Marriage Escalates Up a Notch
As expected, Maryland marriage opponents are rallying to hold a referendum to overthrow the marriage equality law signed this year by governor O'Malley. The Post is reporting that they have more than enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot.
A referendum on Maryland lawmakers’ decision to legalize same-sex marriage moved from the realm of the likely to a near certainty on Tuesday as opponents turned in what they said were over 113,000 signatures — more than twice the number needed to qualify the law for the November ballot.It's too bad to put people's rights up to a vote, kind of crazy to require a majority of the state's residence to approve your relationship before you can marry. But if you're going to have a referendum, you couldn't pick a better time, when, as HuffPo says, "Maryland Gay Marriage Poll Shows Marked Shift In Public Opinion."
A coalition of religious leaders and conservatives organized to oppose gay marriage said weeks ago that they would easily beat Maryland's first deadline on Thursday to file more than 18,000 signatures.
But with two days to go, opponents said that President Obama’s recent announcement that he supports same-sex marriage appeared to have had the effect of not only invigorating supporters but also those opposed.
The Maryland Marriage Alliance, the group leading the charge to overturn the state’s same-sex marriage law, said that since Obama’s pronouncement — and since leaders of the NAACP followed suit — opponents in Maryland have seen a surge in the number of residents seeking to put gay marriage to a statewide vote.
“When President Obama and the NAACP come out and they wanted to support this issue, well, great, we appreciate that because you help energize our [side],” said Derek McCoy, the group’s executive director.
The alliance on Tuesday filed more than twice the 55,736 signatures needed to qualify the measure for the ballot, and McCoy said the group was on pace to turn in well in excess of its goal of 150,000 signatures by the end of June.
“People that were on the fence are no longer on the fence; they are engaged. ... Countless thousands of Marylanders around this state want to see marriage go on the ballot. But they also want to see it defined and upheld between one man and one woman,” he said.
Signature count makes a Maryland vote on same-sex marriage a near certainty
In a dramatic shift, Maryland voters overwhelmingly would vote to uphold a law allowing same-sex marriage, according to a survey released Thursday by Public Policy Polling.You can bet on this being an ugly fight. You're going to hear some terrible things said, old prejudices will come to the foreground, hatred will boil over and ugly stereotypes will be invoked as the election approaches. So far the record is not good, many states have voted to retain government regulations defining who citizens can marry. But right now Maryland is looking optimistic, if the LGBT community can get out the vote they should be able to win this.
Fifty-seven percent of likely voters would vote to uphold the law allowing same-sex marriage, while 37 percent would not, representing a 12-point shift from an identical survey in early March. Fifty-two percent think gay marriage should be recognized, while 39 percent do not. Both polls were commissioned for Marylanders for Marriage Equality.
posted by JimK at 9:03 AM
94 Comments:
It is not just a matter of the LGBT community getting out the vote. All of us, whether gay or straight, have vital interest in having our civil law protect ALL of our families. Check out http://www.marylandersformarriageequality.org/ and get involved in any way you can.
Marylanders for Marriage Equality is a coalition of many groups -- not just LGBT groups -- supporting fairness and justice for our family members, our friends, our fellow citizens.
It is too bad? You mean when less than 5% of the population attempts to force a radical redefinition of marriage on the rest of us?
"It's too bad to put people's rights up to a vote,"
that would be too bad
that's not happening
the vote is about how marriage is defined
all people, including gays, will still have the same rights, regardless of the outcome
"kind of crazy to require a majority of the state's residence to approve your relationship before you can marry"
it's not a matter of "approving" but, instead, whether a relationship qualifies as a marriage
"But if you're going to have a referendum, you couldn't pick a better time,"
glad you feel that way
you can still sign the petition
"You can bet on this being an ugly fight."
that's true
gay advocacy groups will accuse their opponents of hate and denying rights and the attacks on religious belief will intensify
"So far the record is not good,"
sure it is
the pro-family side always wins
"many states have voted to retain government regulations defining who citizens can marry"
actually TTFers support government regulations defining who citizens can marry
they just want to include gays as a group is defined as marriage
all the regulations about citizens who aren't gay are fine with gay advocates
"a radical redefinition of marriage"
"the vote is about...whether a relationship qualifies as a marriage"
More people's ignorance is showing.
" attacks on religious belief will intensify"
And your crystal ball is cloudy. Here's a history lesson for you, a religious history lesson no less:
"Republicans and other opponents of gay marriage often speak of marriage as being a 2,000 year old tradition (or even older). Quite apart from the fact that the definition of marriage has changed from when it was a business transaction, usually between men, there is ample evidence that within just Christian tradition, it has changed from the point where same-sex relationships were not just tolerated but celebrated.
In the famous St. Catherine’s monastery on Mount Sinai, there is an icon which shows two robed Christian saints getting married. Their ‘pronubus’ (official witness, or “best man”) is none other than Jesus Christ.
The happy couple are 4th Century Christian martyrs, Saint Serge and Saint Bacchus — both men.
Severus of Antioch in the sixth century explained that “we should not separate in speech [Serge and Bacchus] who were joined in life.” More bluntly, in the definitive 10th century Greek account of their lives, Saint Serge is described as the “sweet companion and lover (erastai)” of St. Bacchus.
Legend says that Bacchus appeared to the dying Sergius as an angel, telling him to be brave because they would soon be reunited in heaven.
Yale historian John Richard Boswell discovered this early Christian history and wrote about it nearly 20 years ago in “Same Sex Unions In Pre-Modern Europe“ (1994).
In ancient church liturgical documents, he found the existence of an “Office of Same Sex Union” (10th and 11th century Greek) and the “Order for Uniting Two Men” (11th and 12th century Slavonic).
He found many examples of:
A community gathered in a church
A blessing of the couple before the altar
Their right hands joined as at heterosexual marriages
The participation of a priest
The taking of the Eucharist
A wedding banquet afterwards
A 14th century Serbian Slavonic “Office of the Same Sex Union,” uniting two men or two women, had the couple having their right hands laid on the Gospel while having a cross placed in their left hands. Having kissed the Gospel, the couple were then required to kiss each other, after which the priest, having raised up the Eucharist, would give them both communion.
Boswell documented such sanctified unions up until the 18th century.
In late medieval France, a contract of “enbrotherment” (affrèrement) existed for men who pledged to live together sharing ‘un pain, un vin, et une bourse’ – one bread, one wine, and one purse.
Other religions, such as Hinduism and some native American religions, have respect for same-sex couples weaved into their history.
When right-wing evangelical Christians talk about “traditional marriage,” there is no such thing."
actually, tradition does exist and is confirmed by scripture
Christianity is a very tolerant religion so it's easy to find heretical practices scatttered throughout the last two thousand years
this is, however, irrelevant
meanwhile, the Obama administration's war on women continues unabated
first, there is the fact that the vast majority of jobs lost during Obama's term were held by women
now, Obama is fighting efforts in Congress to ban abortions targeted toward selecting male rather than female children
"WASHINGTON -- Legislation coming up for a House vote would make it a federal crime to carry out an abortion based on the gender of the fetus. The measure takes aim at the aborting of female fetuses, a practice more common to countries such India and China, where there is a strong preference for sons, but which is also thought to take place in this country.
The mainly Republican supporters of the bill characterized the vote as a sex-discrimination issue.
Abortion rights advocates argued that the bill exploits the problem of selective abortion to further limit a woman's right to choose.
The House Republican leadership brought the bill to the floor under a procedure requiring a two-thirds majority for passage. To help assure passage, the authors removed a contentious provision of the bill that would have also banned abortions based on the race of the fetus.
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., would make it a federal offense, subject to up to five years in prison, to perform, solicit funds to perform or coerce a woman into a sex-selection abortion. Bringing a woman into the country to obtain such an abortion would also be punishable by up to five years in prison.
"We are the only advanced country left in the world that still doesn't restrict sex-selection abortion in any way," said Franks, who has also collided with pro-choice groups recently over a bill he is pushing to ban abortions in the District of Columbia after 20 weeks of pregnancy. "This evil practice has now allowed thousands of little girls in America and millions of little girls across the world to be brutally dismembered."
Franks and others say there is evidence of sex-selection abortions in the United States among certain ethnic groups from countries where there is a traditional preference for sons. The bill notes that while the United States has no law against such abortions, countries such as India and China, where the practice has contributed to lopsided boy-girl ratios, have enacted bans on the practice.
The National Right to Life Committee said there are credible estimates that 160 million women and girls are missing from the world due to sex selection."
Quoting John Boswell...discredited by everyone except homosexual activists and their liberal partisan supporters.
yes, Boswell was hardly an unbiased observer, as a gay man who died of AIDS
One anonymous writes, When right-wing evangelical Christians talk about “traditional marriage,” there is no such thing."
I do not like the term traditional marriage for a couple of reasons, not lest of which is that it is not accurate. The better, more precise term is natural marriage as it points most precisely towards one of the principles of marriage, the most socially secure and nourishing human unit for children.
Will counterfeit marriage work for children? Sure it will.
Has it proven to be the best arrangement for children? Despite the efforts of activists, it has not been proven to be as good.
The official portrait of George W. Bush, the United States' 43rd president, was unveiled at the White House on Thursday, May 31, 2012.
Both Bush and Barack Obama spoke at the ceremony, which was held in the East Room of the White House. Former President George H. W. Bush also attended today's ceremony.
It was an awkward gathering. As the AP reported, "Obama is still bad-mouthing Bush's time in office."
"Obama is still bad-mouthing Bush's time in office."
At least he's not afraid to say his name! Romney calls Bush, "the predecessor."
“I love this country, as I know you do, but I’m concerned about this country,” Romney said on his first public campaign swing through the battleground state since winning the primary here in January. “I’m concerned about the debt. I’m concerned about the spending.
“I find it incomprehensible that a president could come to office and call his predecessor’s record irresponsible and unpatriotic and then do almost nothing to fix it.”[except stop the freefall and turn it around]
Bush told ABC News Tuesday, as an elevator door closed, “I’m for Mitt Romney,” joining the rest of his family in backing the presumptive GOP nominee. But the Romney campaign, and now the candidate, has since remained mum on the endorsement.
Bush’s popularity has risen since leaving office, yet more people still view him unfavorably and blame him for the economic collapse, according to polling.
Romney today mentioned Obama’s “predecessor,” Bush, no fewer than five times in talking about the debt crisis.
“[Obama] was very critical of his predecessor for the debts his predecessor put in place,” Romney said. “And sure it’s true you can’t blame one party or the other for all the debts this country has, because both parties in my opinion have spent too much and borrowed too much when they were in power. But he was very critical of his predecessor because the predecessor put together $4 trillion of debt over eight years. This president however – oh, by the way, he said that doing that was unpatriotic, irresponsible and unpatriotic. And he said he would cut the debt in half if he became president.
“Instead he doubled it, alright, he doubled it,” Romney added.
The National Debt shot up nearly $5 trillion during the Bush administration, and has increased by about the same amount under the Obama administration, according to the Treasury Department. The debt, however, was greatly affected by the onset of the recession, which began during the Bush administration.
Three years to the day since the murder of abortion provider and women's health activist Dr. George Tiller, irrational anti-abortion attacks continue. Today it is extremists in Congress seizing on sex-selection abortions overseas to bash U.S. women and their doctors.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted this afternoon on the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act or PRENDA (H.R. 3541), an anti-choice bill sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) that would criminalize sex-selection abortions and require health care professionals, including mental health professionals, to report any such abortion to the "appropriate law enforcement authorities."
Although the bill failed, the National Organization for Women is appalled that lawmakers in the House would sponsor such a deceptive bill in yet another attempt to block women's access to necessary health care. While the bill purports to support gender equality and civil rights, PRENDA does nothing to address sex discrimination, and instead simply demonizes women seeking abortions.
This is a continuation of the right wing's War on Women. A majority of the legislators who backed PRENDA also have voted against contraception and to defund family planning clinics. They have voted in support of the House version of the Violence Against Women Act that would eliminate protections for women from underserved communities. And they are backing a GOP budget that would cut safety net programs critical to women and their families.
NOW urges women's rights supporters across the country to take note of those lawmakers (Republican AND Democrat) who attempted today to roll back women's basic rights. We must make clear that we will not let them get away with attacking our right to fundamental health care.
The European colonization of North America broke traditions that had been extant since the collapse of Athenian democracy. Since that time, until 17th Century North America, tradition taught that people could not govern themselves. Rather, tradition taught that all power had to be in the hands of a few. Yet, the new Americans (for all their flaws) broke that tradition and created the democratic ethos of self-government.
And it was good.
In the first couple of centuries of that democratic experiment, the tradition was that the vote could only rest with white men of property, and then, later, white men generally. The tradition was that only men could vote. We broke that tradition in the early 20th Century extending the right to vote to women.
And it was good.
There was also a tradition that only white people could participate in self-government in America, and that the races should be segregated. Finally, after fits and starts, in the late 1960s, after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the the Voting Rights Act 1965, that tradition was overturned.
And it was good.
There was a tradition that blacks and whites could not marry. Finally, in the middle of the 20th Century, that tradition was discarded.
And it was good.
There was a tradition that gay people had to be in the closet and live in the shadows. In the last couple of decades, in most parts of the country, that tradition has been discarded.
And it is good.
And now, the tradition that gay couples should not be accorded the same respect and rights and responsibilities as straight couples is being questioned in America, and may be on the verge of collapse, thus extending freedom and respect to yet another previously-discriminated-against group.
And it will be good.
The American tradition that is continuing -- and hopefully will endure -- is the one that is at the root of the American Experiment: The growth of freedom to be responsible members of what John Lewis calls The Beloved Community.
David, discrimination based on behavior and desire is noting like discrimination based on a physical characteristic like skin color.
And retaining marriage as it is now known is not discrimination at all.
meanwhile, Barry finally seems to have finally realized that he will have to go back to the drawing board on health care:
"Bloomberg News reports that the president told donors that his administration may have no choice, but to revisit health care reform in his second term. Obama reportedly made the suggestion at a closed-door New York City fundraiser earlier this month.
Last month, in addressing the Supreme Court hearing on the Affordable Care Act, Obama signaled optimism that the case would produce a ruling in his favor."
soon, he will also realize that there will no second term
"I look forward to a day when my children will judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skins"
MLK
"yeah, like, WHATEVER..."
DF
Anon,
My point, obviously, was that simply invoking the word "tradition" and asserting that that should be the end of the analysis is profounding counter to the best in American traditions.
Every movement for expanding freedom has similarities and differences. The point is not whether one movement is exactly like another. Rather, the point is that we have a proud history of expanding freedom to make a more perfect union.
Dr. Robert Spitzer Retracts 'Ex-Gay' Study and Apologizes to the LGBT Community
"A bill that would prevent under 18s being forced into so-called ex-gay therapy passed the California Senate on Wednesday.
The legislation, the first of its kind in the US, was advanced by 23 votes to 13. The bill must now be approved by the General Assembly and then signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown.
Introduced by Senator Ted Lieu, (SB 1172) would limit California’s health professionals from engaging in so-called sexual orientation change efforts, sometimes known as conversion or reparative therapy, with minors.
The legislation as passed by the Senate states:
865.1. Under no circumstances shall a mental health provider engage in sexual orientation change efforts with a patient under 18 years of age, regardless of the willingness of a patient, patient’s parent, guardian, conservator, or other person to authorize such efforts.
The legislation also declares a government interest in opposing any form of change therapy, labeling such therapy unnecessary and unscientific.
The legislation covers only licensed medical professionals and so would not explicitly address religious sexual orientation change efforts, though would appear to take a strong position against such practices within the state.
“Being lesbian or gay or bisexual is not a disease or mental disorder for the same reason that being a heterosexual is not a disease or a mental disorder,” Senator Lieu said in a statement. “The medical community is unanimous in stating that homosexuality is not a medical condition.”
Indeed, the American Psychological Association, having convened a Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation to conduct an exhaustive assessment of peer-reviewed studies into change efforts, concluded that efforts to change sexual orientation have negligible results and also risk patient harm. Patients subjected to ex-gay therapy have reported depression, decreased self-esteem, social withdrawal, substance abuse, self-harm and some have even attempted suicide.
The American Psychiatric Association also published a position statement in March of 2000 stating that it “opposes any psychiatric treatment such as reparative or conversion therapy which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder.”
The American Psychological Association, the American Counseling Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, and the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists have all issued similar statements against sexual orientation change efforts."
WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy suddenly looks a lot weaker.
U.S. employers created only 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year, and the unemployment rate ticked up.
The dismal jobs data will fan fears that the economy is sputtering. It should also damage President Barack Obama's re-election prospects. And it could lead the Federal Reserve to take further steps to help the economy.
The Labor Department also said Friday that the economy created far fewer jobs in the previous two months than first thought. It revised those figures down to show 49,000 fewer jobs created.
"Every movement for expanding freedom has similarities and differences. The point is not whether one movement is exactly like another. Rather, the point is that we have a proud history of expanding freedom to make a more perfect union."
your notion that that redefinition of a long-lasting institution, to accomodate the fantasies of a certain group, would represent an expansion of freedom is misguided
the longer Barry's President, the lower we sink:
"The number of rich people in the United States is declining, even as the number of millionaires elsewhere in the world grows.
Driven by the United States, North America lost nearly 1 percent of its private wealth in 2011, dropping to $38 trillion in total private assets. Last year in the U.S., the number of millionaire and ultra-millionaire (those with $100 million in assets) households decreased.
Meanwhile, the developing world led by the so-called BRIC countries -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- saw a 10 percent increase in overall private wealth because of strong GDP growth.
China had a 15 percent increase in the number of millionaire households in 2011, for a total of 1.4 million households with more than $1 million in assets. The number of ultra-millionaires in both India and Russia also increased significantly."
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
The argument that gay people have the same rights with respect to marriage as straight people is specious.
Earth to Robert:
marriage is not gay
it is a union involving both complementary genders that has been recognized to promote the welfare of its participants and society
a gay may participate if they find someone of the opposite gender willing to join together with them
if you find some hedonistic pleasures in someone of your own gender, no one will stop you doing whatever strange things you do
but don't ask us to grant your endeavour with special preferences and the endorsement of society
Earth over and out
that Robert
always trying to tell us Earthlings how to live!
live long and may they discover drugs that can help you...
The stock market suffered its worst day of the year Friday after a startlingly weak report about hiring and employment cast a pall of gloom over the U.S. economy under Barack Obama. The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 275 points.
Traders stampeded into the safety of bonds, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note to a record low. Fearful investors bought gold, causing the price to spike $50 an ounce, and concern about a global economic slowdown drove the price of oil to its lowest since October.
"The big worry now is that the Obama economic slowdown is widening and accelerating," said Sam Stovall, chief equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ, a market research firm.
It was the Dow's steepest one-day drop since November.
Friday’s devastating jobs report for May should be greeted by rites of mourning at the White House for the man who once billed himself as the Candidate of Hope.
The grim longer-term message of the May numbers, which came in at a much-lower-than-expected 69,000 jobs and raised the unemployment rate to 8.2 percent, is that the positive economic trend that the Obama camp was hoping for as it swings into November is very unlikely to happen now. For the third year in a row, a spring slowdown has shattered the hopes and spiked the frustrations of the Obama White House, which is trying to manage a historically tepid recovery from the Great Recession. The report was punctuated by a big stock market drop in which the Dow gave back its gains on the year.
With only several more jobs reports left before the election, pretty much all that can be hoped for is nothing worse.
Based on polls, it’s reasonable to ask whether President Obama should now be viewed as the underdog in this race.
The unemployment rate rose from 8.1 percent to 8.2 percent in May, and the economy generated 69,000 new jobs, some 86,000 less than the 155,000 that were expected.
The economy needs to create about 150,000 jobs a month just to keep pace with the expansion of the population and maintain employment at a steady level. In April, the economy created only 77,000 jobs.
The White House can spin this any way it likes.
It can talk about the total number of jobs created over the past half century instead of focusing on this month’s numbers. It can discuss how we are digging out of the worst recession since the Black Death in Europe in 1348. It can say the George W. Bush was discovered under a sofa in the Blue Room still running the economy.
It can blame Europe, oil prices, the Japanese tsunami, the Space Station, sun spots, and Kim Kardashian.
But everyone knows this is Obama’s problem.
I saw a report recently that the Obama team has done enough to vilify anyone who brings up Jeremiah Wright – by shrieking that somehow this has something to do with racism – that they high five each other every time some Republican is heard talking about it.
The Romney team should be high fiving each other every time they hear an Obama campaign attack on Romney’s record at Bain Capital.
Because the public isn’t stupid.
People can see that after three and a half years of Obamanomics, the unemployment rate is going up. And the more they hear that Obama’s opponent was involved in the business sector – and yes, even that he made tough decisions that cost some people their jobs – the more they are going to consider putting someone in charge of the economy who might know what he’s doing.
They understand it is going to require some pain to fix things. And that Obama’s promises to soak the rich to pay for electric vehicles is not a reasonable economic program.
Indeed, the American Psychological Association, having convened a Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation to conduct an exhaustive assessment of peer-reviewed studies into change efforts, concluded that efforts to change sexual orientation have negligible results and also risk patient harm. Patients subjected to ex-gay therapy have reported depression, decreased self-esteem, social withdrawal, substance abuse, self-harm and some have even attempted suicide.
The American Psychological Association has stated in 2009, Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation” “Research on harm from [Sexual Orientation Change Efforts] SOCE is limited, and some of the research that exists suffers from methodological limitations that make broad and definitive conclusions difficult.”
Another point is The American Psychological Association has also stated in this same Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation 2009 that affirmative approaches [homosexual affirming therapy] have “not been evaluated for safety and efficacy
The American Psychiatric Association also published a position statement in March of 2000 stating that it “opposes any psychiatric treatment such as reparative or conversion therapy which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder.”
So the APA is saying they would have no objection to “conversion” therapy that addresses homosexuality as a non-disorder,
may they find a drug that can help Robert
meanwhile, another state stands up to Obama's war on freedom:
Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy on Friday signed a bill permitting the medical use of marijuana statewide, making Connecticut the 17th state to enact such a law.
A month ago, the Connecticut Senate voted 21 to 13 in favor of HB 5389, the Palliative Use of Marijuana Act. The legislation, which allows for the use and distribution of cannabis as medicine, comes after federal officials ramped up enforcement actions against state-sanctioned medical marijuana dispensaries last fall, with scores of raids primarily in California.
Since October 2009, the Justice Department has conducted more than 170 SWAT-style raids against those assisting extremely ill patients in nine medical marijuana states, resulting in at least 61 federal indictments, according to data compiled by Americans for Safe Access. The latter group worked with local advocates to help pass the Connecticut law.
"We are encouraged that state officials are standing up to federal intimidation and moving ahead with the passage of important public health laws," said Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access, in a statement Friday. "We hope other states follow Connecticut's lead in passing medical marijuana laws so that patients are not left unprotected and vulnerable to law enforcement actions."
Steve Smith, White Supremacist, Elected To Republican Party Committee In Pennsylvania County
Steve Smith, a white nationalist with a violent past, was elected to the Republican Party committee for a county in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Smith, who is listed as the state chairman of the white nationalist group American Third Position, proudly shared a photo of the certificate commemorating his election on the website, White World News.
Several commenters on the site congratulated him.
CONGRATULATIONS, SIR! This may seem like just a small step now, but this is how we are taking our nation back and it's how we will secure a future for our people. Everyone needs to look to Steve's example. He's a true patriot!
The Southern Poverty Law Center said that Smith was a member of the Aryan Nations and a skinhead group known as Keystone United. In 2003, Smith and two other skinheads were arrested for shouting slurs and throwing a brick at a black man from Scranton, PA. He pleaded guilty to making terrorist threats and ethnic intimidation and received a 60-day sentence.
In 2010, Smith attended a school board in Wilkes-Barre and objected to a call to hire more minority teachers, saying that the proposal was anti-white. "Diversity is not a strength," Smith said.
He also had a letter to the editor published in the local newspaper last November in which he defended the racial profiling of blacks. "Whites need to stop walking on eggshells when it comes to the issue of race and crime," he wrote. "We need to stand up and speak out against what is happening to our once-safe communities."
GOP Spokesman: ‘Let’s Hurl Some Acid At Those Female Democratic Senators’
June 1st, 2012 2:27 pm
Henry Decker
Jay Townsend, the communications director for Republican Rep. Nan Hayworth, has an interesting solution for dealing with female Democrats: “hurl some acid” at them.
Townsend fired the latest shot in the war on women via Facebook last week, in response to a commenter named Tom.
"Jay Townsend Listen to Tome. What a little bee he has in his bonnet. Buzz Buzz. My question today...when is Tommy boy going to weigh in on all the Lilly Ledbetter hypocrites who claim to be fighting the War on Women? Let's hurl some acid at those female democratic Senators who won't abide the mandates they want to impose on the private sector. http://freebeacon.com/senate-dems-betray-lilly/
Senate Dems Betray Lilly
freebeacon.com
A group of Democratic female senators on Wednesday declared war on the so-called...see more.
Mau 26 at 10:22AM Like 1"
When is Tommy boy going to weigh in on all the Lilly Ledbetter hypocrites who claim to be fighting the War on Women? Let’s hurl some acid at those female democratic Senators who won’t abide the mandates they want to impose on the private sector.
Dozens of outraged constituents immediately attacked Townsend’s comments.
“Acid attacks are particularly brutal, aimed almost solely at women, with the intent to maim and disfigure,” one commenter replied. “I couldn’t imagine a worse piece of invective from someone who puts the Republican war on women in quotes.”
“Suggesting that someone throw acid in women’s faces is, in a word, despicable. The Taliban is NOT a role model,” wrote another.
Ironically, Townsend — who has worked on more than 300 political campaigns in more than 25 different states — offers free campaign and communication tips on his website. In the section “What do you do when a prominent supporter does something idiotic?” Townsend suggests that “you have about three seconds to put some distance between yourself and the idiot.”
“When a prominent supporter goes off the reservation and says something idiotic, YOU need to be the one to set the record straight and you need to do it immediately and forcefully,” he writes.
Representative Hayworth has not acted on her spokesman’s own advice; as of now, Townsend is still with the campaign.
Another section on Townsend’s site offers a list of “the 10 worst mistakes candidates make.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to include “hiring Jay Townsend.”
that reminds of the time George Wallace, a well-known racist from Alabama, won the Maryland Democratic Presidential primary
or the time Barack Obama, who attended and donated to a racist church for decades, won the Democratic nomination for the Presidency
"Metropolitan State College of Denver is currently investigating the claims of a student that a political science professor discriminated against him for being heterosexual.
MSCD student, Rick Foo, filed a grievance against an instructor who Foo claims targeted, insulted and harassed him due to his sexual orientation.
Foo says that the professor made sexual advances toward him and when Foo made it clear that he was straight, the student-teacher relationship soured. "It became a straight-bashing fest," Foo said of the severity of the conditions in class.
When asked for a statement, MSCD was tight-lipped. "We cannot discuss any element of his accusations," Cathy Lucas, spokesperson for MSCD, said on Friday. "Once this investigation is concluded, we can discuss the findings with the student's consent."
The professor, who is listed and ranked on RateMyProfessors.com -- a website where former students can leave frank remarks about instructors and rate their performance. Several students gave the professor low marks on the site. One of the lowest rankings came from a student who suggested that the teacher played favorites, "He has his favorites, outside of class depending on who you are."
MSCD has a standard equal opportunity agreement that it enters into with all of its employees that clearly states its stance on the matter, "Metro State has a continuing moral and legal obligation to foster equality at the institution and to ensure no one is discriminatorily excluded from its programs or activities because of her/his race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability/handicap, veteran status, sexual orientation or preference, gender identity and expressions."
When asked for a statement from the accused professor, Lucas said, "The professor who the student is accusing prefers to not discuss the grievance."
Lucas also said that, if the accusation turns out to be false, Foo "may be subject to disciplinary action within the College, and external legal action from those falsely accused.""
well, the latest polls of likely voters are showing Romney ahead by 4 nationwide and Walker ahead by 7 in Wisconsin
and that's before yesterday's economic news
Obama appears to think his only hope is to attack Romney and voters aren't biting at that hook
problem is Obama can't run on his own positives
there aren't any
it looks like the election are pretty much a wrap
only possible thing Obama could do now to shake things up is give Biden the heave-ho and make Hillary VP
"It is possible that on Friday, President Obama officially ran out of time for a sunny pre-November burst of economic growth, better news on unemployment, and heightened confidence among voters who insist the economy is their chief worry.
Political scientists and pollsters believe the spring and early summer of election years often signal how voters are leaning in their presidential preferences. If true in 2012, Friday’s gloomy employment news portends trouble for Obama and a wider opening for Mitt Romney, who assailed the president anew for making the economy worse.
Obama appears to be at the mercy of snowballing events he can’t control, while assaulted by Republicans for the economic interventions he has controlled. Obama’s openings to persuade voters have dried up, and analysts are saying that disappointed voters are tuning him out.
If there was any bipartisan agreement Friday, it was that the word “terrible” described the May jobs report.
The somber news piled up worldwide, putting a lid on business confidence and risk-taking:
-- The Labor Department said unemployment climbed to 8.2 percent. In addition, the government said conditions had been worse in March and April than originally reported;
-- The U.S. economy has analysts’ projecting 1 percent growth in the fourth quarter (when voters fill out their ballots). Even worse, the “r” word -- recession -- crept back into economic discussions;
-- Among the nation’s unemployed, nearly 43 percent remain jobless for more than 27 weeks
-- The Dow Jones Industrial Average erased in one day all its gains over the year;
-- Economic growth in China appeared to stall;
-- The Eurozone debt crisis lingers;
-- House Republicans vowed Friday to pass new legislation in June to stoke the economy, with no prospect of Senate enactment, signaling continued gridlock in Congress over fiscal policy; and
-- Eyes turned to the Federal Reserve for possible new quantitative easing after its June or August meetings, but analysts debated the utility vs. costs.
Obama, traveling in Minnesota to raise money for his campaign, said the disappointing May jobs report, combined with the Eurozone hazards and the threat of higher gas prices, argued for passage of his pending jobs agenda, when he gets back
Mitt Romney’s big green flop
Lowell solar panel company he backed goes under
By Greg Turner
Saturday, June 2, 2012 - Updated 15 minutes ago
A Bay State solar panel developer that landed a state loan from Mitt Romney when he was Massachusetts governor has gone belly up — a day after the GOP presidential hopeful ripped President Obama’s green-energy investments.
Lowell-based Konarka Technologies announced late yesterday that it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and will cease operations, lay off its workers and liquidate.
The demise of Konarka could become a hot topic on the campaign trail because Romney personally doled out a $1.5 million renewable energy subsidy to the Lowell startup in 2003, shortly after taking office on Beacon Hill.
And on Thursday the GOP candidate was stumping outside the shuttered Solyndra solar-panel factory in California, blasting the Obama administration’s loan as a symbol of “crony capitalism.”
“If Romney gets a little bit of heat because he participated in some of these policies at a point in time, it’s all fair in the world of politics,” said state Sen. Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton). “He’s criticizing on one hand, he’s got to take criticism on the other.”
A Romney spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.
In its 11-year history, Konarka collected a total of $20 million in government research grants, along with $170 million in private capital. The company makes thin, flexible solar panels that its customers build into other products such as deck umbrellas, backpacks and portable chargers.
Konarka has fallen into the same bankruptcy shadow cast by Bay State clean-energy crashes Evergreen Solar and Beacon Power, both backed by controversial taxpayer subsidies.
Berke indicated in Konarka’s announcement that he hasn’t given up hope that a “rescue financing or acquisition” would materialize during the bankruptcy proceedings. He noted “worldwide interest in the company, including from the Chinese government” — whose subsidies for its solar industry prompted the Obama administration earlier this month to impose punishing tariffs.
Berke, who was not available for comment, founded Konarka in 2001 with Nobel Prize-winning chemist Alan Heeger and a team of scientists at UMass-Lowell.
Konarka has only $113,541 in cash remaining, according to a financial statement filed in bankruptcy court. That’s after paying out about $715,000 in severance to employees.
The company’s assets, which would help resolve some creditor claims, include hundreds of patents and patent applications along with a manufacturing plant in New Bedford.
Outcry over Mitt Romney’s Mass. affirmative action move
By Associated Press
Saturday, June 2, 2012
WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney scuttled the Massachusetts government’s long-standing affirmative action policies with a few strokes of his pen on a sleepy holiday six months after he became governor.
No news conference or news release trumpeted Romney’s executive order on Bunker Hill Day, June 17, 2003, in the deserted Statehouse. But when civil rights leaders, black lawmakers and other minority groups learned of Romney’s move two months later, it sparked a public furor.
Romney drew criticism for cutting the enforcement teeth out of the law and rolling back more than two decades of affirmative action advances.
Civil rights leaders said his order stripped minorities, women, disabled people and veterans of equal access protections for state government jobs and replaced them with broad guidelines. They complained Romney hadn’t consulted them before making the changes, snubbing the very kind of inclusion he professed to support.
"It was done under the radar and there was a big backlash," said Michael Curry, president of the Boston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "It was clear Romney really did not have an appreciation for the affirmative action policies long in place."
Romney responded by creating an advisory panel to recommend changes. But he eventually retreated completely, leaving the state’s old policies in place.
[A complete retreat for Mr. Don't Ask Me About It]
His handling of affirmative action may offer insights into how he would deal with civil rights issues if he were to defeat Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, in the fall election. The Republican challenger hasn’t talked much about affirmative action during the campaign.
Romney’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
[Don't bother asking, he won't tell]
"This is the canary in the coal mine on how he feels about civil rights issues," said Julie Patino, who was deputy director of the state’s affirmative action office from 1995 to 1999. "It was a cloaked and unilateral move that eradicated years and years of civil rights advances and history. It was an astonishing act."
"the latest polls of likely voters are showing Romney ahead by 4"
There's that reading comprehension problem again.
Rassmussen, ever the outlier, is not "the latest polls," it is a single poll. Today RCP is showing Obama leading Romney by 2.3 points in its average of multiple current polls.
"problem is Obama can't run on his own positives
there aren't any"
Your ignorance is showing again!
There are plenty of positives Obama has accomplished.
AOL reports Chrysler Shakes Off Critics And Politics And Creates A New Star
Daily Kos reports Bad News for Romney: U.S. Auto Sales are the Strongest in 4 Years!
Forbes reports GM Is No. 1 In The World Again In Auto Sales
CNN reports Bin Laden killing caps decade-long manhunt
Time Ideas reports Why Obama Owns bin Laden
WSJ Market Watch reports Obama spending binge never happened
The New Republic reports More Obamacare News: 2.5M Young Adults Got Insurance
Rawstory reports Romney blames Obama for women job losses actually caused by GOP
BLS data Private-sector jobs rebound
Bloomberg reports Americans Gaining Energy Independence With U.S. As Top Producer
Oops. Here's the first link again.
AOL reports Chrysler Shakes Off Critics And Politics And Creates A New Star
So many ad homonem comments might lead one to characterize "anonymous" as misanthropic.
Robert, they'll come up with a drug to help you someday
then, one day, you'll realize how to spell "ad hominem"
you might be obsessed with homos
to our other ignoramus: Ramussen is not an outlier and is actually more accurate come election day because they poll likely voters rather than registered ones
the RCP average includes dated polls and the polls of all registered voters, whether they are likely to vote or not
many people who don't usually vote registered last time because of the novelty of voting for a black candidate
they have been largely disappointed and would be unlikely to have formed a new voting habit anyway
the last election is actually the outlier
no one's all excited this time out, except the Tea Party
Rep. Allen West, a black Congressman from Florida, put it well when he criticized Obama after Friday morning's jobs report fell far below expectations, saying the numbers will make the president a “desperate person."
“When you’re a desperate person — much the same as a cat being cornered – you’re going to come out and really fight even stronger,” West said Friday afternoon. “I think that the president’s policies are failing the American people. We have now hit 40 consecutive months of unemployment in the United States of America at or above 8 percent.”
The May jobs report proved disappointing, with only 69,000 jobs added and the unemployment rate rising to 8.2 percent. Investors responded to the bleak report by running for safety, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to its biggest loss since November.
West wasn't the only one who had criticism for the president over the jobs report. Obama's 2012 rival Mitt Romney called the report "devastating news" for both American workers and families.
"This week has seen a cascade of one bad piece of economic news after another," Romney said in a statement. "It is now clear to everyone that President Obama's policies have failed to achieve their goals and that the Obama economy is crushing America's middle class."
Darling, it's a pun. I'm embarrassed for you that you missed it and corrected my spelling.
Misanthrope was another pun. Did you get that one?
You went to public school, didn't you.
rrjr
"I'm embarrassed for you that you missed it and corrected my spelling."
Robert, based on your posts here, I had no idea you had any capacity for embarassment
since I pointed out the pun to you in my comment, I still think you just misspelled because you think about homos so much
"Misanthrope was another pun. Did you get that one?"
no, and I still don't
get ahead and explain it
we need a good laugh
"You went to public school, didn't you."
yes, and the quality was much better in those days before it became a place that hired openly gay teachers
the decline in scores correlates with the phenomenom of ubiquitously present homosexual teachers
"President Obama is likely to play only a minor role in congressional races across the country this fall as his own re-election contest tightens and his fellow Democrats grow reluctant to publicly embrace an incumbent president whose popularity with voters has waned.
“Obama will not be asked [to campaign for Democrats] in a lot of places,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “He will only be asked in heavily blue districts and states.”"
June 1 (Reuters) - Louisiana is embarking on the nation's boldest experiment in privatizing public education, with the state preparing to shift tens of millions in tax dollars out of the public schools to pay private industry, businesses owners and church pastors to educate children.
Starting this fall, thousands of poor and middle-class kids will get vouchers covering the full cost of tuition at more than 120 private schools across Louisiana, including small, Bible-based church schools.
The following year, students of any income will be eligible for mini-vouchers that they can use to pay a range of private-sector vendors for classes and apprenticeships not offered in traditional public schools. The money can go to industry trade groups, businesses, online schools and tutors, among others.
Every time a student receives a voucher of either type, his local public school will lose a chunk of state funding.
"We are changing the way we deliver education," said Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican who muscled the plan through the legislature this spring over fierce objections from Democrats and teachers unions. "We are letting parents decide what's best for their children, not government."
That must explain the excellence of schools in Alabama, where they don't hire lgbt teachers.
Your comment underscores the essential bigotry of anti-lgbt "family" propaganda: that being around gay people is harmful to children. This is why groups like ADA, FoF, FRC, CRC/G, etc. and PFOX do all their press-releases, boycotts, donations, et. al.--anti-lgbt animus. You make a good spokesperson for such groups.
Robert, Robert, sad deluded Robert
Alabama is a poorer section of the country for historic reasons but if you measure their performance with similar type students, they appear superior to gay-friendly school districts
in 2003, the first thing that came up when I googled, the average combined math and verbal score of students taking the SAT in Alabama was 1111
Maryland's was 1024
granted, fewer took the test in Alabama but even comparing kids of similar backgrounds put Alabama on top in every situation
among kids whose parent had no HS diploma, Alabama was at 1024 and Maryland at 993
among kids whose parents had a Bachlelor degree, Alabama was at 1122 and Maryland at 1072
among kids whose parents had a graduate degree, Alabama was at 1178 and Maryland at 1134
clearly, the heavy local concentration of homosexuals in public education has had a negative effect
Darling, everyone else sees your manipulating statistics to put down LGBT people as being on a par with that of Cameron and Phelps. It's so over the top that it makes me wonder again whether you are a parody.
rrjr
While you're at your computer, see if you can figure out the "ad homonem-misanthrope" play on words.
"granted, fewer took the test in Alabama but even comparing kids of similar backgrounds put Alabama on top in every situation"
You really shouldn't talk about things you don't comprehend. There is no data provided about "similar background" but there is data on "Ethnicities" and "Locales."
Somehow, moron, you missed these caveats printed right above the tables when you used the SAT results published in the Southern Legislative Conference's "Question of the Month for 2004: How do southern states stack up on the SAT?" See http://www.slcatlanta.org/QoM/qom.php?post_id=77
Table 1
"Testing patterns offer interesting comparisons across the region. Participation rates in a nine of the 16 SLC member states are below 20 percent of students. Nationally, 48 percent of the 2.94 million high school graduates in the country took the SAT. The impact on low participation rates is often to inflate the scores for the state, since the smaller sample of students is often seeking admission to colleges out-of-state or at more competitive institutions. Table 1 provides SAT participation rates, total participation, and scores for the SLC region."
Table 2
"SAT participation varies considerably by race and ethnicity as well, as demonstrated by table 2. In some instances, this indicates the varied ethnic diversity of the state, with West Virginia and Arkansas having proportionately larger non-minority populations than in much of the region. It also may indicate lower college-bound rates among minority students. An historical note not provided by table 2 is the consistent rise in minority participation in the SAT over the past decade, as reported by The College Board. Minority participation in the SAT has risen nationally from 30 percent in 1993 to 36 percent in 2003, an indication of higher levels of college-bound minority students."
Table 3
"Beyond ethnicity, where students live affects both their participation and their scores on the SAT. The great majority of SAT test-takers attend schools in large city and suburban districts, with nearly half of all SAT participants in the region in these areas. Rural areas lag the furthest behind, with just over 10 percent of all SAT test-takers, with small towns accounting for an additional 16 percent. This combined total of just over one-quarter of all SAT test takers represents significantly fewer than the estimated 40 percent of students who live in these areas. Table 3 illustrates this information."
Table 4
"Where students live seems to affect their performance on the SAT. While lower rates of participation in general inflates the relative scores, the lower participation rates in proportion to the students in rural areas does not lead to higher scores. Indeed, rural areas in general lag behind all areas in their performance on SAT results. It bears noting that outside factors such as family income and parents with college education both correlate to higher performance on the SAT, which provides some clues as to the lower performance for students in rural places and small towns. Table 4 illustrates the composite performance of students on the SAT by locale."
But then of course, lying with or without statistics, is your forte.
Darling, I rarely lie. Nor do I call people "morons." Or make jokes about people's mental health.
I'll admit to the periodic typo or misspelling, however. I confuse homophones quite often.
You are working really hard at this aren't you?
Nowhere, of course, other than perhaps in some document produced by people such as Cameron, would you find the idea that having lgbt teachers lowers student performance.
On the other hand, it is a well-known and long-standing fact in education that nothing correlates more with student test scores than zip code.
Do you really not understand that this is bigotry? Do you really think these things? You astonish me.
Just amazing.
Haven't figured out that pun yet, have you?
rrjr
I confuse homophones quite often.
Robert, this is priceless -- you have outdone yourself this time! This should be on a t-shirt.
when Robert hears "homo" he goes robo gaga in slow-mo
but, someday, they'll find a drug to help him
yes, Robo, homosexuals do lack certain character traits that need to present in quality teachers
Alabama, which forbids gay teaching of minors, has a higher average SAT score regardless of the parents' station in life
you can spin your stats any way you like but it looks like they're on to something
gays outta teaching, gays outta adoption, gays outta marriage
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant last week advocated for school prayer in front of an audience of teenagers.
"I don't think it hurt us at all," the Republican Methodist governor told about 300 high school students at the American Legion Boys State last Tuesday. "I think it built our character, and I think it is what we should continue to do."
Bryant, who attended both public and private high school, said that school prayer would "let people know there is a God," adding, "those children should know that he does care about them, particularly within their classroom."
"I think at some point at a moment of enlightenment in the future, the federal government and perhaps a future Supreme Court is going to say it's not a bad thing for children to hear prayer in school," he said.
Governor Bryant's comments come at a time when the Bible belt is swarming with positive developments on the relationship between Church and State.
In April, Arizona's Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed legislation that requires the state Board of Education to design a high school elective course titled "The Bible and its influence on Western Culture," which would include lessons on the history, literature and influence of the Old and New testaments on laws, government and culture, among other aspects of society.
In Louisiana, the state government has approved $2.7 million of taxpayer money to fund a church school -- the New Living Word School -- in Ruston. The church-run school can take up to 315 students under the state's new Minimum Foundation Program, which permits low-income students at failing public high schools to attend alternate schools, be they public or private.
Hundreds of Mormons March in Gay Pride Parade
And now for something completely different: More than 300 Mormons marched in the Utah Gay Pride Parade on Sunday.
Indicating that some Mormons may want to change the LDS church's reputation for intolerance towards LGBT people and issues, a group called Mormons Building Bridges led the parade this weekend, prompting emotional responses from organizers and spectators. The parade's grand marshal, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, summed up the scene in a tweet, writing: "In tears. Over 300 straight, active Mormons showed up to march with me at the Utah Pride parade in support of LGBT people."
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a somewhat complex relationship to homosexuality, as evidenced by this 2008 Slate "Explainer" on the subject. Essentially, Mormons can be gay, but must remain celibate, according to church doctrine. But in 2008, the church got involved with California's Proposition 8, supporting efforts to ban gay marriage in the state, entering the fray of conservative social activism on social issues.
But not all Mormons agree. The founder of Mormons Building Bridges is Erika Munson, who is a straight, practicing Mormon living in Utah with her five kids. Religion Dispatches has more on her here.
Apparently, this is just the first of a series of gay pride marches across the country that Mormons are planning on attending. The effort comes in an election year in which both LGBT issues and Mormonism have taken center stage.
so Mormons have a diversity of opinion and freedom of thought
they're not my cup of tea but this does undercut the nascent Obama campaign's effort to attack Romney by associating him with the Mormon church
I think their religious ideas are strange and heretical myself but on ideas about society and public policy, sounds like they're not that different from the rest of America
which is more than you say about the Islamic schools Obama attended as a child or the racist church he attended and contributed to for decades
WASHINGTON -- Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) holds a narrow lead over his Democratic challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, in the run up to Tuesday's recall election, according to the final poll on the race conducted by Public Policy Polling, a firm affiliated with the Democratic Party.
PPP's automated, recorded-voice survey, conducted among 1,226 likely voters over the weekend, puts Walker at 50 percent support, 3 percentage points ahead of Barrett's 47 percent.
Fifteen surveys on the recall election have been released over the past month, and while most have produced close results, all but one have given Walker the advantage. Independent polls have generally given Walker a bigger lead than the handful of publicly released internal polls sponsored by the Barrett campaign or its Democratic allies.
In the past week, a Marquette University Law School poll gave Walker a seven-point lead, 52 percent to 45 percent, while an internal poll conducted for the Barrett campaign by the Democratic firm Garin-Hart-Yang showed Walker leading by just two points, 50 percent to 48 percent. The latest effort from PPP, which also polls for Democratic clients but did not have a campaign or party sponsor for this survey, is closer to the Barrett campaign poll.
With all polls included, including the internal surveys by the Democrats, the HuffPost Pollster chart of all available Wisconsin surveys gives Walker a lead of 2.8 points (50.3 percent to 47.5 percent). With the Democratic campaign polls excluded, however, Walker's lead grows to 3.9 points (50.6 percent to 46.7 percent).
gig's up, gaybos
we're putting the Supreme Court on the case
you can kiss gay "marriage" goodbye
"SAN FRANCISCO, June 5 (Reuters) - The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cleared the way on Tuesday for the U.S. Supreme Court to consider California's gay marriage ban.
Supporters of the 2008 ban, Proposition 8, have made clear they will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, assuring a favorable outcome from the sensible high court.
The top U.S. court will agree to hear the matter in the session beginning in October, putting it on track to decide the case within a year.
President Barack Obama last month became a gay President on national news magazines and created a 2012 campaign issue, saying he believed same-sex couples should be included in a new definition of marriage. Republican Mitt Romney disagrees.
The vast majority of U.S. states limit marriage to couples where both genders are represented, and popular votes have consistently approved bans on changing the definition of marriage.
The U.S. Supreme Court will set national precedent when it takes the California case. Appeals courts have so far declined to rule broadly that marriage is a fundamental human right for same-sex couples as well as heterosexuals."
in the same way that Scott Brown's victory over Martha Coakley foreshadowed the 2010 midterm defeat of Democrats, Wisconsin voters tonight set the tone for November's election
Scott Walker easily defeated the union attempt to recall him, demonstrating the fraud of Democratic propaganada polling which held the race to be too close to call
even a third of union voters went for Walker
because whether you're union or management, male or female, black or Hispanic, Mormon or Jewish, gay or straight, et al, one thing all Americans agree on is that Obama and the Democrats must go because we must have economic opportunity AKA jobs
Americans have suffered from an economic nightmare ever since the Democrats took over Congress in 2006
and while Obama is still trying to blame Bush, the truth is that strong downturns have historically been followed by strong rebonds until Obama came along
did you know that the GDP increased by an average 4.3% a year from 82-89, after Reagan policies reversed the Carter downturn?
did you know that GDP increased by an average 7% a year from 1933-1940, after the Great Depression?
the growth for the first quarter of 2012?
1.8%
socialism isn't working
tonight, in Wisconsin, voters said they get it
this doesn't look good for Obama
"Former President Bill Clinton told CNBC Tuesday that the US economy already is in a recession and urged Congress to extend ALL the tax cuts due to expire at the end of the year."
and with all the voters excited about giving Obama the heave-ho
and all the Dems demoralized
wonder how that Maryland homo-marriage vote is gonna go?
Former president Bill Clinton caused additional headaches for the Obama campaign on Tuesday when he told CNBC that he wouldn't have a problem with Congress extending all the Bush tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of the year.
Clinton's insistence that he would have "no problem" extending all of the tax cuts puts the Obama campaign in an awkward position. In this hyper-political climate, Republicans were quick to pounce on the daylight between the current and former Democratic president.
The White House is readying for a tax cut showdown this summer. House majority leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) indicated the House will vote on extending tax cuts before its August recess.
A Congressional Budget Office report released last month warned that the country will be thrown into a recession if the Bush tax cuts expired.
"What I think we need to do is find some way to avoid the fiscal cliff, to avoid doing anything that would contract the economy now, and then deal with what's necessary in the long term debt-reduction plans as soon as they can," he said. "I don't have any problem with extending all of it now."
A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, Michael Steel, quickly pounced on Clinton's comments. "The fact that former President Clinton supports stopping all of the tax hikes scheduled for January 1 is very, very big news," he said.
This is not the first comment by Clinton that could pose problems for the Obama campaign. During a CNN appearance last week, Clinton praised Romney's work at Bain as "sterling," and questioned the strategy of criticizing private equity.
MILWAUKEE -- Democratic challenger Tom Barrett faced a throng of unhappy supporters on Tuesday night after conceding Wisconsin's recall election to Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Yet one woman was so dissatisfied that she actually slapped the mayor for conceding.
"She was upset about him giving the concession speech while she still felt there were votes to be counted," Sater said. "He looked at her and said 'I'd rather you hug me' so he leaned down thinking that she was going to hug him and she slapped him."
yeah, looks like the Tea Party is strong as ever, despite the propaganda espoused by the liberal media
which is not good for the gay agenda
already, celebs are starting to disassociate themselves from the losing side:
"Queen Latifah is denying that she came out during a recent appearance at the Long Beach lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Pride festival.
The rapper-actress-singer has long faced rumors that she is a lesbian and the fact that the Southern California event marked her first performance at a Pride festival had convinced excited fans that she was finally going to confirm what so many have speculated about for years.
According to the Advocate, while on stage on May 19, Latifah reportedly referred to the crowd as "her people"
Now, she saying that doesn't mean she's gay.
Smart move."
ah, the sweet silence of sullen TTFers...
NEW YORK — The Boy Scouts of America will review a resolution that would allow individual units to accept gays as adult leaders, but a spokesman says there's no expectation that the ban on gay leaders will in fact be lifted.
The resolution was submitted by a Scout leader from the Northeast in April and presented last week at the Scouts' national meeting in Orlando, Fla., according to BSA spokesman Deron Smith.
Smith said Wednesday it would be referred to a subcommittee, which will then make a recommendation to the national executive board. The process would likely be completed by May 2013, according to Smith, who said there were no plans to change the policy.
During last week's meeting, the Scouts were presented with a petition, bearing more than 275,000 names, protesting the ouster of a lesbian mother, Jennifer Tyrrell, who'd been serving as a Scout den mother near Bridgeport, Ohio.
Among those who presented the Change.org petition, and met with Scout officials, was Eagle Scout Zach Wahls, an Iowa college student who was raised by lesbian mothers.
Wahls, in a telephone interview, said he and his allies planned a campaign to mobilize opposition to the gay-exclusion policy from within Scout ranks, with the goal of building pressure for the resolution to be approved.
"Up to the day they end this policy, they'll be saying they have no plans to do so," Wahls said. "But there's no question it's costing the Boy Scouts in terms of membership and public support."
The Scouts, who celebrated their 100th anniversary in 2010, have had a long-standing policy of excluding gays and atheists. In 2000 the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Scouts to maintain the policy in the face of a legal challenge.
things are not looking up for Sir Barry
first, as he starts trying to rev up negative associations of Romney and Bain Capital, Bill Clinton says Bain is a great company
then, unemployment goes up rather than down
the stock market crashes
Wisconsin voters reject the union push to recall the governor, both rejecting the hoax of Democratic pollsters and rejecting Democratic politicians nationwide who made numerous statement about the historic importance of the election...until the results came in
now, both Clinton and Lawrence Summers, Obama's first economiuc advisor, have supported extending Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, which Obama was trying to use a wedge issue in the election
oh, and Obama was trying to paint a negative picture of Romney by comparing him to McCain and saying what a great statesman McCain is
but the next day, McCain accuses the administration of leaking national security secrets and the FBI is investigating
meanwhile, Obama criss-crosses the country trying to raise more money for a campaign with no need for it, hobnobbing with celebs while swaths of American citizens look for work
but he takes time every day to review his kill list to see where in the satellite-watched globe he will rain down drones
the times will a-change soon
look, voters are taking charge again:
"OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington's gay marriage law was blocked from taking effect Wednesday, as opponents filed more than 200,000 signatures seeking a public vote on the issue in November.
Preserve Marriage Washington submitted the signatures just a day before the state was to begin allowing same-sex marriages. State officials will review the signatures over the next week to determine if proposed Referendum 74 will qualify for a public vote, though the numbers suggest the measure will make the ballot easily.
"The current definition of marriage works and has worked," said Joseph Backholm, the chair of Preserve Marriage Washington, as he stood next to stacked boxes of petitions.
The law was passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Chris Gregoire earlier this year, but nationwide such laws have lost every time they've put to a state's electorate.
National groups have already promised time and money to fight the law, including the Washington, D.C.-based National Organization for Marriage, which overturned same-sex marriage in California and Maine in recent years."
in Wisconsin, voters finally figured something out
unless government employee unions are curtailed, they will bankrupt America
"The Wisconsin result energized Republicans across the country — even in the liberal bastion of San Francisco. Obama, visiting the City by the Bay for a fundraiser on Wednesday, was greeted by signs reading, “As goes WI goes the USA” and “The People 1, Unions 0,”"
Barack Obama, the campaign-fundraiser-in-chief, has been going around telling everyone that the Supreme Court will cause a partisan divide in this country if it overturns Obamacare
looks like that will be more likely if they don't overturn it:
"A new CBS News/New York Times poll reveals that nearly seven in ten Americans want the Supreme Court to overturn President Obama's health care law.
Nearly one-quarter - twenty-four percent - of respondents want the law upheld. The margin of error is three percentage points."
Today marks 11 years since the Bush tax breaks for the rich were enacted. President George W. Bush signed the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act on June 7, 2001.
Bush claimed (as right-wingers always do) that tax breaks for the rich would create jobs in the private sector. Well, they haven't. There were 110 million private sector jobs in America in 2001. There are 110 million private sector jobs in America today. Despite a population increase of more than 25 million, there are no more private sector jobs today than when the Bush tax breaks for the rich became law.
In the past 11 years, the number of Americans living in poverty has increased from 33 million to 44 million. The number of Americans receiving food stamps has risen from 18 million to 46 million. "Trickle-down" has not even been a trickle.
But what could we expect? We didn't give tax breaks to the poor; we gave tax breaks to the rich. And for the rich, the past 11 years has been one long party. According to the Paris School of Economics, the top 1% in America saw their share of national income increase by more than 13% from 2001 to 2010. The top 0.1% saw their share of income increase by 20%. The top 0.01% saw their share of income explode by more than 37%, from 2.4% of all of the income in America to 3.3%.
The Bush tax breaks for the rich have yielded the most unequal distribution of wealth in American history, more unequal even than that of 1929, just before the Great Depression.
The lurch toward inequality started decades ago; the Bush tax breaks for the rich only accelerated it. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, since 1979, income for the top 1% has increased by $700,000 a year, while income for the bottom 90% has declined by $900 a year. Between 1992 and 2007, income for the richest 400 Americans increased by 392%, as their taxes dropped by 37%.
The end-game of the Bush tax breaks for the rich is the end of the middle class in America. No jobs, no healthcare, no pensions, no home equity, no higher education. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.
No more tax breaks for the rich. No. No. No. No.
the rich aren't getting any "breaks at all"
they are funding most of our governmental expenses and subsidizing all of the charitable, ecucational and cultural endeavors in our society
meanwhile, over half of all Americans, the lower half on the income scale, pay no income tax at all
furthermore, a universal law, from time immemorial, is that when you tax something, you get less of it
we found this out in Maryland, where O'Malley came in and promised to balance the budget by taxing millionaires
funny thing happened
the income of millionaires in Maryland dropped
now, we have a huge tax increase on the middle class coming in January to jolt our economy into recession
even Bill Clinton and Lawrence Summers have come out and said they favor keeping the current tax rates for all income levels, including the rich
when you have a tax rate structure for 13 years, changing is not ending a "break"
it's raising taxes
which is foolish right now
which is why Ben Bernake agrees with Clinton and Summers and the rest of sensible Americans:
"Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday urged Congress to give him a hand boosting the sluggish economy, which would involve avoiding tax increases scheduled to take place at the start of 2013.
The damage this could do to the economy would likely swamp any stimulus the Fed might be able to throw at it with monetary policy, he warned in response to questioning during testimony before the Joint Economic Committee Thursday morning."
did you know that GDP increased by an average 7% a year from 1933-1940, after the Great Depression?
the growth for the first quarter of 2012?
1.8%
That's because today's GOP Congressional members are obstructionists, who believe "Our top political priority over the next two years should be to to deny President Obama a second term".
When the Great Depression struck, instead of working against the US President, GOP Congressional members actually worked with the President and Democrats to do what needed to be done to enable all Americans -- not just the rich --to climb up out of the economic quagmire. GOP members of Congress in Roosevelt's day knew America needed massive stimulus spending to lift us all up and they set up that stimulus spending through New Deal agencies like the Public Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration. Enacting the New Deal put Americans back to work and America on the road to economic recovery so all had the chance to prosper. Today's GOP Congressional members are ONLY interested in denying President Obama a second term in office.
How do we know today's GOP is not interested in lifting Americans up out of the Bush Recession? Because today's GOP Congressional members won't even allow votes on bills that will help those who need help the most. Instead, GOP Senators threaten filibuster and vote in lockstep against needed stimulus spending measures like federal-aid highway and highway safety construction programs, middle class tax relief and job creation act, and the American Jobs Act to name but a few.
At least one GOP Governor, Bob McDonnell of Virginia, has publicly acknowledged Obama's stimulus plan helped balance his state's budget.
Cloture - The only procedure by which the Senate can vote to place a time limit on consideration of a bill or other matter, and thereby overcome a filibuster
Senate Action on Cloture Motions
1933-34 - 0 US Senate Cloture motions filed
1935-36 - 0 US Senate Cloture motions filed
1937-38 - 2 US Senate Cloture motions filed
1939-40 - 0 US Senate Cloture motions filed
2009-10 - 137 US Senate Cloture motions filed
2011-12 - 90 US Senate Cloture motions filed
"Ben Bernanke on Thursday urged Congress to give him a hand boosting the sluggish economy, which would involve avoiding massive spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to take place at the start of 2013.
The damage this double dose of austerity could do to the economy would likely swamp any stimulus the Fed might be able to throw at it with monetary policy, he warned in response to questioning during testimony before the Joint Economic Committee Thursday morning. In fact, Congress should get on the stick and start doing its part to help the economy now with fiscal stimulus, he suggested.
"Monetary policy is not a panacea. It would be much better to have a broad-based policy effort addressing a whole variety of issues," he said. "I would be much more comfortable if in fact Congress would take some of this burden from us and address those issues."
Bernanke's comments came as financial markets waited breathlessly to see if he would promise a third round of quantitative easing, or bond purchases, to boost the economy. The U.S. stock market enjoyed its biggest rally of the year on Wednesday partly on hopes that Bernanke would promise QE3 after a series of disappointing employment reports and amid Europe's ongoing debt crisis.
Bernanke disappointed them. He promised no new stimulus, and instead pressed Congress to deal with the so-called "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax increases, looming just months away.
"All of these measures together, if they all occur, will amount to a withdrawal of spending and an increase of taxation, depending on how you count, between 3 and 5 percent of GDP," he warned, "which would have a very significant impact on the near-term recovery, whatever benefits you might see in those programs in the very long term.""
"today's GOP Congressional members are obstructionists, who believe "Our top political priority over the next two years should be to to deny President Obama a second term""
that's a worthy priority but the GOP hasn't obstructed a thing
"When the Great Depression struck, instead of working against the US President, GOP Congressional members actually worked with the President and Democrats to do what needed to be done to enable all Americans -- not just the rich --to climb up out of the economic quagmire"
actually, with the exception of the carbon tax, Congress has given Obama everything he wanted
indeed, for the first two years of his term the Dems controlled Congress
none of Obama's stimulus schemes have worked as opposed to most rebounds in American history
more than once, Congress has voted unanimously to reject budget plans Obama sent to the Hill but all Dems joined in rejecting the joke budgets of Sir Barry
"GOP members of Congress in Roosevelt's day knew America needed massive stimulus spending to lift us all up and they set up that stimulus spending through New Deal agencies like the Public Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration"
we've been spending a trillion of stimulus a year
the problem is not in Obama's stars, it is himself
"Enacting the New Deal put Americans back to work and America on the road to economic recovery so all had the chance to prosper"
in contrast to the Obama stimlus plans which did neother of those things
"Today's GOP Congressional members are ONLY interested in denying President Obama a second term in office"
that may be true but they only control one of the three houses of power (House, Senate, White)
Dems have no one but Obama to blame for not leading us out of recession
President Obama is ONLY interested in egalitarianism not the best interests of America
he shares that interest with Marxists everywhere
he's a child of the sixties that never grew up because he never had a real job
"At least one GOP Governor, Bob McDonnell of Virginia, has publicly acknowledged Obama's stimulus plan helped balance his state's budget"
so Obama borrowed funds and gave it to Virginia
so what?
we all know he'd like to control state governments
it's the real reason for his crackdown on legal medicinal marijuana
"Ben Bernanke on Thursday urged Congress to give him a hand boosting the sluggish economy, which would involve avoiding massive spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to take place at the start of 2013"
as opposed to Obama, who wants to increase taxes
"Bernanke's comments came as financial markets waited breathlessly to see if he would promise a third round of quantitative easing, or bond purchases, to boost the economy"
even two rounds of easing haven't worked to counter the mismanagement of the economy under Obama
"Bernanke pressed Congress to deal with the so-called "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax increases, looming just months away"
as opposed to Obama
"All of these measures together, if they all occur, will amount to a withdrawal of spending and an increase of taxation, depending on how you count, between 3 and 5 percent of GDP," he warned, "which would have a very significant impact on the near-term recovery, whatever benefits you might see in those programs in the very long term.""
so Bernake agrees with Clinton, Summers, Romney and all the Republicans
we can't raise taxes on the wealthy who already bankroll our society
remember: whenever you tax something, you get less of it
if we destroy the wealthy, we will all feel the effects
President Obama, I have frequently argued, has been fabulous for the conservative movement. He spurred the creation of the tea party. He helped the GOP win the House majority in 2010 and make big gains in the Senate. His Obamacare has helped revive the Commerce Clause and given a boost to conservative jurisprudence. His refusal to support human rights has caused a bipartisan revulsion and reminded us that foreign policy must be girded by American values. He’s sent independents running into the GOP’s arms. He’s forced conservatives to think hard and express eloquently principles of religious liberty, limited government, free markets and Constitutional democracy.
Obama also has wreaked havoc in the the Democratic Party. He’s firmly affixed the “tax and spend” label to it after Bill Clinton declared that the era of big government was over. He’s made Clinton into a pitch man for Mitt Romney. His rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline has split the party. His refusal to adopt the Simpson-Bowles commission’s recommendations has turned Democrats into reactionaries, defending the status quo on entitlements. He’s alienated Jewish voters. He’s re-McGovernized the party, which now stands for appeasing despotic powers, turning on allies and slashing defense spending.
As Ross Douthat wrote, “House Republicans have spent the past two years taking tough votes on entitlement reform, preparing themselves for an ambitious offensive should 2012 deliver the opportunity to cast those same votes and have them count. The Senate Democrats, on the other hand, have failed to even pass a budget: There is no Democratic equivalent of Paul Ryan’s fiscal blueprint, no Democratic plan to swallow hard and raise middle class taxes the way Republicans look poised to swallow hard and overhaul Medicare. Indeed, there’s no liberal agenda to speak of at the moment, beyond a resounding ‘No!’ to whatever conservatism intends to do.”
Not even Jimmy Carter did this much, I would suggest, to jerk his party to the left and hobble its electoral prospects. No wonder Clinton is on a rampage.
Rather than spin endless excuses and blame it all on money, liberal elites might want to reconsider tying themselves too tightly to Obama’s mast. They have already become quite whiny and sacrificed a good deal of intellectual rigor in trying to defend every misstep as brilliant and every loss as a win.
They should take a page from the conservative playbook from the second Bush term. Then, conservatives stuck by their principles, criticized him where appropriate and maintained their integrity. That was a wise choice. Presidents, especially inept ones, come and go, but parties, journalists and political movements need to endure more than four years.
"A massive, 60-page omnibus bill that drastically limits abortion access and will shut down all abortion clinics in the state is being rushed through the Michigan State House of Representatives on Thursday.
The bill was introduced just last week, but lawmakers held a hearing for it on Thursday morning and are sending it to a full House vote on Thursday afternoon. A spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan said about 90 people showed up at the Health Policy Committee hearing to testify against the bill, but Committee Chair Gail Haines abruptly ended the hearing and cut off all testimony after a Michigan Right to Life spokesperson and only a few others were able to speak.
The omnibus bill would criminalize all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, without exceptions for rape victims, the health of the woman or in cases where there is a severe fetal anomaly. It would require health centers that provide abortions to have surgery rooms. It would require doctors to be present for medication abortions and to screen women for "coercion" before providing an abortion, and it would create new regulations for the disposal of fetal remains.
The bill would also ban "telemedicine" abortions, or the use of technology to prescribe medication for abortion services and the morning-after pill.
"It could shut down most reproductive health centers in the state of Michigan," said the Planned Parenthood spokesman. "It's the most extreme legislation we're seeing anywhere in the country."
State Rep. Mike Shirkey told a local television station on Wednesday that he supports the bill and hopes it will end abortion in Michigan. "Abortion is nothing short of infanticide. Until we completely eliminate abortions in Michigan and completely defund Planned Parenthood, we have work to do," he said.
The bill is expected to pass the House on Thursday afternoon."
I remember when Bill Clinton was elected President thinking "how boring"
and, yet, from giving his wife the job of designing national health care to the affair with Monica to arguments about the definition of "is" to stealing the White China on the way out to this very day, we've gotten a great entertainment value in return for that presidential salary:
"Former president Bill Clinton, a Barack Obama campaign surrogate, apologized Thursday for creating controversy earlier this week with his comments about extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
"I'm very sorry about what happened," Clinton said in an interview on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer." "I thought something had to be done on the 'fiscal cliff' before the election. Apparently nothing has to be done until the first of the year.""
note that Clinton isn't taking back anything he said
he still thinks taxes shouldn't be raised on the wealthy in our weak economic state
he just is saying it can wait until after the election so Obama can use it as a bait and switch issue for the purposes of re-election
his new statement is as bad as his first for Obama
it feeds into the "more flexible after the election" problem that Obama has caused himself
it's also similar to the Joe Biden gay marriage comment that Biden then personally apologized for
but Clinton and Biden are old political pros
you have to wonder if the Democratic establishment is setting Obama up because they realize how bad he's ben for the party
meanwhile, Obama's Watergate moment may have arrived as Congress and the FBI are investigating national security leaks by the Obama White House designed to make Obama look good for the election and the accusations are slowly starting to snowball with even Nancy Pelosi now throwing Obama under the bus
What happened in Wisconsin signals a shift in political mood and assumption. Public employee unions were beaten back and defeated in a state with a long progressive tradition. The unions and their allies put everything they had into "one of their most aggressive grass-roots campaigns ever," as the Washington Post's Peter Whoriskey and Dan Balz reported in a day-after piece. Fifty thousand volunteers made phone calls and knocked on 1.4 million doors to get out the vote against Gov. Scott Walker. Mr. Walker's supporters, less deeply organized on the ground, had a considerable advantage in money.
But organization and money aren't the headline. The shift in mood and assumption is. The vote was a blow to the power and prestige not only of the unions but of the blue-state budgetary model, which for two generations has been: Public-employee unions with their manpower, money and clout, get what they want. If you move against them, you will be crushed.
Mr. Walker was not crushed. He was buoyed, winning by a solid seven points in a high-turnout race.
Governors and local leaders will now have help in controlling budgets. Down the road there will be fewer contracts in which you work for, say, 23 years for a city, then retire with full salary and free health care for the rest of your life—paid for by taxpayers who cannot afford such plans for themselves, and who sometimes have no pension at all. The big meaning of Wisconsin is that a public injustice is in the process of being righted because a public mood is changing.
Political professionals now lay down lines even before a story happens. They used to wait to do the honest, desperate, last-minute spin of yesteryear. Now it's strategized in advance, which makes things tidier but less raggedly fun. The line laid down by the Democrats weeks before the vote was that it's all about money: The Walker forces outspent the unions so they won, end of story.
Money is important, as all but children know. But the line wasn't very flattering to Wisconsin's voters, implying that they were automatons drooling in front of the TV waiting to be told who to back. It was also demonstrably incorrect. Most voters, according to surveys, had made up their minds well before the heavy spending of the closing weeks.
Mr. Walker didn't win because of his charm—he's not charming. It wasn't because he is compelling on the campaign trail—he's not, especially. Even his victory speech on that epic night was, except for its opening sentence—"First of all, I want to thank God for his abundant grace," which, amazingly enough, seemed to be wholly sincere—meandering, unable to name and put forward what had really happened.
But on the big question—getting control of the budget by taking actions resisted by public unions—he was essentially right, and he won.
By the way, the single most interesting number in the whole race was 28,785. That is how many dues-paying members of the American Federation of State, County and Municiple Employees were left in Wisconsin after Mr. Walker allowed them to choose whether union dues would be taken from their paychecks each week. Before that, Afscme had 62,218 dues-paying members in Wisconsin. Public union involvement is, simply, coerced.
People wonder about the implications for the presidential election. They'll wonder for five months, and then they'll know.
President Obama's problem now isn't what Wisconsin did, it's how he looks each day—careening around, always in flight, a superfluous figure. No one even looks to him for leadership now. He doesn't go to Wisconsin, where the fight is. He goes to Sarah Jessica Parker's place, where the money is.
There is, now, a house-of-cards feel about this administration.
It became apparent some weeks ago when the president talked on the stump—where else?—about an essay by a fellow who said spending growth is actually lower than that of previous presidents. This was startling to a lot of people, who looked into it and found the man had left out most spending from 2009, the first year of Mr. Obama's presidency. People sneered: The president was deliberately using a misleading argument to paint a false picture! But you know, why would he go out there waving an article that could immediately be debunked? Maybe because HE THOUGHT IT WAS TRUE. That's more alarming, isn't it, the idea that he knows so little about the effects of his own economic program that he thinks he really is a low spender.
For more than a month, his people have been laying down the line that America was just about to enter full economic recovery when the European meltdown stopped it. (I guess the slowdown in China didn't poll well.) You'll be hearing more of this—we almost had it, and then Spain, or Italy, messed everything up. What's bothersome is not that it's just a line, but that the White House sees its central economic contribution now as the making up of lines.
Any president will, in a presidential election year, be political. But there is a startling sense with Mr. Obama that that's all he is now, that he and his people are all politics, all the time, undeviatingly, on every issue. He isn't even trying to lead, he's just trying to win.
Most ominously, there are the national-security leaks that are becoming a national scandal—the "avalanche of leaks," according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, that are somehow and for some reason coming out of the administration. A terrorist "kill list," reports of U.S. spies infiltrating Al Qaeda in Yemen, stories about Osama bin Laden's DNA and how America got it, and U.S. involvement in the Stuxnet computer virus, used against Iranian nuclear facilities. These leaks, say the California Democrat, put "American lives in jeopardy," put "our nation's security in jeopardy."
This isn't the usual—this is something different. A special counsel may be appointed.
And where is the president in all this? On his way to Anna Wintour's house. He's busy. He's running for president.
But why? He could be president now if he wanted to be.
It just all increasingly looks like a house of cards. Bill Clinton—that ol' hound dog, that gifted pol who truly loves politics, who always loved figuring out exactly where the people were and then going to exactly that spot and claiming it—Bill Clinton is showing all the signs of someone who is, let us say, essentially unimpressed by the incumbent. He defended Mitt Romney as a businessman—"a sterling record"—said he doesn't like personal attacks in politics, then fulsomely supported the president, and then said that the Bush tax cuts should be extended.
His friends say he can't help himself, that he's getting old and a little more compulsively loquacious. Maybe. But maybe Bubba's looking at the president and seeing what far more than half of Washington sees: a man who is limited, who thinks himself clever, and who doesn't know that clever right now won't cut it.
Because Bill Clinton loves politics, he hates losers. Maybe he just can't resist sticking it to them a little, when he gets a chance.
"When the Great Depression struck, instead of working against the US President, GOP Congressional members actually worked with the President and Democrats to do what needed to be done to enable all Americans -- not just the rich --to climb up out of the economic quagmire. GOP members of Congress in Roosevelt's day knew America needed massive stimulus spending to lift us all up and they set up that stimulus spending through New Deal agencies like the Public Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration."
just a second to correct this little bit of ignorance
when FDR became President, Democrats controlled Congress and his New Deal plan was passed within 100 days
when Obama became President, Democrats controlled Congress and his ARRA plan was passed within 100 days
the difference is the results
from 1932-1939, the US economy grew an average of 7% a year
three and a half years after Obama's plan was enacted, unemployment is higher than it was before Obama was elected and the growth rate of our "recovery" last quarter was 1.8%
is because Congress stopped cooperating with Obama?
read the history books
FDR's attempts to manipulate the Supreme Court through unconstitutional means caused a backlash against him and Congress thwarted him at every turn the rest of his Presidency
he managed somehow
and, somehow, Obama hasn't
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Barack Obama strongly denied Friday that his administration deliberately leaked classified national security information.
Obama responded to a mounting controversy over two blockbuster stories in the New York Times, both of which divulged highly sensitive details about his national security policies. One story focused on Obama's so-called "kill list." Another looked at his ordering of cyberattacks against Iran.
Over the past week, both Republicans and Democrats have condemned the leaks, with key members of Congress pledging to investigate them.
Some Republicans, most prominently Senators John McCain and Diane Feinstein, have accused the White House of purposefully leaking the information in order to play up Obama's national security record in an election year.
"Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill don’t agree on much these days, but they agree that the Obama administration has a serious problem with leaking classified information.
And with national security in the balance, a group of congressional leaders says there’s an urgent need to get things back in line.
“A special prosecutor can take years. We don’t have years. We need to legislate, and we need to do things quickly,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said Thursday at a press conference of chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
The four legislators — Feinstein, Sen. Saxby Chambless and Reps. Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger — said they met Thursday morning with James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, and will receive a briefing from FBI Director Robert Mueller later in the day.
But after a glut of stories about secret U.S. operations overseas – from an reports of foiled Yemeni bomb plots to drone strikes in Pakistan to last week’s story confirming long-suspected U.S. involvement in development of the computer virus Stuxnet – they say it’s become clear that there’s a problem that the administration hasn’t been able to address on its own.
Last month’s revelation by Judicial Watch that the White House, the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency allowed filmmakers unusual access to people involved in the planning and execution of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden has also caused concern.
Rogers said the bipartisan presence spoke to the seriousness of the issue. Of the leaks, he said: “It seems to be a pattern that is growing worse and more frequent. … Their inability to keep a secret, this has been as serious a problem as I have seen.”"
little press conference moment:
"Question: What about the Republicans saying that you're blaming the Europeans for the failures of your own policies?
President Obama: The private sector is doing fine."
no wonder Obama isn't trying to do anything other than raise campaign funds to get re-elected
he thinks everything is fine
remember in 2008 when Obama used the internet to raise record amounts from small donors?
did you know 90% of those donors haven't contributed again?
his money is now mostly from Hollywood celeb fundraisers
I think we all know where this going
before it's over, Michelle will. at just the right moment, say "let them eat cake"
By far the most amusing and telling result of the thumping the corrupt public-employee unions and out-of-state far-left zealots suffered in Wisconsin is the whining and hand-wringing now being exhibited by a growing collection of liberal pundits, politicians and ultra-wealthy activists who are uniformly saying this is a "major wake-up call for the left, Democrats and unions."
No, it's not. It's a loud and clear pronouncement that big government and big-government giveaways to people who want something for nothing is over. Look at the actual results. Listen to the actual people of Wisconsin.
Many were flat-out offended and angered that the far-left flooded into their state to attempt to overturn the voice of the people. These voters, like the majority of the American people, are tired of being fooled or even fooling themselves. They look at the life-destroying economic collapses in Greece, Spain, Italy, Illinois, New York and California and now know exactly the cause and who is willingly spreading the disease.
The voters of Wisconsin know that the Democrat Party is for the most part owned and operated by corrupt public-employee unions that want to suck every last dollar out of their pockets to fund bankrupt pensions and health care plans for themselves and their members.
The voters of Wisconsin have realized that these unions and the politicians who support them are literally stealing from them and endangering the economic future of their children.
The false "major wake-up call" the far-left pundits, union officials and politicians want to shout is that rather than the corrupt and budget-destroying policies of the unions being at fault, were it not for the money of "evil" conservatives and corporations, all would be well in liberal utopia.
Said an official from the American Federation of Teachers: "It's pretty clear that the voices of ordinary citizens are at permanent risk of being drowned out by uninhibited corporate spending." Laughingly wrong.
The voices of "ordinary citizens" just spoke. And guess what? These far-left pundits, politicians, wealthy liberal activists and union leaders know that. They know the jig is up and that the American people have finally caught on to their outright thievery.
Just as they have caught on to the dangers of the nanny state, especially in the hands of inexperienced "community organizers." It does not take much to read between the lines to realize that a number of Democrats with real-world experience see the wheels flying off the big-government wagon and its operators being exposed as the real problem of the moment.
As Ed Rendell, former Democrat governor and head of the Democratic National Committee, just said with regard to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, "I think she would have come in with a lot more executive experience. I think the president was hurt by being a legislator only."
OK, let's be honest. Obama was not even a legislator, and Rendell knows that. During his barely two years in the Senate, Obama was running full time for president. During his time in the legislature in Illinois, he was voting "present." Hardly a profile in courage.
Former President Bill Clinton keeps making comments that sure seem to validate the real-world experience of Mitt Romney. Then, when the liberal media become aghast at this affront to their Messiah Barack Obama, they have Clinton on to "correct" the record. Except, he keeps doubling down on his at least modest praise of Romney.
To paraphrase Col. Jessup from "A Few Good Men," the far-left "can't handle the truth" — that being there's no magical wake-up call for them. The hypercorrosive effects of big government and something-for-nothing policies of Obama and his supporters have finally been exposed for all to see.
Americans are now choosing self-responsibility and fiscal sanity over the suicidal power grabs of the public-employee unions and their political protectors. Not only will these corrupt public-employee unions continue to take a pounding across the country but come November, Obama will too.
That is the real "wake-up call" the far-left most fears.
all the good times of the TTF heyday have slipped away
the giddy days where they fooled people into thinking scientists have endorsed the liberal agenda in peer reviewed studies have blown away in the wind
go disappearing through the smoke rings of your mind, down the foggy ruins of time
for a brief glorious moment it seemed as though you had it all figured out
but, then, all fake glory is fleeting
the long arc of history has bended toward justice after all....
you can thank Barack Obama
ten days
Ten days what?
hmm.
atlas shrugged.
what happens if the 10% of us paying 90% of the bill just say forget it ?
what happens ?
they'd come to your house and arrest you and put you on trial and convict you and throw you in prison where you'd be viciously assaulted and raped
and they'd seize your assets
they think property is theft
June is LGBT Pride Month. In another show of solidarity with the LGBT community, President Obama released a recent video commemorating the history of LGBT activism in the United States. He also calls on his fellow Americans to honor openly gay servicemen and women, and applaud the courage of teachers and students who stand up against anti-gay bullying.
“Change happens because ordinary people, countless unsung heroes of our American story, stand up and demand it,” the President says. “The story of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans is no different.”
“Perfecting our union isn’t something we can do in just one month,” he adds. “But we can remember those who came before us, we can summon the courage to build on their legacy, and we can renew our commitment, day in and day out, to be the kind of people who make change happen.”
President Obama Celebrates Pride Month
"June is LGBT Pride Month. In another show of solidarity with the LGBT community, President Obama released a recent video commemorating the history of LGBT activism in the United States"
so glad he's in solidarity with LGBT activism
makes feel a lot better about the Tea Party's chances in the fall election
LGBT activists are the biggest loser group in America
have you noticed how they have yet to talk an electorate into voting for gay marriage?
have you noticed how Obama's campaign has gone south in a hurry since he became the first gay President?
Joe Biden: he's the gift that keeps on giving
"He also calls on his fellow Americans to honor openly gay servicemen and women,"
see, here's the problem
if he wants to say honor servicemen and not worry about what they do with their privates, that would be fine
but to start drawing attention to certain men because of their deviant practices is an affront to the religious heritage of our nation
"and applaud the courage of teachers and students who stand up against anti-gay bullying"
first of all, it doesn't take an ounce of courage for a teacher to come out against anti-gay bullying
it's actually a way to score big brownie points with the educational-liberal complex
the whole complex is currently obsessed with this topic, producing films to show in class, constant discussions and assemblies
truth is, not much anti-gay bullying is taking place
if most kids thought some other kid was gay, they'd be civil to them and avoid them
when some kid calls another one gay, they generally don't think they are gay- they just trying to insult them
because they correctly perceive that homosexuality is an undesirable trait
that perception is part of moral and religious fabric of our society and schools are not there to change society
the focus of public schools on trying to alter our society is why they have lost focus on their real mission and why our public schools are failing
they've come down with a nasty case of TTF-itis
"“Change happens because ordinary people, countless unsung heroes of our American story, stand up and demand it,” the President says."
if you take this out of context, it's hard to disagree
but then there's this:
"“The story of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans is no different.”"
actually, it is different
it's undesirable
society is better if those who think they simply must do this stuff stay in this closet
they become elderly gents who never got married with roommates, which some family adopts as "uncles"
such situations existed discreetly for years without any problem
we don't need public homosexuality
"“Perfecting our union isn’t something we can do in just one month,” he adds. “But we can remember those who came before us, we can summon the courage to build on their legacy, and we can renew our commitment, day in and day out, to be the kind of people who make change happen.”"
again, we all agree with this
what we don't agree on is that a descent into a public embrace of deviancy is desirable for society as a whole
Obama has doomed his candidacy by his solidarity with anti-family forces
that's true
we won't have a gay President for long
"we don't need public homosexuality"
I think this pretty much states the American state of mind
that's the last thing we need
i have been married for 5years and i have a break up with my husband 13months ago and i was worried and so confuse because i love him so much. i was really going too depressed and a friend directed me to this spell caster Dr. swami and i made all my problems known to him and he told me not to worry that he was going to make my husband to come back to me and in just 48hours i receive a call from my husband and he was appealing that i should come back to the house. i have never in my life believe in spell and but now it have just helped me and i am now so happy. All Thanks to him and if you also want to have your Husband back to yourself here !! his email Address swamitemple@yahoo.com i am so happy to testify of your work and kindness.. Lakeisha
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