After weeks of controversy, it seems the filibuster issue has reached an end at the hands of supposed ‘centerists’ of the Republican and Democratic parties. Citing what he felt could be damage to the institution of the senate, CNN reported that Senator John McCain had this to say:
“We have reached an agreement to try to avert a crisis in the United States Senate and pull the institution back from a precipice that would have had, in the view of all 14 of us, lasting impact, damaging impact on the institution,” McCain said. “Under the deal, judicial nominees would only be filibustered “under extraordinary circumstances,” McCain said.
McCain said the group of 14 pledged to vote for cloture — an end to debate — for three judicial nominees: Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor and Priscilla Owen.
Here’s a bit more information on each of the three judges to gain cloture:
An outspoken Christian conservative from the segregated South, she supports limits on abortion rights and corporate liability, routinely upholds the death penalty and opposes affirmative action.
Brown’s views are also why Democrats have used a filibuster since 2003 to block her confirmation for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
“She has criticized the New Deal, which gave us Social Security, the minimum wage, and fair labor laws. She’s questioned whether age discrimination laws benefit the public interest,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, “No one with these views should be confirmed to a federal court and certainly not to the federal court most responsible for cases affecting government action.”
Brown is said to formulate her opinions “in prayer and quiet study of the Bible.” She’s also been outspokenly critical of philosophers and scientists for trying to mold society “as if God did not exist.” According to Brown, “these are perilous times for people of faith, not in the sense that we are going to lose our lives, but in the sense that it will cost you something if you are a person of faith who stands up for what you believe in and say those things out loud.”
Priscilla Owen is, in the president’s words, “a woman of integrity … known to be a fair and impartial judge who strives to interpret the law fairly.”
To her opponents, the 50-year-old Texas Supreme Court justice is a “judicial activist … (whose) record shows a bias in favor of government secrecy and business interests, and against the environment, victims of discrimination and medical malpractice,” in the words of Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Like Brown, Owen is devoutly religious and unapologetically ‘faith based’ in her approach to the law. Some see a kindly sunday school teacher, while others see a vocal threat to women’s rights. It’s speculated that while not specifically targetted at Owen, she was among the judges referred to by Supreme Court Justice Gonzales in his critique of attempted obstructions with regards to the Parental Notification Act:
“To construe the Parental Notification Act so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses, or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute, would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism,” Gonzales wrote in the 2000 opinion.
And finally, Judge William Pryor. Pryor has been criticized for being outspokenly ideological and often times naive about the court system, so much as to testify before the Senate an assurance and asserting that innocent people ‘just aren’t executed in the United States’. In a press release by the Congressional Black Caucus and letter written by CBC Chair and Congressman Elijah Cummings, Pryor’s is condemned for a consistently poor record in enforcing the Voting Rights Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, anti-discrimination laws (noteably against gays) and fairness in the criminal justice system.
In a friend-of-the-court brief, Pryor had argued that a state’s criminalization of certain private consensual sex was constitutional. […]
As Attorney General of a State where most death-row prisoners are African American, Mr. Pryor has consistently challenged efforts to ensure fair administration of the death penalty. He supported the constitutionality of executing mentally retarded persons, defended barriers to legal visits for death row prisoners, argued against the State Bar’s possible support of a moratorium on the death penalty, and criticized Congressional proposals to improve the quality of capital representation as unnecessary and likely to lead to “perverse” outcomes. Pryor has been critical of efforts to address racial bias in the administration of the death penalty. […]
Pryor has called Roe v. Wade “the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history.” (Id.)
After weeks of worrying about the ‘nuclear option’ initiated by Senate Majority Leader Frist, it seems that a moderate win can be declared by the Republican bulls, at the expense of the long valued belief in a seperation of church and state, and hard earned forward momentum within the women’s rights movement. It remains to be seen whether the revised Supreme Court will mirror the incompetence and backward mobility that has been consistent in the Bush Administration, but it seems we can rest assured that danger lies ahead.
Anyone want to start a betting pool to see what progressive ideas are attacked first – women’s, environmental, wages, gays or privacy?
In closing, perhaps a change in the lyrics of Onwards Christian Soldiers could be done to mark the uncertain days ahead:
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
At the sign of triumph civil rights doth flee;
On then, Christian soldiers, on to victory!
Hell’s foundations quiver at the shout of praise;
Brothers lift your voices, loud your condemnations raise.
Damn.
Damn damn damn damn damn.
It’s a safe bet that whatever the Right’s plan of attack is, we won’t like it.
Damn damn damn.
[snort] All hail the two-party system. It’s workin’ great, yessir !! Thank NOTA we’re not rocking the boat and risking any upset to our– er, allies in the Democratic Party. That would be, like, ungracious and wrong and stuff…
[snicker] :/
We can still lean on our Senators not to vote for these nuts. My guess is that Owen’s main focus will be making sure Texas oil companies get away with everything they can, and taking away a woman’s right to choose is just icing on the cake.
hmmm, maybe I’m a glass-half-full kinda chick … but I don’t see the deal itself as being that bad a thing … sure, we get these three wingnuts (although the voting records will be interesting and important to take note of) BUT Bush doesn’t get all of his nominees (which he TOLD the senate repugs to do), the judicial filibuster is still in place, we still get the chance with it for the big battles over the supreme court nomination(s), and Frist has had his knees cut out beneath him (at least temporarily).
Yes, I know these three are AWFUL. But what did people think? That we could honestly win this standoff with the repugs holding the majority? There wasn’t a chance of that. They bluffed, we called, and honestly, I think we got a small win out of this.
Particularly in the longer run it gives more power to the moderate conservatives like McCain, which can only help to rein in the looney-toon fundamentalist branch. Also, personally, am enjoying the reactions of the conservative wingnuts that DailyKos and Crooks & Liars have been recording *evil grin*
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/5/23/201133/386
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/05/23.html#a3089
Supposedly the perfect compromise is where both parties walk away from the table pissed off. Well, it looks like the other side is more pissed than we are. Right now, with everything else f’ing up, I’ll take that small victory.
Yes, the Dems could have won this standoff. Killing the filibuster would have killed the Repubs in the long term. This deal means that the Repubs get what they want – all the lifetime appointments of wacky right-wing activist judges that they have openings for. How do we get a small win when the supposed party of the left capitulates & says, “We won’t filibuster unless you nominate a mass murder?”
I really don’t think that McCain is a moderate. Unless you view fiscal sanity as the defining characteristic of a moderate, McCain is pretty damned far right.
And thanks, once again, to alsis38.9 for getting to the point before me.
Unfortunately, McCain is deemed a moderate because he has the capacity to compramise with the other side. Its a trait worth respecting even if you disagree with his politics.
Look, this compramise isn’t perfect, but its still a huge win for the Democrats. Has it not settled in yet that we are the minority party? Losing big won’t benefit us in the long run. Have people really not gotten that yet? For people not used to being the minority party, people sure seem to have a handle on being defeatist.
Yes, we had a game plan in case that happened, but don’t fool yourselves into thinking it was guarenteed success. We’re talking about issues of parlamentary procedure. The general public were never going to share our outrage. For goodness sake, its only the latest in attacks on the traditional rights of the minority party. None of the previous ones mattered, but this would? The GOP had good (if dishonest) talking points that would have provided them cover.
Now, I’d have really wanted a deal that didn’t budge on Brown and Owen. But I can live with this. Its an acknowlegement of the right to fillibuster judges. The right got their two favorites, but the judges still blocked aren’t darlings, themselves. And it provides us with a powerful weapon to push for a non-extremist replacement for Reihnquiest. We can’t afford more Scalia’s and Thomas’ on the USSC, even if it means a couple end up in lower courts. And remember, we’re still blocking a bunch of lower-court folks, too. And all of these selections can give up any hopes of advancement right now. They may get a pass here, but they will never go further up the bench. If they even get confirmed. Rumor has it that part of the deal is that one of the 3 will lose the up or down vote they’ll now get.
The bottom line is, the Democrats had no power here but were still able to get a deal which overwhelmingly supports their case. And better than that? Republican civil war. The religious right put a lot of stock in ending the fillibuster and their horse lost. They will be livid and will take it out on every GOP senator that signed onto this deal. Everyone of them will get a bruising primary fight when they are next up for reelection. The religious right will drain a lot of funds and manpower away from the GOP in the wake of this. They are bitter and have never been shy about assaulting their enemies. Frist is a total lame duck Leader now, having wasted all his political capital on this. His 2008 ambitions are certifiably dead. Yes, McCain’s were marginal improved if he gets out of the primary. That won’t happen now, though. The hard right will never forgive him for this. So, we just cost the Republicans money, volunteers, torpedoed two leading candidates for the 2008 nomination, and preserved the rights of the minority to block extreme judicial nominees. Sure, there is a downside, but the upsides are far more prominent.
Does anyone have links to Janice Brown’s cases and opinions that lead to these accusations. I have seen her speeches, not an issue for me. As a lawyer I know you can zealously argue issues that you don’t agree with so her personal opinions are irrelevant. What really matters is how does she apply the law to the facts. I have a feeling that the public is getting “spun” and “wagged” by the fundamentalists wingnuts that control discourse in this country (that is liberal and conservative wingnuts).
jstevenson –
http://saveourcourts.civilrights.org/nominees/index.html
This has some nice summaries and links to articles that go into a number of Bush’s nominees. Now, it’s hardly an unbiased site, but what isn’t these days? (speaking as a liberal wingnut of course *wink*)
Thanks Sarah. I found what I needed. I did notice that many of her dissents were not joined, but that is commen for dissenting opinions. It also seems that a majority of the cases where she wrote the majority opinion, she went unopposed and very few concurring oppinions. That would say that she is not so far out of the fray and we are getting spun. I have to look at the facts of the cases. I did read the “stun gun” case. Her dissent in that alone tends to make me lean towards the wingnuts on the liberal side with her.
It’s bad for the Repubs in the long term because one day they will be the minority party. And when they can’t filibuster, they will have only themselves to blame. When R judges turn out to be crap (if there is no filibuster allowed), Repubs will be to blame and when future D appointed judges turn out to be crap Repubs will be to blame because they cut themselves out of the ability to filibuster.
Jake, are you still planning to move to NZ ? Can I pose as your daughter or something and go, too ? I swear, I’ll live quietly in the basement and get a job and I won’t play my music too loud.
Hats off to Dave Lindorff for saying it way better than I could:
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/05/318026.shtml
…Newspaper editors and pundits love to talk about the need for “bi-partisanship” and cooperation as though such comity were an unambiguous public good. Yet it is precisely such bipartisanship that brought us the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, the North American Free Trade Act, welfare cutbacks, the Anti Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the new anti-bankruptcy law, and which threaten to bring us a mortally weakened Social Security “reform,” and who knows? Maybe a war on Iran or Syria.
And for once, the Democrats had a good, militant plan:a shut down of the Senate. Ordinary Americans and especially progressives should have been fine with that: A shut-down Senate would mean a Senate that couldn’t pass Bush’s troglodyte social agenda, couldn’t pass more tax handouts to corporations and the rich, couldn’t pass a Central American Free Trade bill. No wonder the Republicans were upset.
Sure, if the Democrats took a hard-line confrontational approach to the dominant Republicans in House and Senate they’d eventually lose on a lot of things, including the appointment of judges with right-wing agendas. But by standing for principle, Democrats would be paving the way for serious election campaigns on important issues in 2006 and 2008. They’d be rallying the electorate to fight back against the Republican-led campaign to drag the country backwards to the 19th century in economic, environmental and social policy.
But instead of going with militancy and sticking it to the conservatives, people like Lieberman and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) are paving the way for further electoral defeats for Democrats in the coming election cycles.
By lining up with Republicans on compromises that end up selling out principle (the filibuster agreement will result in the approval, with Democratic acquiescence, of several truly dreadful new appellate judges), Democrats confuse and demoralize their potential electoral base…
hey alsis38 –
I’m from NZ, now living in the States nearly 4 years …. tell you what, seriously missing it I have to say …
Tempting as the thought of fleeing the US is, somebody’s got to stay here and shut the juggernaut down.
I’m just teasing, Brian. But I’d like to visit long enough to shake hands with a few musicians and cartoonists. :/ Maybe Sarah will vouch for me.
The reason the Clinton years were so prosperous is that there was a Democrat in the White House (someone who was pretty good with foreign policy) and a Republican controlled Congress.
Absolutely nothing got done. The only thing that anyone could agree on was that President Clinton — “did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky”.
I wish a Democrat could have won the Presidency then anything that he would have proposed would not have been voted on and anything the Congress would have put forth would have been vetoed. All would be well in America.
Well, Clinton managed to shut down most of the welfare system, kept up the murderous sanctions on Iraq, and went to war a few times, with a side order of bombing raids (why do people keep forgetting the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan?). So a few things got done. Very bad things.
Oops, forgot the Defense of Marriage Act. Wow, Clinton was a real friend to the gay rights movement, wasn’t he?
[rolleyes] Almost as good a friend as Howard “Poseur” Dean. :/
Exactly, Jake. The problem as I see it is that this whole issue got off the ground to begin with. How can it be called a win when something pretty standard (filibustering) is put at risk because liberals aren’t yielding to every crazy that the Republicans want in office?
It’s like saying when my daughter throws a fit at the grocery store near the candy aisle, I win by buying her the candy that’s on sale. Not really. We filibusted these nominees with GOOD reason. A win would have been reasonable (even if conservative) judicial nominees. They do exist.
And yes, Clinton was by no means a liberal paragon. I’m quite sure he would have been one of these ‘centerists’ patting themselves on the back for this big ‘win’ as well.
Appeasement. That’s the word I was looking for. We appeased Republican’s that were making unreasonable demands, and in the end that’s not a win. If any of these three yahoo’s get into the supreme court my fear is that we’ll be far worse off than before. And with our ‘appeasement’ offering, we lost valuable ground of saying ‘these people are ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE CHOICES for the supreme court’. History will look back unkindly – ‘but Democrats let them get cloture!’. We’re going to but, but, but and appease, appease, appease, right back into the 19-effing-60’s.
The Dems gave 95% of the appointees a pass without question. They’re not really resisting the Republicans at all. They just pretend to, to get votes.
“Okay, guys, we made a symbolic gesture. Let’s go back to sleep now.”
Yeah, Kim. Also, like the proverbial kid throwing a tantrum over candy, the Republicans never stop pushing and shouting for more and more concessions. They don’t admire or respect the people who roll over for them. Why should they ? Tantrums work when you’re throwing them against someone with no character and no spine.
Yep, Billy is DLC all the way, and so is Lieberman and the majority of the big power-brokers in the DP. For all of the smug rah-rahs of Katrina VanHeuvel and the majority of the Nation clowns, the “Progressive Caucus” in the DP is essentially a toothless animal. Though I can personally vouch for its skill at pouring out obnoxious junk mail on a regular basis.
What exactly do people think can be accomplished with a 10 vote deficit? Are we to give the GOP ammo to bash as obstructionists by simply blocking everything? The issues involved here are not new and yet have not provided a useful campaign tool in the past. There was no reason to think this case would be any different. This is not appeasement. Appeasement would be agreeing not to use the filibuster at all. We’re allowing 3 votes. 1 of which the GOP senators in the compramise seem to think will fail. Can our party really be said to be giving up significant ground?
The risks for both sides were high if they went through with the nuclear option. Frist didn’t care, because he already boxed himself into a place where the risk was higher not to go ahead with it. That risk is now a reality for the GOP. Reid obviously was mindful of the dangers in going full-out obstructionist. Even if his plan was not quite that, he already saw that the GOP was winning the framing war. Even his supporters assumed he’d be shutting down the Senate. That sounds great for us, but we need votes to win future elections from people who aren’t us. Besides that, it also means we block NO Bush appointees from here on out. They get their 100% approval rate. The question to our party wasn’t allow these 3 or don’t allow them. It was allow these 3 or allow them and everyone else.
Its easy to look at the ideological purity of the right with some envy. But it doesn’t mean their slash and burn, no-deals approach is right. But we need to recognize that our Senators didn’t deal with the GOP. They dealt with 7 Senators. The party should be happy with the outrageous confirmation rate Bush has gotten, but they aren’t. If we needed to provide these 7 with some cover with their right wing in order to protect this last right of the minority party, then so be it. I can understand why their side is outraged that 7 Senators gave in. Their party is in power and wants to get everything it wants. We’re 10 votes behind and we got a lot in this deal. We don’t have to love it, but its hardly cynical to think we got more than we could have been expected to get.
Understandably it was a bad situation, but it is STILL appeasement and STILL as Alisis put it concessions over something that up until now has been a standard thing.
Buckling is NOT a win, and while yes, it’s better than had they pushed the N-Op through, I think it’s absolute BULLSHIT to call it a win. It’s hogwash to sooth people into complacency about shit that shouldn’t be happening to begin with.
B, I’ll stick with cynicism, thanks. It’s better than playing Pangloss while these “bipartisan” assholes conspire to wreak havock upon us that they themselves are too insulated and privileged to fear. All of them, red and blue.
I’m firmly with Lindorff. That’s why I cribbed his column.
The key reason why I gave up being a liberal for being a revolutionary socialist was I was tired of hearing the apologia, again and again, for why the Democrats had to support the Republican agenda. When the Dems are in the minority, they complain that there’s nothing they can do. When they’re in the majority, they complain that if they do anything, they’ll lose the majority. Excuses, excuses. Eventually, I had to conclude they were lies.
Thanks for the effort, BStu, but they’re still Vichy Democrats to me, especially the ones that voted for that abomination of a bankruptcy “reform” bill.
Yet the Dems still need to move to the right in order to win?
My partner has assured me that a lot of Dems in liberal blog-land are having “buyers remorse” about Kerry. I am cynical enough to wonder out loud what fucking difference that makes. Oligarchs don’t care about your remorse. They already got your vote, your time, and your money. And they have down pat a fool-proof formula for making you stick with them next time, too, and onward into eternity.
Blecch.
What alsis said…all the way. The Democrats are their usual cowardly selves. What else is new?
I’ve got primary relatives in NZ so I can immigrate. But I’ve got to stay here and look after the kitties….until they pass feline sufferage and we can finally put our country’s One Party System away…
The Democrats won’t ever win. Who wants to vote for a faux Republican, when you can have the real thing?
They’re all filthy rich anyway. What do they care, except where their next Mercedes or trip to the Bahamas is coming from?
alsis38 –
Well hon, now that we have civil unions, all I need to do is marry you and you’ll have kiwi citizenship ;)
Appeasement is what the English did regarding the Nazis; they had the troops to fight, but they didn’t. Few people accuse Poland of appeasement. The Poles were clearly outgunned, and everyone knew it. The Democrats are Poland, not England, ok? If the Poles had managed to negotiate even a partial withdrawal of Nazi tanks, that might have helped in the ensuing war. A valiant slaughter is still a slaughter. An ugly truce is still a truce.
That’s like saying that when YOU throw a fit in the candy isle, we should blame your daughter for not controlling the situation. The Democrats, like your daughter, are in their MINORITY. We can like it; we can hate it; but that doesn’t change it. Sure we’re frustrated that the majority doesn’t behave better, but that’s really no reflection on the minority here. Moral purity may gratify you and me, but it won’t protect one person’s civil liberties. Blocking one judge – even one – might.
Curse the darkness. Light a candle. Choose.
And some things are still worth taking the chance for. It’s appeasement, through and through. I for one REFUSE to pretend like this is some sort of ‘minor’ win feather to stick in my cap, as if our getting lubed before bending over was a grand compromise.
And that’s like saying ‘who cares who we vote into office, be happy with the little fight they are willing to put up’. Wrong again. Unrepresented or under-represented, it all amounts to more appeasement of the right. Progressives and liberals will not see an end to this backward momentum unless we keep our hackles up and stop allowing appeasement to occur in the face of bullies – even in the face of discouraging defeat. See, what you and other democrats don’t seem to get, is that that many of us are fully prepared to batten down the hatches and weather a storm of fundamental versus progressive, because in the end, the routine we’re stuck in has the same result, except gained through wittling, instead of an actual genuine fight of representation. There was a reason these filibusters were occurring against these judges and it wasn’t for a sour disposition.
Uhhh… Your company’s candles stink like rotten fish guts, spew out too much smoke, and don’t stay lit long enough. Plus, they burn my fingers. Oh, and they’re hideously overpriced, too. :p
Sarah, I think we can work this out. My partner loves pissing off religious nuts. Plus, he’ll use any excuse to travel out of town, even to see me get hitched to someone else. I’m just not sure if our feline family would blend well. :D
alsis –
Oh. Felines.
Bugger.
Yes, my little baby isn’t too keen on other cats (in fact, was never that keen on my ex-gf either, altho conversely her cat loved me) – probably poetic justice with a side order of irony that I would have a beligerent, solitary, uber-intelligent, cat – so it looks like our eloping plans might have to be rain checcked … as we all know, it’s not our apartment, it’s their’s.
Though, that said, she does love to piss off the fundamentalists, so who knows?
oops, btw, the above post is me (was cleaning out my cookie cache and deleted the wrong one by the look of things)
– alsis
Oh. Felines.
Bugger.
Yes, my little baby isn’t too keen on other cats (in fact, was never that keen on my ex-gf either, altho conversely her cat loved me) – probably poetic justice with a side order of irony that I would have a beligerent, solitary, uber-intelligent, cat – so it looks like our eloping plans might have to be rain checcked … as we all know, it’s not our apartment, it’s their’s.
Though, that said, she does love to piss off the fundamentalists, so who knows?
(note: above should read below)
No it’s not…it’s called rolling over.
If the Democrats aren’t Brits, it’s their own fault. They’ve alienated a lot of their core constiuency. If that’s turned them into the Poles, they need to look inward at what they’re doing to what was once a pretty decent party.
Ugly truces don’t tend to last very long, unfortunately. Good truces do. So they’re not comparable.
The democrats might be a minority. At this point, they’ve dug themselves so deep in becoming more Republican, more appeasing of Republicans, more “let’s be friends” except for one year out of four, I don’t care that they’re the minority. They are fools’ gold.
Being frustrated at the majority and appeasing them doesn’t ensure anyone’s civil liberties. Most politicians on either side of the aisle don’t need to fight for their own b/c they are already among the country’s most elite, most priviliaged people.
After witnessing history plumb fool of eloquent example of how civil rights have been fought for, makes me nausuous to see their efforts reduced in order to compare them with the plight of the poor democrats. The Democrats just don’t want to fight for what’s right. They want to play nice, b/c when push comes to shove, elites are just happy enough to hang out with others of their kind.
if the Democrats aren’t going to go against the “evil” republicans, they should step aside and give other political parties the chance, lol.
You’ve got five other senses, the obvious four plus intuition to navigate the dark. You don’t need a candle, and you don’t need to curse it. You need to think from a different perspective, or do as the blind do with the darkness, think outside the box.
That’s good Kim. Thankyou.
alsis and sarah,
Congrats, you have invented a new matrimonial form — the straight/lesbian marriage of convenience (now known as SLMC).
Upon further reflection, I decided I’ve overgeneralized my acronym and it should be the straight woman/lesbian marriage of convenience (SWLMC) but I need to be fair to straight and gay men and don’t want to leave out transgendered either so now I’m thinking SLGBTSSMC (straight/LGBT same sex marriage of convenience). Kinda catchy, dontcha think?
AndiF –
ah, good that you made the reflection, because lesbians have been marrying straights for a long time for convience, just it was always straight men (in order to not end up in medical asylums, be ostracised, be killed, be thrown out on the streets, etc, etc) just nowadays we can go after the straight _women_ …
Much more fun of course ;)
Sarah: :D
I’m beginning to wonder if we could market a new cable reality show called “Pet Swap.” It could run on Animal Planet. Of course, I don’t have cable, so maybe they’re already doing something like that.
I could just load up a few crates of fried catfish from Yam Yam’s barbecue joint, maybe also a few plates of their famous brisket, and bring them to the wedding rehearsals in hopes of soothing feline anxieties about the whole committment thing…
alsis –
Oooooo, methinks you may have hit on an idea! Not only a cable program, but we should see about setting up a BUSINESS that provides techniques, products and services that are designed to soothe the blending of the animal memebers of different families upon the arrival of a marriage. Of course, the business wouldn’t discriminate between straight or gay marriages (and hell, with the amount of lesbians that have cats and/or dogs it would be worth it to target!).
But yes, as much as my little baby is a complete loner and snob, she is a sucker for a cute woman bearing kitty treats … though I think the brisket might be the better idea, she seems to prefer red meet …