Frank Schubert, consultant for the Yes on 8 campaign should understand that people have a right to their voice in the ballot box. Yes, marriage equality has been defeated twice in the last eight years but the margin has become narrow since the two campaigns. However social conservatives have been defeated on parental notification on abortion three times with propositions 73, 85 and 4 and California has said no each time.

It does not seem rational that in May 7th’s Los Angles Times, Frank said “What part of ‘No’ don’t they understand?” about putting marriage equality on the ballot when the parental notification people still carry on. Attitudes are changing across the nation and social conservatives are afraid of the reality of the North Eastern states that made marriage equal.

H/T: Calitics

As a Republican it is rare to see a California Republican state legislator to support legislation positive to the LGBT community. One of Karen England’s assistants was not pleased that Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria was supporting the bill SB 572 in the Education Committee supporting the establishment of Harvey Milk Day in the state of California.

Even though Senator Maldonado may have "nothing to lose" by staying away from the orthodoxy of the Republican Party because he crossed the line endorsing tax increases to solve the Republican Party, those who live in California should send a letter of appreciation to the senator from the 15th district. 

The bill was previously vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger because he believed that Harvey Milk should have been commemorated in San Francisco only, but it’s agreeable when Senator Leno said the Milk movie made the struggle of Harvey Milk a national issue.

People do need role models to counter the spite and malice that goes around society. Karen England says we need to focus on academics not holidays on each special interest group, but due to the bullying in our school house walls it is difficult for these students to even concentrate on academics. Sadly Karen England wants to trivialize the accomplishments of Harvey Milk just because he is a gay man.

Harvey Milk was inspirational to many people because he gave thousands of gay youth a reason to live.  The opposition may not be happy that Harvey Milk was one of the first leaders to defeat one of their measures to discriminate against LGBT people. Traditionalist activists such as Lou Sheldon and Karen England may think if students learn about historical figures such as Harvey Milk, impressionable youth will catch the gay and turn queer. However these individuals don’t realize that being gay is not like catching the N1H1 flu virus.  Harvey Milk gave the LGBT community hope in the quest for equality during his short life.

It seems that ‘pro-family’ organizations just want to keep the fuel of ignorance and prejudice just to make a buck. If bullying of gay and lesbian students ended they would not have new foot soldiers to feed their bank accounts and activist army. It is abhorrent how organizations such as Capitol Resource Family Impact paint themselves as being the victim of hate and intolerance from the gay community when their activism does not paint themselves as perfect angels when children such as Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover at age 11, hung himself because he could not endure any more anti-gay taunts. Even if children do not identify as gay, this abuse has got to end.

Ending anti-gay harassment is about academics, all children deserve a quality education no matter what race, and creed or sexuality a child may be. Harvey Milk Day may be a symbolic gesture to show to the people of California the accomplishments of a martyred civil rights activist. Before there was President Obama there was a leader thirty years prior that taught California about hope.

From a commenter on a Malkin blog post.

1F is a very cynical joke. Since it is currently illegal for the legislature to pass an unbalanced budget, this proposition is meaningless. It seems that the legislative game that calls corrections to inflated projected budgets ‘cuts’, has so confused the legislature that they do not even understand they have a legal requirement to submit ONLY BALANCED BUDGETS!

So a Yes vote on 1F is just symbolic. Guess I might vote NO on all of the measures on May 19th.

Senator Specter (D-PA) changes his affiliation to the Democratic Party. The Republican Party brought forth a big collation to attain a majority in 1980 when he first was elected 29 years ago which included centrist to liberal legislators such as Arlen Specter to conservatives such as Jesse Helms.

The Republican Party became more polarized over time and the caucus moved more to the right where even Vermont’s own senator Jim Jeffords left the party in 2002 and became an Independent to caucus with the Democratic Party. The only two North Eastern centrists that lurk in the party are the Maine Republican women of Collins and and Snowe.

Yes, we need to follow the fundamentals of fiscal responsibility. But we need to ditch the reliance on bashing the queers and Mexicans for votes. I think I see the writing on the wall, if the Republicans want to be a party of the nation, they need to understand reality. If we want to represent the North East and the West Coast we need to moderate our views on social issues. It’s the base stupid!

We follow the same old playbook and fumble each time, politics is about addition not subtraction if we want a winning collation we got to adapt with the times. We are facing a possible generational realignment in the political culture, the traditional Republican base is dying off, and the vote share is going down. The youth voted for Obama 66 to 32 in 2008, compared to 61 to 30 in 1984 while white voters are going down from 88 percent in 1988 to 74 percent in 2008. And I do understand why Steve Schmidt discussed his support for LGBT equality in his speech to the Log Cabin Republicans, its the demographics. Young people do understand that intolerance is not cool and they will likely shy away from a political party that treats their family members and friends like they are second class and irrelevant.

Immigration is the other wedge issue that will cause a wider vote share to the Democratic Party. The Republican Party had its modern day Southern Strategy in 1994 with Proposition 187 which polarized Latino voters and caused many of them to stay away from the Republican Party. Even though many Latino voters may be socially conservative, they avoid the Republican Party because they are mean and used them as a wedge issue. Even though we are against illegal immigration, we should advocate for legal immigration because without people immigrating America would not be as successful as it is today. Wedge issues have a shelf life and they are increasingly coming close to expiration.

Yes, we do need to maintain a two party government. However when the Republican Party establishment refuses to adapt with the times we are seeing the shrinking margins in congress become wider since they last lost the majority in the 1950s. We need an opposition party to stand up against the Democratic Party. Take a look at California, with a caveman dominated Republican caucus where voters would rather elect Democratic party legislators because Republicans are just basically mean even though Democrats can not balance budgets and lead us to massive budget deficits. We need to be an effective opposition so we can be the checks and balances to prevent an one-party state or national government.

With the Republican Party having no leaders, no cohesive message and by relying on knee jerk reactions we are still stuck in the political wilderness. We need a majority first before we can make things happen, when the base’s dogmatic reliance on staying the course makes the job easier for the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party has a majority because they have conservative leaning legislators in states and regions that lean conservative economically or socially. The Republican Party needs its own liberal to centrist influence in communities and states who would not elect someone who is socially conservative. The Big Tent must return.

By becoming socially inclusive, fiscally responsible by advocating small yet responsive government the Republican Party can return to form. If we could fix California by assembling a new collation we could bring the Republican Party back to life. 

Cross posted from: Orange Juice

Yes, its another post on animal welfare. I do have a soft spot for animals and I think we should utilize preventative measures in preventing Parvo.

What is Parvo?

Parvo is a viral disease that attacks the lining of the digestive system of dogs and especially puppies. Diarrhea, vomiting and lethargy are some of the symptoms that come from the disease.

Parvo comes from fecal matter of infected dogs.

Problem is with shelters they need to separate the infected animals from the general population so innocent bystanders do not get infected.

There should be proactive measures such as using disinfectant so the shoes from visitors would be cleaned up just in case if people stepped into Parvo infected stool.

There should also be pre-screening so we can find out who is infected immediately before anything happens.

And holding 3-4 dogs in 1 kennel is irresponsible. It gives more chances for Parvo to infect the canines. 

Sadly it may be time for our state legislators like State Senator Mcleod and Assemblywoman Torres to come up with regulation so we can prevent drama over dead animals.

We should focus on the quality of the lives of the animals who live in this shelter in Pomona. Who cares what the interior of the facility may look like, we need to expand it so more cages can be built. We should also figure out if the organization needs to stop accepting new cities for animal control.