New Hampshire House Rejects Gay Marriage Bill

gay marriage

In what comes as a surprising twist the New Hampshire house has rejected a new bill which would have legalized gay marriage. Its particularly surprising not just because its well… New Hampshire but also because the house had already approved a previous bill legalizing gay marriage which was ultimately vetoed by the governor. Not to mention the fact that the New Hampshire senate had passed the new bill. Here’s how the AP described it:

A divided New Hampshire House has refused to go along with changes the governor demanded to make his state the sixth to allow gay marriage. Instead, it voted to further negotiate with the Senate.

But let’s not get our hopes up about this one. It seems they aren’t necessarily being held up by wether or not gay marriage should be legal but instead are arguing about protections for churches who refuse to perform marriage ceremonies for gay couples.

The AP story is extremely light on details but the vote totals show how divided even the New Hampshire house is over gay marriage so take a gander…

I’ll try to update when more info comes out about the exact reasons why the New Hampshire house didn’t pass this bill.

Illinois House May Vote on Blago Impeachment Next Week

According to the Associated Press:

The Illinois House could vote as early as next week on whether to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

The Illinois House has bumped up its schedule and will meet several days next week. They had been set to reconvene on Jan. 12.

This comes as a little bit of a shock to me. After they showed no political back bone a couple weeks back I figured they would never actually vote to impeach Blagojevich. Maybe the Burris appointment and the circus that followed it has made them think twice?

But I still doubt this will come to anything execpt maybe another tent in the circus. You see, while it only takes a majority of the house to impeach it takes two thirds of the Senate to convict. Thats a pretty big feet for a state congress that couldn’t (or wouldn’t) even pass a bill taking the appointment power out of Blagojevich’s hands.

We shall see what happens…

blago target

(Picture from Chicago Magazine)

Congress finally gets oil drilling right, by doing nothing.

It took forever but Congress has finally caved and will not stop new drilling for off-shore oil.

Good news I’d say.

But, of course, as anybody who knows anything about government can tell you, there is still a mile of red tape to get through before anybody can actually go and actually drill for oil offshore. The biggest problem is in getting congress to pass a revenue sharing bill which cuts the states in on the money that drilling will enevitably bring in. Until then its doubtfull that the states will allow any drilling…

But I’m hopeful.

After all this is a winning issue for the Republicans and a loser for the Dems so the Republicans will push this as hard as they can until its settled and the Dems, as evidenced by the surrender on the drilling ban, simply can’t afford to fight back too hard.

So, as I said before, good news.

P.s. I can’t wait to see what this does to oil prices