All joking aside, yesterday was a major victory for those of us who think the federal government has no right to tell us who we can and cannot live and share our life with. Afterall, the pesky marriage licenses at the center of this debate were first issued to prevent interracial marriages.

Historically, all the states in America had laws outlawing the marriage of blacks and whites. In the mid-1800’s, certain states began allowing interracial marriages or miscegenation as long as those marrying received a license from the state.

The reality is that this is not a federal issue. It’s a state issue and should remain such. For instance, gay marriage would be perfectly acceptable to the majority of the people in California, but most likely not in Wyoming. It was for this reason why more than a few, including my favorite John McCain, broke ranks and voted against the proposed ammendment. The feds already allow states to ignore marriage licenses from other states so why does it matter that “civil unions” are legal in New Jersey? Wyoming and the many other backward thinking states can just ignore such licenses issued by New Jersey.

I don’t so much view this as a victory for gays as I do see it as a victory for privacy and states rights.

Definitely check out Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, which covers the Fox News Channel’s decidedly right leaning news coverage. The trailer is hysterical and I’m looking forward to my copy arriving. The documentary includes internal memos, interviews with former employees, etc. “Fair and Balanced” my ass.

A new Bush plicy is starting to be used throughout government and it’s been properly licensed from The Donald. People in government who speak out against Bush policies or are critical of actions taken by the White House are being either forced out of office our outright fired for their criticisms. Just ask former U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers who was fired recently for criticising a lack of funding and support for our Nation’s parks.

“The American people should be afraid of this kind of silencing of professionals in any field,” she said. “We should be very concerned as American citizens that people who are experts in their field either can’t speak up, or, as we’re seeing now in the parks service, won’t speak up.”

National Park Service officials said Chambers broke rules barring public comment about budget discussions and prohibiting lobbying by someone in her position.

Shouldn’t she be the one lobbying for more funding if she sees a glaring lack of it? This makes no sense and appears, at least to me, to be politically motivated. Personally, I’d like to know ahead of time from the people in charge that we need more funding, more officers, etc. I’d also like it if they weren’t fired for telling me such things.

Ever since Bush’s crappy foreign policy, horrible stance on the environment and the consisten eroding of my rights made me mad I’ve been shopping for a political party to register as and vote for. Easy you say. Wrong. Both Democrats and Republicans play to special interests, generally abuse the government and, overall, suck. So who do you vote for?

You vote for a viable alternative.

The Libertarian Party is an interesting hybrid of the Democratic and Republic platform, most of which are common sense. The end result is a great platform that includes all sorts of things I agree with and a few I don’t.

1. They would eliminate the income tax. How? By drastically reducing the size of the federal government. This includes ending military welfare to defend countries like Japan and NOT bailing out failing industries.
2. They promote the legalization of drugs as a way to both reduce crime and reduce tax burden (no war on drugs means we don’t have to pay for tons of DEA agents).
3. Privatize the running, control and operations of federally protected lands to such environmental groups as the Nature Conservancy.
4. Abolish foreign aid.
5. Abolish Social Security. I like this idea the more I think about it. Let ME invest my money how I see fit – I don’t need the government’s help.
6. They aggressively believe in freedom of speech, which includes staunch support for the free and unrestricted use of cryptography and censorship.
7. Abolish the current welfare system.

All of the above makes a ton of sense to me. Who better to run our nation’s parks than the tree hugging hippies? How better to get rid of the violence the drug trade produces than to make it legal? The running theme throughout the entire platform is that the people who vote Libertarian do so because we trust people to run their own lives. It’s a party that promotes responsibility.

They have a great ad on their site that says the following.

I’m George W. Bush and you can trust ME to run your life.

…

I’m John Kerry and you can trust ME to run your life.

…

I’m Ralph Nader and you can trust ME to run your life.

…

I’m Michael Badnarik and I trust YOU to run your own life.

Classic. So this year I’m voting for the Libertarian Party and I highly suggest you look into it as a viable alternative.

The 9/11 commission is standing next to their findings that al Qaeda and Iraq had only limited connections. Cheney and Bush have both insisted, publicly, that Iraq and al Qaeda had a working relationship and that “we don’t know” if they were involved in 9/11.

“After examining available transcripts of [Vice President Dick Cheney’s] public remarks, the 9/11 commission believes it has access to the same information the vice president has seen regarding contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq prior to the 9/11 attacks,” the commission said in a written statement.

That statement comes in the wake of an interview Cheney gave last month on CNBC. During that interview, Cheney said “we don’t know” whether Iraq was involved in the attacks. Asked whether he had information the panel did not, the vice president said, “Probably.”

After Cheney’s statement on CNBC, the commission asked the vice president to come forward with any additional information he could provide about any ties between al Qaeda and Iraq.

I’ve got a couple of questions …

1. Why does the VP have more information on 9/11 than the 9/11 commission?
2. If it would clear the air with regards to apparent contradictions between what the 9/11 commission found and what the Bush administration said leading up to the war in Iraq as well as comments made since the commission’s report, then why wouldn’t the administration give the commission said information?

The answer to that could be as easy as they don’t have any more information and are simply trying to confuse the public with doublespeak. I hope this isn’t the case, since there are over 3000 families out there that deserve to know all the facts.