also a huge sexist and generally guaranteed to pollute and sour the side of a debate he's involved in), railing against the "gay mafia." This is why the "gay agenda" talk is so laughable. Many of those up high, or who think they're up high, always love to spit on gay people, to show how cool and hip they are.

I thought that Bill Maher's joke was in extremely poor taste, and was shocked that somebody so liberal would say such a thing. But I was also shocked that somebody as staunchly liberal as Maher would be offended at what happened to the Mozilla CEO. (And the fact that people such as Sullivan and Maher are upset screams volumes at just how extreme an overreach this was.)

More from Andrew Sullivan:

As I said last night, of course Mozilla has the right to purge a CEO because of his incorrect political views. Of course Eich was not stripped of his First Amendment rights. I’d fight till my last breath for Mozilla to retain that right. What I’m concerned with is the substantive reason for purging him. When people’s lives and careers are subject to litmus tests, and fired if they do not publicly renounce what may well be their sincere conviction, we have crossed a line. This is McCarthyism applied by civil actors. This is the definition of intolerance. If a socially conservative private entity fired someone because they discovered he had donated against Prop 8, how would you feel? It’s staggering to me that a minority long persecuted for holding unpopular views can now turn around and persecute others for the exact same reason. If we cannot live and work alongside people with whom we deeply disagree, we are finished as a liberal society.

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/04/dissents-of-the-day-63/

Is OKCupid really an "outside bullying group"? They were the main ones pushing this.

From the language that OKCupid used (taken from that NY Times Blog), it certainly sounds like bullying (if not worse), to me (especially the part where the organization wishes "failure" to those who oppose gay marriage).

For example, OkCupid, a popular online dating service, set up a letter, visible to those visiting its site on Firefox, that castigated the chief executive. “Mozilla’s new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples,” the letter said. “We would therefore prefer that our users not use Mozilla software to access OkCupid.”

The letter, which has since been removed, concluded that “those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure.”

Interestingly, OKCupid needs JavaScript (which was developed by Brendan Eich) in order to function. So apparently the hypocrites at OKCupid don't want Eich to be employed as CEO but have no problems using "homophobic" technology.

And a number of articles pointed out that it *was* people within Mozilla who applied pressure.

There certainly were people in the company who didn't like him, but he also had supporters as well. If there wasn't a lot of outside pressure, it is highly doubtful that he would have been forced to resign, especially in light of the fact that he was CEO for only a couple of weeks.

Andrew Sullivan's screeds are IMO an embarrassment. This has nothing to do with Hilary Clinton, and Hilary Clinton, as far as I know, HAS repudiated her past view on gay marriage, so what is he even talking about?

Hillary Clinton is running for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, so she has to reverse course on gay marriage for political reasons (and nobody really knows how she truly feels on the matter). If Eich were a Democrat running for office, or the leader of a gay rights organization, then he too would need to repudiate past opposition to gay marriage. But instead, he was the leader of a technology company, so the only thing that matters (apart from his qualifications) was whether he discriminated against homosexuals. And I have heard of no such evidence that indicates he did. (Besides, if Eich did flip-flop on gay-marriage in order to save his ass, I highly doubt that his detractors would believe him.)

DRW, I believe that Sullivan's point was that Eich's $1,000 donation (which is still pretty paltry, and certainly did not mean the difference between Proposition 8's success or failure) had such minimal impact to gay couples when compared to the enactment of DOMA during the Clinton Administration. The fact that the Clintons have since recanted (for political reasons) doesn't undo the big setback that DOMA represented to supporters of gay marriage.

Hear hear. Agreed. The way he is being made into a martyr disgusts me. I am the first to say that the LGBT community needs to learn to choose its battles, but let's be real here. He chose to donate to that cause. He is now being held accountable for that. And then he chose to resign. Isn't the right all about choices and taking personal responsibility? He did what he did and now he is dealing with the effects.

I would think that passing ENDA and getting gay marriage approved in all 50 states would be far more pressing battles for the gay community than the ouster of a conservative CEO (which strikes many as petty and vindictive). I can also understand Sullivan's point that picking such battles does more harm than good for the cause of gay rights: for instance, this week also saw Mississippi enact legislation similar to that vetoed by Jan Brewer, yet almost nobody talked about it, because the egregious forced resignation of the Firefox CEO got so much more publicity.

If CEO's need to take personal responsibility for a paltry (when you consider the total amount spent) $1,000 contribution to Proposition 8 and resign, then I fail to understand how this "logic" fails to apply to any CEO who ever donated that amount (or more) to a candidate opposed to gay marriage (and who still opposes it). And why stop at the CEO? The other senior officers also represent the company, so they too should resign if they ever made a donation that offended a certain group of individuals. The problem is that now that precedent has been established (for terminating somebody's employment as the result of an unpopular political belief), we have no idea how far this practice will go. (Yes, I know that the CEO technically wasn't fired, but he wouldn't have resigned unless he was coerced into doing so.)

The firefox is very aggravating and I too agree with Sullivan. The man's personal beliefs are HIS OWN. He's allowed to spend his damn money on whatever causes he wants to even if I don't personally agree with or support those causes. So long as he was bring money and talent to the BUSINESS (Mozilla) I don't see why he should be singled out and then lose his job over this.

I was really sickened by this news as well, Prince, especially when there was zero evidence that he ever discriminated against gays in the workplace. This was nothing less than a McCarthy-like witch-hunt.

I actually agree with Andrew Sullivan:

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/03/the-hounding-of-brendan-eich/

The guy who had the gall to express his First Amendment rights and favor Prop 8 in California by donating $1,000 has just been scalped by some gay activists. After an OKCupid decision to boycott Mozilla, the recently appointed Brendan Eich just resigned under pressure:

Will he now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks? The whole episode disgusts me – as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society. If this is the gay rights movement today – hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else – then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us.

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/04/brandon-eich-and-hillary-clinton/

Some of the very same people who have jumped up and down with delight as Brandon Eich lost his job will doubtless be backing Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 if she runs. The “Ready for Hillary” ranks are crowded with gay men – and good for them. But it’s worth considering some consistency here. If it is unconscionable to support a company whose CEO once donated to the cause against marriage equality, why is it not unconscionable to support a candidate who opposed marriage equality as recently as 2008, and who was an integral part of an administration that embraced the Defense Of Marriage Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton? How do you weigh the relative impact of a president strongly backing DOMA – even running ads touting his support for it in the South – and an executive who spent $1000 for an anti-marriage equality Proposition?

Watching the Republican reaction to the ACA signups has been the highlight of my day. It reminds me of the way I felt when they called Ohio for Obama in 2012.

I'll never understand the political mindset that simply refuses to accept bad news. Nobody wins all the time yet the GOP can never admit when it's lost. They lost this battle. They lost it everywhere and in every way. They lost in the legislature when they tried to stop it. They lost in the courts when SCOTUS upheld it. They lost at the ballot box when the guy who promised to repeal it on day one got his ass handed to him by voters. They lost when they shut down the government to defund it. They lost when 7.1 million people signed up and every time somebody signs up they lose again.

It's not like there haven't been losses on the other side: the employer mandate, the contraception mandate, etc… so the GOP needs to take the victories it got and accept reality.

Because of the big headline, today is a good day for Democrats (in terms of perception) and a Republican shouldn't act otherwise. I am very skeptical about just how "good" this 7 million number is--such as whether all of these people have paid their premiums or whether that number includes some people who were previously insured but were kicked off their insurance due to the ACA--but we won't know the answers to these matters for some time.

I certainly don't see how the GOP lost every ObamaCare battle "everywhere and in every way." As you alluded to, the GOP scores a victory every time Obama caves and delays the employer mandate. Also, the Republicans weren't the ones who lost when the disastrous rollout occurred, or when many became very upset over the president's broken promise that if you like your insurance, you can keep it. And yes, while not the only factor, the ACA did play an important role in the defeat of the Democratic candidate in a congressional district twice won by Obama.

The issue of ObamaCare (and how drastically it will change) is an issue that I don't see getting resolved until the outcome of the 2016 election. (Today's news did not put an end to the debate, nor will the likely GOP takeover of the Senate later this year.) A GOP president will make major changes to ObamaCare (although full repeal probably won't happen), while a Democratic president will pretty much leave it alone. In my opinion, the desire to maintain the ACA goes a long way towards explaining why nobody from the far left is protesting the nomination of Hillary (because most know that she is the only Democrat who can win).

Max, what you think.....just doesn't matter.

Roman, I've given up trying to change your view that my opposition to the president is "racist" in nature. But I was deeply disturbed to see you suggest that Qfan might disapprove of Obama for racial reasons. (At least that is how I interpreted your comments. Please correct me if I am wrong.) Qfan is a very fair person, and is also somebody who is quite liberal. If one thinks that a liberal who twice voted for Obama is some sort of "racist," then that is beyond sad. Dismissing those who voted against Obama as doing so "because they don't want a black man as POTUS" was bad enough.

No way. Crimea is not worth a major war over. American kids should get killed because the Russians want back a piece of Russia Kruschev gave away?

Here is something that will be unpopular: America sent 300,000 troops into Iraq, another 100,000 into Afghanistan, we helped oust the regime in Libya, we stuck our two cents in Egypt and told their president he had to go, and we do many of these things against the wishes of the UN. When we do it it is painted as reclaiming our sovereign rights and not genuflecting to the new world order. Putin sent 6,000 troops across his border, literally into a country right next door filled with Russians...and this is a crime against humanity for daring to go against the UN and using military force to achieve a goal. Well, that is what the US has been doing every decade since WW II ended. The US has in the past ousted democratically elected governments and installed dictators (which is why Iran hates us) and because we write the history books we are the good guys.

Let Russia and Ukraine settle their own business. It's not worth a single american life.

If it were just Crimea, then it wouldn't be worth a major war over. But the thing is that Putin could have Hitler-esque potential (which Hillary seemed to allude to when she compared Russia to Nazi Germany). Once Putin seizes Crimea (which seems inevitable at this point unless troops are sent), he probably won't be appeased, but instead will want more and more. If he acquires too much of an empire, the result could be World War III. And, of course, far more bloodshed would happen then as opposed to a war in Crimea that would take place today.

But yes, I understand that mostly because of Iraq (and also Afghanistan to a lesser extent), the public wants no troops in Crimea. Yet just because a preemptive war was a mistake once doesn't always make it the case.

Presumably a Democratic President would stop it, but we don't know what will happen with the White House after 2016. I just saw a prominent GOP Congressman praising what happened in Crimea.

DRW, thanks for sharing that article, but as it mentions, that Congressman thankfully was in the tiny minority regarding his views on Putin. If history is any indication, nobody that extreme could ever win the GOP presidential nomination, but if somebody like that ever did get nominated, he would lose the general election.

This isn't going to be popular, but I actually think that the U.S. should send many troops to Crimea, because I think that is the only way to stop Putin. Few potential presidents (even those well to the right of Obama) would be willing to do this, however, because the American public is so against it.