I admit, this one really shocked me, even more than Maine. What else surprised me was that it wasn’t even that close a vote:

The State Senate defeated a bill on Wednesday that would legalize same-sex marriage, after an emotional debate that touched on civil rights, family and history. The vote means that the bill, pushed by Gov. David A. Paterson, is effectively dead for the year and dashes the optimism of gay rights advocates, who have had setbacks recently in several key states.

The bill was defeated by a decisive margin of 38 to 24. The Democrats, who have a bare, one-seat majority, did not have enough votes to pass the bill without some Republican support, but not a single Republican senator voted for the measure. Still, several key Democrats who were considered swing votes also opposed the bill.

Mr. Paterson made an unusual trip to the Senate floor minutes after the last vote was cast, saying, “These victories come and so do the losses, but you keep on trying.”

True, there are wins and losses, and yes, we just have to keep on trying. But there are some agencies against which we are fighting that will be difficult to overcome:

The state’s Roman Catholic bishops, who had actively lobbied against the bill, said they were pleased by the vote.

“While the Catholic Church rejects unjust discrimination against homosexual men and women, there is no question that marriage by its nature is the union of one man and one woman,” Richard E. Barnes, the executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, said in a statement. “Advocates for same-sex marriage have attempted to portray their cause as inevitable. However, it has become clear that Americans continue to understand marriage the way it has always been understood, and New York is not different in that regard. This is a victory for the basic building block of our society.”

Not quite sure how I can read that as anything other than being unjust, but that’s just me Still, this was not the overriding factor:

In the end, it was not an issue that broke down along racial lines, or even religious and agnostic divisions. In fact, nine of the Senate’s 11 black members voted in support of same-sex marriage.

“When I walk through these doors, my Bible stays out,” said Senator Eric Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat who compared the law preventing same-sex marriage with laws that kept blacks and whites from marrying. “I believe there are certain moments here where we can benchmark our lives by the votes we took.”

The debate was as personal as any to take place in the Senate chamber in years. Senators spoke of their experiences as Jews and Baptists, as blacks and women. They spoke of spending long nights contemplating their votes and the deceased gay friends and relatives who inspired their decision.

Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson, a Democrat who represents parts of the Bronx and Westchester County, spoke publicly for the first time about her gay brother, who was shunned by her family and moved to France.

“He had disappeared from our lives. And my father worried, but he could not ask him to come home,” she said, fighting back tears. Ms. Hassell-Thompson said she searched for her brother and eventually found him and asked him to come home. But he told her he was hesitant because he felt his family did not want to see him. “I said, ‘But your sister does.’ ”

Hold on, I need a moment…

Okay. Unfortunately, not everyone felt similarly:

State Senator Rubén Díaz Sr. of the Bronx made an impassioned argument against same-sex marriage, describing his continued opposition as reflecting the broad consensus that marriage should be limited to a union between a man and woman. “Not only the evangelicals, not only the Jews, not only the Muslims, not only the Catholics, but also the people oppose it,” he said.

Senate Republicans had said before the vote that they believed their members could provide a few votes for the bill.

“There may be a few, that’s very possible,” said Senator Thomas W. Libous of Binghamton, the deputy Republican leader. “Everybody’s feeling is get it on the floor and let’s vote it up or down. It’s been talked about enough. Let’s get it done. I think it’s going to be very close.”

Ms. Krueger said before the debate began that she was optimistic the bill would pass, but added, “It depends on whether Republican votes are delivered.”

But, as it turned out, not close at all.

New York has now joined a growing club:

Had the legislation passed, New York would have become the sixth state where marriage between same-sex couples is legal or will soon be permitted. But now that it has failed, New York becomes the latest state where gay rights advocates have made considerable progress only to see their hopes dashed.

Last month Maine became the 31st state to block same-sex marriage through a referendum. The Maine State Legislature had voted to legalize same-sex unions earlier this year, but opponents of gay rights gathered enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot.

Last year, California voters repealed same-sex marriage after the State Supreme Court said that gay couples had the right to marry.

Unlike in Maine, however, New York does not have a referendum process that allows voters to overturn an act of the Legislature.

The State Assembly had already approved the legislation, and Gov. David A. Paterson had said he would immediately sign the bill if it made it to his desk.

Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, the Assembly voted 88 to 51 to allow same-sex marriage. Though the Assembly has already passed the bill twice, a quirk in New York’s legislative code required the Assembly to pass the bill again before the governor can sign it.

As the vote approached advocates on both sides of the debate were pushing ahead with a last-minute effort to shore up support.

“We’re working it as hard as we can,” said Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, a Democrat who represents the Upper West Side and who supports same-sex marriage. “It feels very good right now. It feels like its going to happen. But this is an issue where some people don’t want to declare themselves until the last minute. And I think, believe it or not, I think there are one or two people who are really still torn.”

Demonstrators on both sides of the issue were relatively scarce in the Capitol on Wednesday. A small group of Orthodox Jews gathered outside the Senate chamber, one of them holding a sign that read “Gay Union/A Rebellion Against the Almighty.”

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of Monsey, N.Y., said he traveled to Albany to remind the Senate “that the world belongs to the Almighty, and they have to reckon with his rules and his law.”

As John L. Sampson, the Senate Democratic leader, walked into his office on Wednesday morning, he flashed a thumbs-up to same-sex marriage supporters standing a few feet from the protesters. But Mr. Sampson acknowledged he did not know how the vote would turn out.

“I’ve got my work cut out for me,” he said.

So do a lot of us, apparently.

And it doesn’t stop there: A Surprisingly Dark Day For Gay Rights In New Jersey. Just next door to New York, the LGB community is engaged in a battle that they may not have expected:

Support for gay marriage in Trenton is draining away like water from a tub as nervous legislators scurry towards safer political ground.

“I can’t say I’m confident now,” says Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), a lead sponsor. “I think we still have a pretty good chance. But people are getting nervous and weak-kneed.”

Bad as that sounds, know that Weinberg is spinning this as best she can. Several other senators, supporters and opponents, say the movement is all but dead.

“They’ve lost the momentum,” says Sen. Kip Bateman, a Somerset Republican who considered supporting the measure until last week. “I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

So mark this as a black day for the cause of gay rights in New Jersey. Marriage equality was supposed to be the big prize, the final measure of respect, a sign that gay families were indeed equal under the law.

Instead, gay couples and their children are getting another ugly reminder that their families are regarded as second-class, as something less than the families next door.

Gay activists are bitter about what they see as betrayal. Democrats, especially Gov. Jon Corzine, told them over and over to wait for this moment.

And now they are getting tepid support, or none at all.

“Many of us in the progressive movement just want to throw up,” says Steve Goldstein of Garden State Equality, the state’s leading gay rights group. “Democrats put out one hand out to ask for money, and with the other they stab you in the back.” (Emphasis mine.)

This is a refrain that is becoming more and more common from the LBG community. Many within the community are waking up to the realization, one shared by many women, that the DNC could care less about them, simply paying lip service and nothing more. Obama picking a homophobic, anti-choice chair for the DNC pretty much says it all.

Back to Trenton:

So what changed in the last month? Why did supporters get so nervous?

For one, Corzine’s big loss has Democrats rattled. Republican Chris Christie united his party, and did well in Democratic strongholds like Middlesex County. He didn’t emphasize the gay marriage issue, but when asked, he promised a veto.

Democrats were rattled again when voters in Maine rejected gay marriage in a referendum, the 31st state to do so.

Perhaps most important, the Roman Catholic Church in New Jersey threw its muscle into the fight. Bishops and priests spoke against it from the pulpit, and more than 150,000 parishioners signed petitions in opposition.

Several legislators said they were impressed by that show of strength, given that Catholics make up more than 40 percent of the state’s population.

“Any time you see that kind of passion, you have to pay attention,” said Sen. Jennifer Beck, a Republican from Monmouth County. “You’re elected to be the voice of the people who voted for you.”

Finally, there were discouraging noises from Sen. Steve Sweeney, a South Jersey Democrat who will take over as Senate president in January, replacing Sen. Richard Codey (D-Essex).

Sweeney suggested that the legislature should leave this issue aside for now, and focus instead on the economic crisis. It was pure political nonsense, because the legislature is not even considering major economic bills.

But the signal was sent.

Indeed, and it is one that seems to be appearing all too often these days. And the result is all too predictable:

So the senators began to peel off. Codey found himself counting heads to reach 21, the magic number to win passage. He couldn’t get it from Democrats, so he reached out to Republicans.

“Codey called me,” Bateman says. “I’m told they (Democrats) have 14 or 15 votes on this. I told him they have one or two (Republicans) at most.”

At tense moments like this, most politicians behave like herd animals. They are careful not to stray far from the pack. And if one of them gets rattled, everyone runs.

What we have on our hands today in Trenton is a bunch of scared herd animals. And it’s not a pretty thing to watch.

Only 2 percent of voters said this is the most important issue to them. And these skittish Democrats are almost all in gerrymandered districts that were drawn to ensure they win by large margins.

Ask senators privately what would happen if they all voted their consciences, and you get the same answer over and over: It would pass with votes to spare.

But our leaders, these puny men and women, are too scared to stand up and be counted.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could drum up a voter backlash against that?

Oh, I think a backlash is coming on a bigger scale, but for now, the message is all too clear: Members of the LGB community are not equal.

And then there is someone who SHOULD have said no, and that would be noted Homophobe, Pastor Rick Warren, he of Obama’s Inauguration fame. Pastor Warren is getting notice for what he would NOT do:

Rick Warren Refuses To Condemn Proposed Ugandan Law Executing Gay People

That would be President Obama’s friend Rick Warren. Rick Warren who says he even ate dinner with a gay couple once. Rick Warren who says he doesn’t hate gay people. Funny, then, that Rick Warren refused to condemn Uganda’s proposed legislation to executive people for being gay and HIV positive. From Newsweek via Box Turtle:

But Warren won’t go so far as to condemn the legislation itself. A request for a broader reaction to the proposed Ugandan anti-homosexual laws generated this response: “The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts endowed by God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations.” On Meet the Press this morning, he reiterated this neutral stance in a different context: “As a pastor, my job is to encourage, to support. I never take sides.” Warren did say he believed that abortion was “a holocaust.” He knows as well as anyone that in a case of great wrong, taking sides is an important thing to do.

Oh, I’d go one further. Rick Warren has taken sides before. He did it with Prop 8. On the side of the haters. But now he won’t do it when they’re talking about executing gay people? Why, because it’s a foreign country and Rick doesn’t get involved in foreign politics, only our own? Yes, I remember well when Jesus told us all to be good Christians only in our own backyard.

I don’t remember that passage and I have read the Christian Scriptures a number of times. Oh, wait – that’s because it isn’t in there. And, I don’t remember Obama speaking out about that practice, either. Birds of a feather he and Warren.

It’s hard to even know what to say at this point. It really is. It is just hard to live in a country in which so many people are willing to discriminate against you. I totally understand why the brother of the NY State senator moved to France. I, too, hope to end up living somewhere in which people see me as fully human, and where my almost 14 yr relationship is deemed as worthy under the law as other of my fellow citizens. A place in which I am not just treated as equal, but seen as equal. Heaven knows, that would be some change I could believe in…

Now, here’s a video of Obama greeting Beyonce on January 18th at the Lincoln Center concert. To view the particular video, you have to scroll back to January 18th – by putting your mouse cursor in the middle of the LEFT side of the video screen and clicking back, back, back to January 18 — to see the video that the TV news networks are a’twitter about. Wait for Obama to show up and chat it up with Beyonce about her song and his daughters.

The gospel truth? I’d never heard of John Legend until I saw this video on TV today, but I made it to his Web site and figured out how to post this video! I’m so proud of myself! But I still haven’t heard John Legend perform, and doubt I will.

Obama’s reference to Justin is to Justin Timberlake’s spoof performance on Saturday Night Live, when Timberlake apparently wore an outfit like Beyonce wears in her music video of the song.

It’s kind of amusing to see these people thrilled out of their minds while they wait for Obama to show up. Then it’s even more amusing to listen to Obama talk like the folk. Boy oh boy. (Do you think he ever talks like that in other settings? Surely not in the Sit Room briefings, right? I’m laughing.)

NOW BACK TO THE BEST PART, Ann Lewis’s letter today (and, yes, that’s a photo of Ann Lewis):

Because you were such a strong supporter of Hillary’s presidential campaign, I wanted you to be among the first to know about an exciting new, non-partisan organization: NoLimits.org.

Inspired by Hillary’s speech in Denver, when she said “With our ingenuity, innovative spirit and creativity, there are no limits to what is possible in America,” we formed NoLimits.org so that we can continue working together on the issues that are important to us.

NoLimits.org is a new community dedicated to speaking up, sharing ideas and solving problems in our communities, our cities, our states, and our world. It is about empowering one another through our common experiences to address the challenges before us.

We’ll keep you up to date with news about issues on which Hillary took a lead and we know you care so much about, like health care, equal pay, an economy that works for the middle class.

But NoLimits.org isn’t a political organization — it’s a community. And that means we need your voice to make it a success!

Click here to join today.

Since the campaign, we have heard from so many of you that you want to stay in touch with the friends you made. Whether we worked close to home or traveled across the country, we came away with a renewed sense of what we could do to make a difference.

You told us you want to go on making a difference, and you know we can all do more when we share ideas and find ways to work together. (It does take a village, after all.)

We’re at the beginning of a new era for our country. We have come so far! Let’s keep working toward the values and goals we share – a better future for every child, from every family; a world in which No Limits is not just our goal, but a reality.

Let’s take this journey together. Join us!

Sincerely,
Ann Lewis

What else is going on in your hip little world?

Because of the extreme cold, the musicians were forced to use a taped version of their performance. It’s quite a fascinating story:

First, here’s a great photo from the New York Times of the performers:

Now for the New York Times story, via Memeorandum.com, on why the musicians had to go with a pre-recorded performance:

“Frigid Fingers Were Live but the Music Wasn’t”

[...]

The somber, elegiac tones before President Obama’s oath of office at the inauguration on Tuesday came from the instruments of Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and two colleagues. But what the millions on the Mall and watching on television heard was in fact a recording, made two days earlier by the quartet and matched tone for tone by the musicians playing along.

The players and the inauguration organizing committee said the arrangement was necessary because of the extreme cold and wind during Tuesday’s ceremony. The conditions raised the possibility of broken piano strings, cracked instruments and wacky intonation minutes before the president’s swearing in (which had problems of its own).

“Truly, weather just made it impossible,” Carole Florman, a spokeswoman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, said on Thursday. “No one’s trying to fool anybody. This isn’t a matter of Milli Vanilli,” Ms. Florman added, referring to the pop band that was stripped of a 1989 Grammy because they did not sing on their album and lip-synched in concerts.

Ms. Florman said that the use of a recording was not disclosed beforehand but that the NBC producers handling the television pool were told of its likelihood the day before.

The network said it sent a note to pool members saying that the use of recordings in the musical numbers was possible. Inaugural musical performances are routinely recorded ahead of time for just such an eventuality. …

[...]

While not all music critics agreed about the quality of the piece, some took note of the frigid circumstances for the performers. And the classical music world was heartened by the prominent place given to its field.

Mr. Perlman said the recording, which was made Sunday at the Marine Barracks in Washington, was used as a last resort.

“It would have been a disaster if we had done it any other way,” he said Thursday in a telephone interview. “This occasion’s got to be perfect. You can’t have any slip-ups.”

[...]

“I really wanted to do something that was absolutely physically and emotionally and, timing-wise, genuine,” Mr. Ma said. “We also knew we couldn’t have any technical or instrumental malfunction on that occasion. A broken string was not an option. It was wicked cold.”

Along with admiration for the musicians’ yeoman work in the cold, questions had swirled in the classical music world about whether Mr. Ma and Mr. Perlman would use their valuable cello and violin in the subfreezing weather. Both used modern instruments. Mr. Ma said he had considered using a hardy carbon-fiber cello, but rejected the idea to avoid distracting viewers with its unorthodox appearance. …

The musicians wore earpieces to hear the playback.

UPDATE/CORRECTION?: Thanks to reader LDP doing some more digging, we now believe that Jay-Z and Young Jeezy exhibited their crude behavior at a concert Monday night called “Jay-Z’s ‘Concert On The Eve Of Change’.” See photos. Lovely. (He performed his apparently revered new hit song, “History,” which I’ve added at the end of this post.) Get this: He charged big bucks for tickets, which scalpers quickly scooped up. Via sohh.com:

The “affordable” tickets reportedly sold-out in a matter of minutes.

Only the highest online bidders will have the chance to see the hip-hop superstar honor the new president-elect. The cheapest seats for the show, located in the balcony of Washington’s Warner Theatre, cost between $195 and $375 depending on the view. Those disappeared from Ticketmaster in less than five minutes after going on sale at 10 a.m. Friday. (CNN)

In light of LisaB’s great article earlier today, “The ‘racist’ angle, going forward,” I have to ask how this disgusting, utterly vulgar trash talking by “Young Jeezy” and “Jay-Z” at one of the Tuesday night inaugural balls (!) — featured in a segment on The O’Reilly Factor — is not also racist. Racism, contrary to the high-minded assumptions of the elite mainstream media and academia, is not a one-way street.

As I researched this story, I found more and more must-read items, and this story goes clear back to Obama’s behavior during the Democratic primaries. So, let me distill all below into a few succinct key points:

     1) During the Democratic primaries, candidate Barack Obama evoked the motions and style of Jay-Z in order to mock and demean Hillary Clinton. Obama’s gestures — unfamiliar to us who aren’t into hip-hop but instantly understood by all who are into that “music” — were summed up in a great article published at No Quarter, “Obama Invokes Jay-Z: ‘Stab the Ladies…Middle Finga To The Law’.”

     2) Jay-Z is regarded as an “A-list” celebrity, even by the so-called MSM.

     3) Not only that, Jay-Z was awarded the privilege and protection of an official police escort this week in Washington, D.C. (although we don’t know who picked up the tab for that).

     4) Jay-Z attends the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball — which means he was invited (!) — with his pal Young Jeezy, and the two tear up the place with a racist rant that essentially flaunts black power because they have a black president.

     5) During the Neighborhood Ball, Jay-Z and Young Jeezy pitch a nasty, foul-mouthed fit that they’re not asked to perform at the Ball.

     6) We learn that Jay-Z, along with Arcade Fire, has been chosen by the top administrators of the Obama campaign staff to headline a special concert for the hardest-working Obama campaign staff in D.C.

     7) We therefore conclude that, while on Inaugural Day, the Obamas danced to the more elegant Beyonce, they are still promoting the filth and misogyny of Jay-Z and other “performers” of his ilk, just as they did during the campaign.
Above all else, what Jay-Z and Young Jeezy sell is misogyny, sexism, and the objectification of women, as well as dangerous hatred of all other races except blacks. Ironically, sadly, those sales are made to a lot of white, Asian and Hispanic kids.

Here are some sample lyrics from Jay-Z and Young Jeezy are below (brace yourselves). There are more lyrics like this:

How We Ball In The Club, I Know You Hate It
Mommy Dancing On The Floor, All Like She Naked
When She Lay Down With You, I Know She Fake It
All The Girls Give It To Me, I Ain’t Gotta Take It …

Then there are these “lyrics” from Jay-Z’s song that inspired Obama’s gesture, captured on YouTube (seen at the end of this story), towards Hillary Clinton:

If you feelin’ like a pimp nigga, go and brush your shoulders off
Ladies is pimps too, go and brush your shoulders off
Niggaz is crazy baby, don’t forget that boy told you
Get, that, dirt off your shoulder

Now for all the details of the above summary. First, this segment was aired on Bill O’Reilly’s show Wednesday night:

Bill O’Reilly didn’t have the whole story. Not by a long shot. First, there are these remarks by YouTube channel owner (Mark1 Williams, a black man) whose video is below:

and jayz had the nerve to act like his feelings were hurt when he wasn’t asked to perform. these are grown men for god’s sake. *shaking my head*

So Mark Williams believes that Jay-Z behaved like this at the ball Tuesday night. You’ve now seen our update above. We just aren’t sure which night it was. But the point that Williams made was that Jay-Z was acting out furiously because he wasn’t invited to perform at the inaugural ball? Jay-Z is an arrogant racist and a misogynistic blowhard afflicted with stunted emotional growth.

BELOW is the un-censored video of Jay-Z’s antics at the inaugural ball Tuesday night, posted by YouTube channel owner Mark1 Williams. STRONG WARNING: The language is very raw, so prepare yourself before you click and, if you’re sensitive to such vulgarity, skip it:

Not that you’re likely to want to see more, but if you do, here’s a link to more such videos from Tuesday night and from those two, uh, performers.

NOW GET THIS. While researching this story, I discovered that Jay-Z has no reason to pout for not getting to perform at the inaugural balls since he is performing, along with Arcade Fire, at an exclusive private party for key Obama campaign staffers as a “thank you” from the campaign. Bill O’Reilly didn’t have this either, even though it’s published by the NYT reporter who spewed bile on Hillary Clinton, Adam Nagourney, at the New York Times Caucus blog as well as at PitchforkMedia and other media outlets. PitchforkMedia praises “Jay and the Arcade Fire [who] both campaigned hard for Obama. … [T]his should be an incredible show, and it seems a fair bet those staffers will hear that “My President is Black” remix at some point.

Oh wow. Don’t we hope. That “My President is Black” remix? It features not only Jay-Z but his partner in filth, “Young Jeezy.”

Isn’t it great that our new president is treating his hardest-working campaign staffers to these sleazeballs?

Do you recall the great article we posted on Jay-Z by Laluchasigue? It’s this article: “Obama Invokes Jay-Z: ‘Stab the Ladies…Middle Finga To The Law’.”

Here’s the history behind Jay-Z that O’Reilly left out of his program Wednesday night:

Obama mimicked Jay-Z during the campaign to connect with hip young black voters and — and! — to denigrate Secretary Hillary Clinton, along with, let’s face it, all women since these two are clearly misogynistic. Shockingly, Obama was willing to stoop to Jay-Z’s level to get votes. So, actually, what took place at the Tuesday inaugural ball is in part Obama’s own fault because he legitimized these foul-mouthed lousy performers by mimicking them, especially in rallies dominated by black voters. Wrote Laluchasigue:

Obama’s invocation of Jay-Z’s defiant “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” battle anthem during the same speech adds evidence to the claim that he gave Hillary the finger.

Obama’s gesture prompted a mash-up video that made the Jay-Z/Obama connection explicit. Ari Melber, the other Obamabot named Ari at The Nation, posted the video on The Nation’s website, noting, “Obama really is a Jay-Z fan, too. When asked which hip hop artists he likes in a recent interview, he said, ‘lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Jay-Z — this new American Gangster album.’”

Sigh. Yeah. That American Gangster album is da bomb. Great taste, Mr. President. Just great. And what a fine example to the nation’s youth.

Dennis Miller is correct, in the O’Reilly segment, about the two young men being unable to “ratchet down the hate.”

But let’s face it. If those two didn’t have white people to hate, and women to trash, what in the hell would they have left to rap about?

And I LOVE what Miller says about the term “ho’s” versus “hose.” (That’s another strong theme in this kind of “music” [I use the term reluctantly] in that it is also misogynistic and constantly regards women as objects whose sole function is for the gratification of male sexual pleasure.)

Quite frankly, their “music” is nothing more than crudely dysfunctional emotional ejaculation and has nothing to do with the deepest needs of all psychologically healthy human beings, which are to connect emotionally as well as physically.

This kind of language, and what it conveys, has no place in our society. Racism can, and does, affect ALL races.. And the speech of Jay-Z and Young Jeezy is racist against whites, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian Americans.

It makes me sick to my stomach that young people are spending money — most likely their parents’ hard-earned money — to make rich brats out of these thugs. It repulses me that young people are reveling in the music put out by disgusting hate-filled people like these two. Bill O’Reilly’s minimization of their impact is woefully wrong. The truth is that far too many young people are listening to music like this.

Can we have a little class, please. Is that too much to ask? A little more Beyonce and no more Jay-Z?

Naturally, the vast majority of blacks yesterday rejoiced in the inauguration of the nation’s first black president. But there were a few who used the occasion to preach hate and racism against anyone who’s not black like them.

President Obama must do all he can to set these young thugs straight, and to discourage young people from imitating their behavior and adopting their sickening attitudes.

Perhaps President Obama can begin by not emulating them in order to win a presidential election.

I finished the above story but it kept bugging me. So I searched the news for more reports.

This is by an LA Times reporter for its arts section, “The Culture Monster,” who spotted Jay-Z in the morning:

I walked to the southeastern edge of the Capitol this morning with my sister and a friend. They held blue tickets for the swearing-in ceremony; mine was green. We parted at the corner of Independence Avenue and South Capitol Street. And while I progressed rather quickly through a battery of security checkpoints and found my seat around 9 a.m. — well before a parade of celebrities including Jay-Z (wearing a gigantic, Yeltsin-esque fur hat), Beyonce and Maria Shriver swept past me toward their seats nearby — they stood motionless in a massive block of people that went nowhere. They ultimately gave up after standing in line for four hours.

Here’s another not-too-deep report, “Leonardo DiCaprio Joins Beyonce, Jay-Z, and More at Neighborhood Inaugural Ball.”

And last, this from the San Francisco Examiner:

How the mighty have fallen – Jennifer Lopez locked out of Jay-Z show at Obama Inaugural

[...]

Real A-listers like Jay-Z, who was getting around town with a police escort, and Alicia Keys had been warned to make it to balls and other celebrations up to four hours early to make it past the snarled traffic and tight security. Even Leonardo DiCaprio and Toby “Spiderman” Maquire were there early. …

Got that? Jay-Z is a “real A-lister” who gets a “police escort” — and who’s paying for that? The taxpayers of Washington, D.C.? And who ordered that he merited a police escort? I’d like to know who arranged that. Was it an Obama staffer? And why?

My jaw has dropped so many times while writing this article that I can’t find it anymore.

So a misogynistic, foul-mouthed creep like Jay-Z gets A-list treatment, a police escort, and a lead in the entertainment for Obama’s most prized campaign staffers? And he served as a role model for Obama to capture the black vote?

What world am I living in?

The one thing I do know is that it’s not my world or my country. It’s not my family’s world. It’s not my mother’s world (she’d be shocked beyond belief by this article if she were alive to read it).

Down is up.

Class is trash.

And I’m glad that I chose to stay away from that campaign and that candidate, if those are the celebrities and the “talent” he chooses to reward.

I’ll stick with the one who should be president.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Now there’s real class.

But remember this video. That crowd got exactly what Obama was doing:

That gesture comes from these lyrics:

[Chorus: Jay-Z]
If you feelin’ like a pimp nigga, go and brush your shoulders off
Ladies is pimps too, go and brush your shoulders off
Niggaz is crazy baby, don’t forget that boy told you
Get, that, dirt off your shoulder

[Verse One]
I probably owe it to y’all, probably to be locked by the force
Tryin to hustle some things, that go with the Porsche
Feelin no remorse, feelin like my hand was forced
Middle finger to the law, nigga grippin ma balls
Stab the ladies they love me, from the bleachers they screamin
All the ballers is bouncin, they like the way I be leanin
All the rappers be hatin, off the track that I’m makin
But all the hustlers they love it just to see one of us make it
Came from the bottom the bottom, to the Top of the Pops
Nigga London, Japan and I’m straight off the block
Like a running back, get it man, I’m straight off the block
I can run it back nigga cause I’m straight with the Roc
=

Just remember, as if I have to repeat it, from above:

“Obama really is a Jay-Z fan, too. When asked which hip hop artists he likes in a recent interview, he said, ‘lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Jay-Z — this new American Gangster album.’”

What an example to the nation’s children our new president is.

UPDATE on “Jay-Z’s ‘Concert On The Eve Of Change’.” (H/T to LDP, who did some more digging, and found out that Jay-Z probably performed those antics at the Monday night concert he held. See photos. Lovely. (He performed his apparently revered new hit song, “History,” which I’ve added at the end of this post.) See sohh.com for more background on the concert.

NOW HERE ARE SOME of the lyrics to his lauded song, “History” — I note that “defeat” is a woman, but of course:

Known for his clever usage of metaphors, Jay compares Obama’s victory to his yearning and frustration over a woman.

“Until she visit me/I’ll be stuck with her sister her name is defeat/she gives me agony/I‘m
stuck in this routine/whole new different day/same old thing/all I got
is dreams/nobody else could see/nobody else believes/nobody else but
me/Where are you victory/I need you desperately/not just for the
moment, to make history.”

The song, which debuted on Angie Martinez‘s Hot 97 radio show in New York City, comes after months of Jay’s personal endorsement of Obama at concerts, rallies with fans throughout the nation and exclusive Obama benefit shows. 

Read all here, including more on songs by others on Obama’s victory.

The second segment below gets into the complex nature of the issues surrounding the commitment to close Guantanamo Bay:

But the grown-ups? Oh, their reactions are all over the map. First things first: Here’s the New York Times’s interactive page about the speech with both video and transcript.

Timothy Egan writes for the New York Times, in “Man In A Hurry“:

He seemed to stumble, just for an instant, in the gallop to get over the threshold during the transfer of power, after Chief Justice Roberts flubbed the words of the most powerful paragraph in the land.

Taking the oath of office on Lincoln’s leather-bound bible, in a capital partially built by slaves, Barack Obama was a man in a hurry in an hour of peril. In that spirit, he was a man who had already memorized a few lines that another had not.

Thus, he moved quickly, in an 18-minute speech, to the theme that will carry or break the new president: sacrifice. The easy, the lazy, the days of quick riches and shortcuts, of excuses personal and political – over, he declared.

Now, for more reactions from across the board. First up is Bush’s former speech writer, then comes a gushing Chuck Schumer:

First, a bit more from Egan, who writes great non-fiction books, by the way. His latest, which won the National Book Award, was on the great Dust Bowl, another catastrophic American experience that never gets mentioned nearly as often as the Great Depression:

All great speeches, in their essence, are big stories, crafting an American narrative. “We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” as Joan Didion said. And to govern.

As a writer and creator of a family narrative that allowed him to live with a unique background, Obama knows this. So there was no laundry list of policies to come. And almost no mention of that most overused of personal pronouns – I. …

Read all: “Man In A Hurry.”

I am not always a fan of Drudge, but this image was startling — at first, I thought it was an image of some third-world country disaster.

And Drudge asks, “NOW WHAT?”

I wanted reasons to get on board, reasons to join those other 84%.

Today, you did not succeed.

This entire country, Dems and Repubs, want you to succeed, yet you have squandered the moment in the interest of keeping expectations low. If we wanted low expectations and whining we would have chosen Dennis.

We are Americans and we want to shoot for the moon, we want incredibly high expectations that we can beat, because we always do.

In the car just now I listened to BBC world on NPR. It was 3 AM for the brits. They described the speech as “somber”.

The English called you somber!!

Don’t sell America short President Obama. Give us impossible goals and we will shatter them. Give us nothing and that’s what you’ll get back.

cross posted from Partizane

While I did not want to deprive anyone of their joy in crossing this barrier, I cried as I realized that I couldn’t help but wish for them to have a better, more sincere hero upon whom to bestow the honor of this historic election.

For the record, I always felt NoQuarter took Barack Obama to task because we truly had and have deep problems with his tactics, his competence and his veracity; not just because we were trying to get our gal or the other guy elected.

While I too have deep respect for the office of the President, and a deep love of our country, I cannot pretend that suddenly giving him carte blanche on the day of his inauguration, declaring a new dawn and a new day, is the way to go.

I certainly respect those who wish to do so. Due to the crisis in which we find ourselves as a nation, there is an urgent sense that we need to pull together to get through this, to say the least. However, having stated that, our current situation smacks of what Naomi Klein talks about in her book “Shock Doctrine.”

She writes very effectively about how the powers that be, and we now know that includes Democrats as well as Republicans, set up a crisis situation, mire Americans in fear, so that out of our fear, we have no choice but to “pull together” and do what those in authority tell us we “have to do.” They count on us getting tired, giving up and going home. Or that we will be too overwhelmed by our current circumstances to offer any other solution.

In this inaugural festival, in the interest of huddling together to stay warm, we are now, however unintentionally, giving President Obama a pass on the entire last year. I am sorry, but I cannot.

Last year, women got kicked in the teeth by the media and the Democratic party, as well as certain male candidates. I feel like an abused wife who was slapped around every day and everybody else saw it and now a lot of people out there are pretending it didn’t happen, for the good of the country.

I am not a fan of revisionist history, nor do I believe the ends justify the means.

I wish to remind everyone that we are always in some sort of crisis. If it ain’t 9/11, it’s Katrina, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or the markets, or Israel or the housing bubble and on and on. Let’s use George Bush as a cautionary tale.

Please remember 9/11, when a fairly new President, already waning in the polls, suddenly gained a 90% popularity due to this horrible crisis, which he used to take us into Iraq — and screw us with it. And he recklessly squandered the world’s good will toward us to the bargain.

There is always a good reason to “pull together” so we can “survive” but in the process, we back off of holding people’s feet to the fire for putting us in that crisis in the first place.

Until we stop that vicious cycle, it will continue to repeat itself and our votes will mean less and less and our rights will continually diminish.

In this fast food nation, we are bombarded by the next scandal and the next disaster to the extent that we can’t keep it all straight — and accountability tends to go out the window.

If we are not going to insist upon FEC investigations for President Obama’s questionable internet contributions, if over 2,000 instances of caucus fraud, egregious about-faces on critical policy positions such as FISA, along with sexism, and mixed messages to the gay community are now to be given a pass — well, forgive me, we can hold hands all we want but that will not improve our current lot as a nation. We are setting the stage for yet another President who suffers no consequences for his actions.

I respect that we are tired of the endless Bush bashing. However, if someone had bothered to take a closer look before he ever took office, we might not be in this mess today. We allowed the Supreme Court to pick our President. There should have been a full recount in Florida. The American people should have insisted upon it. That way, win or lose, the pall of “illegitimacy” would not be hanging over him and us to this day.

Further to this, while we have no choice but to move forward, I don’t wish to feel like I am being blackmailed by the current crisis into support for a disingenuous man. Watching the news lately, there is an “Inauguration Frenzy” – we have elected a “brand” more than a leader. And spending an obscene amount of money on this weeklong party during this horrid economic time is unconscionable to me. It feels irresponsible to take part in such a celebration no matter how I might wish otherwise.

NoQuarter has been one of the only safe places one can come to talk about this – and the need to vent has not dissipated. Just the other day, President Obama backed off of yet another promise – an executive order to reverse President Bush’s halt on stem cell research. Now he wants to leave it in the hands of Congress. Who knows how long that will take? It is another terrible blow and a backtrack on his campaign rhetoric.

I wish I could pretend President Obama is starting with a clean slate. But after two years of campaign promises which seem to be very elastic, to say the least, he is going to have to PROVE himself out from behind the eight ball. Not the other way around.

George Bush was given a lot of mulligans and look where we are now. While there is plenty of blame to go around for this in both parties, had we had genuine, effective, HONEST leadership, we might not be in this situation today. Those who ignore the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them.

Please. Let us not be guilty of this. While I always will love my country deeply and certainly support the office of the Presidency, this man does NOT get to start with a blank slate. I promise you, it is a gross error to offer him one. While I will never attack for attack’s sake, I will use prior ‘bad acts’ as a frame of reference if another one rears its head now that he has assumed office. Likewise, I will offer praise if it is warranted. I deeply wish for America’s success so I will wait patiently and for all our sakes, hold a slim hope that a pleasant surprise is possible.

I am grateful for the opportunity to voice this. And that I have become a more active citizen. For us to be successful as a people and to overcome our current situation, we need to be far more diligent, regardless of party, to holding everyone to a high standard; including ourselves as citizens of this great country. If we do not remain vocal and participate to change what we feel is unjust, if we do not stand up and shout from the highest hill, our leadership will assume our consent, and continue along their merry way. There must be accountability, from us as well as from our elected representatives. All of them. And bygones are not bygones.

I am likewise grateful that NoQuarter is a place to freely express dissent. A principle this country was founded on.

I’m opening the live chat room @ 15 to 20 minutes before the show starts, so come on over and join in the chat! So get there early, and log in to our LIVE CHAT ROOM.

I’d like to thank Grace Slick & Jefferson Starship for the inspiration for this post.

By the time the sun goes down on the East Coast of these United States today, it will be over. The oaths will have been taken, the speeches will have been made, the bands will have marched and the coronation of His Royal Majesty Barack I …ooops, I mean the Inauguration of the 44th President Barack Obama will be just about finished, except for the balls that night. Now lucky me, I have to work that day so I will miss all of the fawning and bowing done by the main stream media. But many of you will be home, with your TV’s, radios and computers on and we know how you feel about PEBO. So starting at 7:30 tonight, the floor is yours. Welcome to the “Inauguration Tomato Tossing (Escape the MSM’s all-Obama-all-day-long)” hosted by yours truly Jay from “No Topic Taboo…Everything Else with Jay.”

By the time evening comes, everyone round here will be sick of it all so we will open the radio and open the phones for your vent, rant, rave or whatever. You are welcome to call in with questions and comments any time during the show. Dial in to (347) 677-0792 and turn down your computer volume since you can listen to the show for the brief time you’re on hold.

I hope to have some of our NQ writers and other radio hosts join me (hint, hint, this is an open invite) and I have a verbal commitment from LD who will talk about the economy and what lies ahead for the new administration.

But everything is on the table. The events of the day, check. Caroline and the NY Senate seat. Sure. Want to go off politics all together because you are sick of it, why not? It’s going to be your show, I’m just the guy with his hands on the steering wheel. But we can’t do it without your calls or your emails. You can email your comments to me at my show email: ntteewithjay@me.com.

Oh and near the end expect a visit from my friend, The Nocturnal Warrior who will give us a preview of his show that airs at its regular 9PM Tuesday slot. Think of me as the pre-game show for The Warrior, and I plan on joining him on his show…if my voice holds out. I have my regular show to do in my regular Wednesday night slot.

So be there Tuesday, January 20th, 7:30 p.m Eastern Time, a day that no mater what side of the coin you look at will live in history. And then stick around for The Warrior.

NOW, BELOW, THAT POLL FOR THE 2nd and 3rd BESTEST PRESIDENTS of the 20th and 21st centuries EVAH! 

Here’s the one speech I wish we had on video. (Although I do remember a hot post that went ’round the Internet about five to six years ago. Someone claimed to have audio of Lincoln giving a speech. Some of us were very skeptical, and looked up the history. I forget now, but the very first audio recordings didn’t get made until at least 20+ years after his death [or thereabouts]. As I recall, this one ended up being officially debunked at Snopes.com.).

But at least this video shows drawings of that great day (and the speech is below):

Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Speech

Fellow-Countrymen:

AT this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest.

All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.

It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time,

He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.

Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Perhaps someday a president will emphasize women’s right.

(1) My question: Where did this girl learn to talk to her father like that? Just wondering … (as I chuckle wickedly to myself) …

Obama’s Daughter On Inaugural Speech: “It Better Be Good”

As the final preparations are made for his historic Inauguration on Tuesday, pressure is mounting for President-elect Barack Obama– including from his own children. Speaking to the Washington Post, Obama gives an account of his family “field trip” to the Lincoln Memorial where there is an inscribed copy of the 16th President’s famous Second Inaugural speech. At this point, Obama’s 7 year-old daughter Sasha asked her father if he would be giving a similar speech. Obama describes the interaction to the Post:

“And I said, ‘Well, actually, that’s a short version, but yeah, I will,’ ” Obama recalled. “And then Malia says, ‘First African American president — it better be good.’
“So I just want you to know the pressures I’m under here from my children.

The family’s “field trip” was a symbolic gesture to Lincoln, to whom Obama has frequently been compared. Obama’s children clearly have equally or even higher expectations of their father. This sets them somewhat apart from their mother, who throughout the campaign has insisted that her husband is merely human. Ta-Nahisi Coates, in the January/February Atlantic delves into this quirk extensively, explaining why Michelle Obama was initially viewed as an “Angry Black Woman” during the campaign and why that really isn’t the case at all. The article gives an enlightening account of the value the Obamas place on family. …

(2) SensibleWoman e-mailed this story to me. She noted in her e-mail, “It aggravated me to listen to Rick S. ‘calling out’ Joe the Plumber (whom we all KNOW isn’t a journalist) after going through the ’08 Election year NOT getting enough info from those we THOUGHT were journalists.”

The thoughts of Rick Sanchez, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you ask me.

(3) Did you know that film legend and environmental activist Robert Redford is an enemy of the poor, and a racist to boot? Nope? Me either.

Protesters label Redford an enemy of the poor
Oil and gas drilling » Clergymen link famed moviemaker’s stance to racism.

Hollywood’s Sundance Kid is hurting poor people.
So say some East Coast ministers and conservative activists, who took to the streets in front of a downtown Salt Lake City theater on the eve of Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival to accuse the actor of holding down low-income Americans with his opposition to oil and gas drilling near national parks in Utah.
The protesters, led by the Congress of Racial Equality’s national spokesman Niger Innis, suggested Redford should “relinquish his wealth” and live like a poor person. They complained that the filmmaker’s anti-drilling stance could lead to higher energy prices for inner-city residents, forcing them to accept a lower standard of living.
The clergymen prayed for Redford “to see the light” and linked his environmental activism with racism.
“The high energy prices we’re going to see this winter are essentially discriminatory,” said Bishop Harry Jackson Jr. of the Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., chairman of the High-Impact Leadership Coalition, a petroleum industry advocate.
A month ago, Redford, a trustee of the National Resources Defense Council, voiced support for a federal lawsuit aimed at blocking the Bush administration’s “morally criminal” attempt to auction 103,000 acres of scenic redrock desert for oil and gas drilling near Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Dinosaur National Monument. …

And what else is going on in the world?

In the nation’s capitol, on the brink of history, the hour approaches …

If January 20th marks the “brink of history,” what have we been living in so far? And won’t the Visigoths, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Mesopotamians be just a little bit ticked off to be left out of history, particularly by Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, and David Shuster?

Another favorite of mine is “new beginnings.” If it’s a “beginning,” it’s necessarily new. I.e., the phrase is ridiculously redundant.

Okay, that out of my system, here’s a video about a nice, sweet man from Illinois about whom a great fuss was made and for whom police were called, until today when, all of a sudden, he was before the Vice President of the United States, being sworn in as a U.S. Senator:

Just kidding. It was sweet today to see him touch his name plate next to the door to his new Senate office. And the excitement in the faces of his family. PEBO erred on that, but Harry Reid paid the price. But, at least in the end, it came out the way it should have for U.S. Senator Roland Burris (D-Ill.).

And what else is going on in the world? And Illinois? Any new scandals?