Today’s edition of quick hits.<\/p>\n
* Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) had hoped to score some points with the GOP base for his presidential campaign by filing a lawsuit that would have forced a constitutional ban on gay marriage on the state ballot, over the objections of the legislature. Today, the state Supreme Judicial Court rejected<\/a> Romney’s case.<\/p>\n * Remember in October when Nevada gubernatorial candidate Jim Gibbons (R) was accused of assaulting a cocktail waitress in a parking garage? Now he’s Gov.-elect Gibbons and he’s received some good news<\/a> — Clark County District Attorney David Roger said there was insufficient evidence to prove criminal charges against Gibbons “beyond a reasonable doubt.”<\/p>\n * Ohio Gov. Bob Taft (R) hasn’t been nearly as fortunate. The state Supreme Court voted Wednesday to publicly reprimand<\/a> Taft over his ethics violations, a black mark that will stay on his permanent record as an attorney.<\/p>\n * David Wallis makes the argument that Barack Obama’s middle name really will matter<\/a> in 2008. How sad.<\/p>\n * Today’s must-read is this fine column<\/a> from Tom Schaller about his recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery. It’s very sad, of course, but it’s definitely worth reading.<\/p>\n * Speaking of sad, war-related essays, also be sure to check out a first-person story<\/a> written by Muhammad Abdel Kader, 36-year-old Iraqi coffin maker. It’s heartbreaking.<\/p>\n * With all the talk about earmark reform, Christopher Hayes reminds us in The Nation about why “tax earmarks<\/a>” — tax breaks inserted for the specific benefit of a given industry or group of parties — are just as big a problem as pork-barrel spending, if not more so. * For all the concerns we have about government invasions of privacy in this country, it sounds like Britain has even more serious<\/a> “Big Brother” concerns.<\/p>\n * I think more journalists should do columns like these<\/a>, in which they look back and consider arguments\/observations they got wrong.<\/p>\n * And, finally, several far-right blogs are all aflutter about a picture that allegedly “proves” that troops avoided John Kerry during his recent visit to Iraq. Shaun at Upper Left, a Kerry fan, sets the record straight<\/a>. John Cole, who doesn’t even like Kerry, also has some compelling thoughts<\/a> on the subject.<\/p>\n If none of these particular items are of interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today’s edition of quick hits. * Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) had hoped to score some points with the GOP base for his presidential campaign by filing a lawsuit that would have forced a constitutional ban on gay marriage on the state ballot, over the objections of the legislature. Today, the state Supreme Judicial Court […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n* If you haven’t seen the graphic novel<\/a> created by the National Rifle Association, you’re missing out.<\/p>\n