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Monday Reads: A World of their Own

Posted: May 12, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 2014 elections, 2016 elections, Climate Change, morning reads | Tags: , , , , , |57 Comments

images (34) Good Day! I’m way late with this because I simply cannot find much that isn’t just a depressing continuation of the same old same old.   The Republican 2016 Clown Car looks to be filled with the same old nonsense.  So, I just decided to make you all aware that they are still as crazy as ever.  Can some one as stupid as Rand Paul and clearly out of the mainstrain of what generally passes as republican politics win the nomination?  Not a day goes buy that Paul hasn’t cooked up some story with no basis in fact, but can the party take that and push it onto the national stage?

Not that long ago, most Republican leaders saw Rand Paul as the head of an important faction who, like his father, ultimately had no shot at becoming the party’s presidential nominee.

Now the question is no longer whether Paul can win the nomination, but whether he can win a general election.

The shift follows a year in which the Kentucky senator has barnstormed the country, trying to expand the party’s base beyond older, white voters and attract a following beyond than the libertarian devotees of his father, Ron Paul. Although the job is far from complete, Paul has made undeniable progress, judging from interviews with more than 30 Republican National Committee members meeting here this week.

That he has struck a chord with this crowd is all the more telling because it is heavy with GOP establishment-types who tend to prefer mainstream candidates.

“I don’t see how anyone could say it’s not possible he’d win the nomination,” Texas GOP chairman Steve Munisteri said. “His mission is to convince people of what his coalition would be in November” 2016.

During a speech Friday to the RNC gathering, Paul received a standing ovation after saying that the GOP didn’t need to dilute its message download (10)but that it had to communicate it better to non-traditional audiences — and suggesting implicitly that he’s the guy to do it.

I’m really confused  by their continual obsession with trying to communicate their messages better.  I’d say most of us hear it loud and clear and we completely reject it along with people that know what they’re doing.  Economists, data and studies reject their economics message. Science rejects their messages about women’s anatomy, climate change, and the use of fracking.  Humanity rejects the notion that the poor, elderly, and downtrodden should be further ground under the heals of the privileged.

Marco Rubio inkled his interest in the Presidency on the Sunday Talk Show Circuit and showed that his strong point wasn’t science at the same time.  He doesn’t believe that humans are contributing to climate change.  At least, he didn’t completely deny its existence.  This is another one clearly caught in the Koch money trap.

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a GOP star and possible 2016 presidential contender, does not believe human activity is causing climate change, he said Sunday.

“I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it,” Rubio said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy,” he added.

A National Climate Assessment released by the White House last week found that Rubio’s home state of Florida is one of the most vulnerable to rising sea levels and changes in temperatures and storm patterns. President Obama has proposed several new regulatory programs to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, which most scientists say are the chief cause of a warming global climate.

Rubio said he doesn’t agree that actions humans take today could affect how the climate is changing.

“Our climate is always changing,” Rubio said. “And what they have chosen to do is take a handful of decades of research and say that this is now evidence of a longer-term trend that’s directly and almost solely attributable to manmade activities.”

images (35)My governor continues to deliberately confuse bigotry with ‘religious liberty’. Jindal doesn’t ever register on any of the polls of Republican preferences for 2016, but he’s never ending  quest for relevancy and the presidency continues.

Speaking at Liberty University’s 2014 Commencement yesterday, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) attacked “elite” liberals who, he claimed, have launched “an assault on the freedom of expression in all areas of life.”

“Today the American people, whether they know it or not, are mired in a silent war,” Jindal began. “It is a war — a silent war — against religious liberty.” He claimed that Obama Administration’sargument against Hobby Lobby “strikes at the core of our understanding of the free exercise of religion.”

“Under the Obama regime,” he continued, “you have protection under the First Amendment as an individual, but the instant you start a business, you lose those protections. And that brings us to the second front in this silent war: the attack on our freedom of association as people of faith.”

 Jindal claimed that the Obama Administration would prevent religious groups from selecting “their own ministers or rabbis.” “Thankfully,” he said, the Supreme Court decided to shoot down the administration, “so for the time being, at least, the federal government doesn’t get to decide who can preach the Gospel.”

“Make no mistake — the war over religious liberty is a war over free speech. Without the first, there is no such thing as the second.”

Deliberate misinterpretation of the first amendment seems to be en vogue these days.  Just ask the Supremes. The chattering class has been pretty 1insistent that the Democrats will lose the Senate come elections this fall.  Yet, many of the most vulnerable democratic candidates continue to hold their ground. 

Democratic candidates are holding their own in three key Senate races despite a daunting political environment for their party in the upcoming midterm elections, according to new NBC News-Marist polls of Arkansas, Georgia and Kentucky.

And in one race in particular, Democrats are more than just competitive.

In Arkansas, with less than six months until Election Day 2014, incumbent Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., leads Republican challenger Tom Cotton by 11 points among registered voters, 51 percent to 40 percent. (That finding is largely in line with other polling from that race since April showing Pryor either leading or tied.)

In Georgia, Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn is running neck and neck against all of her potential GOP opponents in November.

And in Kentucky, Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes is within one point of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell among registered voters, 46 percent to 45 percent.

Famous-Self-Portraits-Winston-Churchill-560x400I personally don’t see any groundswell against Mary Landrieu here in Louisiana.  Most of the local papers seem to show that no one knows her potential challenger.  Additionally, the Koch ads aren’t having much impact because she’s a strong supporter of the Keystone Oil Pipeline and has been running ads calling for changes in the Affordable Health Care Act. I guess we’ll see how many times these groups can change their ad messages.

One message shift is apparent from la la land.  The GOP has gone mostly quiet on ObamaCare with the exception of candidate Scott Brown who wants to repeal its implementation in New Hampshire.

Republicans virtually ignored the final release of ObamaCare’s enrollment numbers and a report that healthcare spending jumped in the first quarter of 2014. Mentions of the law have dwindled in press conferences by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), where they were a mainstay earlier this year.

And on the Senate side, the usual partisan rancor was almost completely absent during last week’s confirmation hearing for the next Health and Human Services secretary. Only a few GOP senators mentioned ObamaCare in their questions, and three Republicans failed to attend the event at all.

The House has no plans to vote on ObamaCare legislation in May, according to a memo from Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) released late last month.

It is also unclear when the party’s replacement proposal for the law will come to a vote.

Despite pressure from conservatives, Cantor has not committed to put a bill on the House floor by August recess.

Democratic leaders have long insisted the law would boost their electoral hopes in the fall, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) predicted this week that GOP opposition would haunt Republicans.

“The Republican position of repeal has become increasingly problematic for GOP Senate candidates, so it’s no surprise that they’re beginning to abandon their failed strategy of wasting millions attacking Democrats on ObamaCare,” said DSCC spokesman Justin Barasky.

On the campaign trail, it is clear that some candidates and groups are starting to pivot.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently launched its first major ad campaign looking toward the general election.

While all the ads touted GOP lawmakers’ and candidates’ work to boost the economy and create jobs, only a handful made mention of ObamaCare.

Looking toward his general election fight, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) released an ad last week that also focused on job creation.

The problem is that the Republicans have done absolutely nothing in terms of job creation legislation and their records stand for themselves.vintage_1_1394880169263_3450429_ver1.0_640_480

I posted this down thread a few days ago, but really would like to end on Teddy Kennedy’s true defense of religious liberty given at Liberty Baptist College . It stands in stark contrast to the speech given by my Demon Governor. This is what religious liberty looks and sounds like.

The founders of our nation had long bitter experience with the state, as both the agent and the adversary of particular religious views. In colonial Maryland, Catholics paid a double land tax, and in Pennsylvania they had to list their names on a public roll — an ominous precursor of the first Nazi laws against the Jews. And Jews in turn faced discrimination in all of the thirteen original Colonies. Massachusetts exiled Roger Williams and his congregation for contending that civil government had no right to enforce the Ten Commandments. Virginia harassed Baptist teachers, and also established a religious test for public service, writing into the law that no “popish followers” could hold any office.

But during the Revolution, Catholics, Jews, and Non-Conformists all rallied to the cause and fought valiantly for the American commonwealth — for John Winthrop’s “city upon a hill.” Afterwards, when the Constitution was ratified and then amended, the framers gave freedom for all religion, and from any established religion, the very first place in the Bill of Rights.

Indeed the framers themselves professed very different faiths: Washington was an Episcopalian, Jefferson a deist, and Adams a Calvinist. And although he had earlier opposed toleration, John Adams later contributed to the building of Catholic churches, and so did George Washington. Thomas Jefferson said his proudest achievement was not the presidency, or the writing the Declaration of Independence, but drafting the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. He stated the vision of the first Americans and the First Amendment very clearly: “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.”

The separation of church and state can sometimes be frustrating for women and men of religious faith. They may be tempted to misuse government in order to impose a value which they cannot persuade others to accept. But once we succumb to that temptation, we step onto a slippery slope where everyone’s freedom is at risk. Those who favor censorship should recall that one of the first books ever burned was the first English translation of the Bible. As President Eisenhower warned in 1953, “Don’t join the book burners…the right to say ideas, the right to record them, and the right to have them accessible to others is unquestioned — or this isn’t America.” And if that right is denied, at some future day the torch can be turned against any other book or any other belief. Let us never forget: Today’s Moral Majority could become tomorrow’s persecuted minority.

The danger is as great now as when the founders of the nation first saw it. In 1789, their fear was of factional strife among dozens of denominations. Today there are hundreds — and perhaps even thousands of faiths — and millions of Americans who are outside any fold. Pluralism obviously does not and cannot mean that all of them are right; but it does mean that there are areas where government cannot and should not decide what it is wrong to believe, to think, to read, and to do. As Professor Larry Tribe, one of the nation’s leading constitutional scholars has written, “Law in a non-theocratic state cannot measure religious truth, nor can the state impose it.”

The real transgression occurs when religion wants government to tell citizens how to live uniquely personal parts of their lives. The failure of Prohibition proves the futility of such an attempt when a majority or even a substantial minority happens to disagree. Some questions may be inherently individual ones, or people may be sharply divided about whether they are. In such cases, like Prohibition and abortion, the proper role of religion is to appeal to the conscience of the individual, not the coercive power of the state.

So, what’s on your reading and blogging list today?

57 Comments on “Monday Reads: A World of their Own”

  1. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    May 12, 2014 at 1:19 pm

    Anti-Choicers Desperately Insist You See Things That Are Clearly Not There

    http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/05/12/anti-choicers-desperately-insist-see-things-clearly/

    There are a lot of lurid accusations flying from anti-choicers, accusing pro-choicers of trying to conceal the “truth” of what’s going on inside a woman in the early stages of pregnancy. Those accusations should be understood for what they are: attempts to mislead people and get them to believe that it’s a man’s ejaculation that makes a “baby” and not, despite all biological evidence to the contrary, nine months of a woman’s body building a baby, bit by bit.

    • NW Luna's avatar NW Luna says:
      May 12, 2014 at 4:49 pm

      It’s hard work growing a baby! And there’s a reason birthing is called “labor.” Providing sperm, on the other hand, does not involve morning sickness and blood.

      Parenting, however, definitely calls for work regardless of being female or male.

  2. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    May 12, 2014 at 1:24 pm
  3. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    May 12, 2014 at 1:41 pm

    Whoops! Report Confirms Al-Qaeda Switched to New Encryption Software Post-Snowden

    http://thedailybanter.com/2014/05/whoops-study-confirms-al-qaeda-switched-to-new-encryption-post-snowden/

  4. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 12, 2014 at 1:43 pm

    Marco Rubio said earlier that President Obama wasn’t qualified to talk about climate change because he wasn’t a “meteorologist”. Rubio’s another idiot who doesn’t know the difference between climate and the daily weather. He’s a dangerous asshat.

  5. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 12, 2014 at 1:54 pm

    tp: Congressman Agrees Obama Is Killing Veterans, Suggests Obamacare Enrollees Will Be Next

    Rep John Fleming (R-LA); in the past any congressman who said something like this of any president would be dog meat, but not today.

  6. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    May 12, 2014 at 3:01 pm

    It’s really time for the Republican party, at the local, state, and party levels, to man up here, or else to say clearly that individual acts of seditious lawlessness are part of the party’s basic philosophy of government. Maybe each Republican state committee can have an annual Calhoun-Davis Day Dinner.

    http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/utah-blm-battle-protest-051214

  7. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    May 12, 2014 at 3:20 pm

    Glenn Greenwald gives his considered opinion of Hillary in new GQ interview:

    How do you feel about the early presidential jockeying?
    Hillary is banal, corrupted, drained of vibrancy and passion. I mean, she’s been around forever, the Clinton circle. She’s a fucking hawk and like a neocon, practically. She’s surrounded by all these sleazy money types who are just corrupting everything everywhere. But she’s going to be the first female president, and women in America are going to be completely invested in her candidacy. Opposition to her is going to be depicted as misogynistic, like opposition to Obama has been depicted as racist. It’s going to be this completely symbolic messaging that’s going to overshadow the fact that she’ll do nothing but continue everything in pursuit of her own power. They’ll probably have a gay person after Hillary who’s just going to do the same thing.

    I hope this happens so badly, because I think it’ll be so instructive in that regard. It’ll prove the point. Americans love to mock the idea of monarchy, and yet we have our own de facto monarchy. I think what these leaks did is, they demonstrated that there really is this government that just is the kind of permanent government that doesn’t get affected by election choices and that isn’t in any way accountable to any sort of democratic transparency and just creates its own world off on its own.

  8. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 12, 2014 at 3:57 pm

    TBogg: Michelle Obama brings out the monsters on the margins

    Very good post taking both the wingnuts and the putative left to task in a really smart way.

  9. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 12, 2014 at 4:12 pm

    Raw Story: Allen West: Kidnapped Nigerian girls are a ‘fishy’ Obama plot to distract from Benghazi

    Former Rep. Allen West (R-FL), a Fox News contributor, suggested this week that focus on nearly 300 kidnapped girls in Nigeria was a “fishy” plot to take attention away from President Barack Obama’s “scandals,” including the terrorist attacks in Benghazi.

    In a Monday column on his website, West opined that concern about the terrorist group Boko Haram, which kidnapped the girls, “right now seems fishy to me.”

    “I find it interesting that everyone (including the First Lady) is now all up in arms about Boko Haram and their jihadist actions,” he wrote. …

    Pure evil stupidity in action!

    • NW Luna's avatar NW Luna says:
      May 12, 2014 at 4:52 pm

      Either he doesn’t think girls are important, or he’s a RWNJ idiot.

      Of course he is both.

      • RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
        May 12, 2014 at 5:02 pm

        TBogg once joked that Benghazi was a distraction from the “whitey tape”. 🙂

  10. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    May 12, 2014 at 4:24 pm

    Klingenschmitt: Citizens Should Be Armed ‘To Defend Themselves Against Left-Wing Crazies

    http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/klingenschmitt-bible-says-all-citizens-ought-be-armed-so-they-can-defend-themselves-against-

    On his “Pray In Jesus Name” program, Gordon Klingenschmitt discussed the recent shooting at a Fed Ex facility in Georgia, which he attributed to the fact that the facility was a gun-free zone, which is prohibited by the Bible.

    Klingenschmitt declared that the reason that Japan never invaded the United States is because “Californians carried guns” and warned that now the state “might be vulnerable to that” because the citizens are being disarmed.

    “There is a demonic spirit of murder and suicide and abuse” behind gun control efforts, Klingenschmitt said, citing the Book of Judges to proclaim that “the Bible talks against disarming the citizens [and] says all the citizens ought to be armed so they can defend themselves against left wing crazies who go in there to try and assault God’s people”:

    How many left wingers do you know that are gun nuts?

  11. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    May 12, 2014 at 4:38 pm

    Jindal remains preoccupied with reality TV

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/jindal-remains-preoccupied-reality-tv

  12. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 12, 2014 at 4:41 pm

    Raw Story: Virginia Gov. McAuliffe orders review of state’s ‘extreme and punitive’ abortion clinic rules

    RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) – Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, on Monday ordered a review of “extreme and punitive” state health rules that make it harder to operate abortion clinics, saying he would protect women’s rights to make health decisions.
    …
    The regulations were spearheaded by former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, McAuliffe’s opponent for governor last year and a favorite of the conservative Republican Tea Party faction.

    During the campaign, McAuliffe said he would stand as “brick wall” against efforts to erode women’s rights to abortion.

    McAuliffe, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, also told a news conference he was appointing five new members to the 15-member Board of Health.

    McAuliffe’s review order underscored his liberal stance on social issues. His administration also declined to defend a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in the courts. …

    Good move for women in Virginia.

  13. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 12, 2014 at 4:59 pm

    Steve Benen: Christie, Brownback blame Obama for state financial troubles

    This is so stupid I doubt even most Republicans will buy it for a minute.

  14. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    May 12, 2014 at 5:05 pm

    Democrats Introduce Bill that Could Lead to Impeachment for Justices Thomas and Scalia

    http://www.politicususa.com/2013/08/03/democrats-introduce-bill-impeach-scotus-justices-thomas-scalia.html

  15. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 12, 2014 at 5:21 pm

    Southern Ocean winds strongest in 1,000 years due to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels

    Winds in the wild Southern Ocean are blowing at their strongest in a millennia as climate change shifts weather patterns, leaving Antarctica colder and Australia facing more droughts, a study showed Monday.

    Rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were strengthening the winds, already dubbed the “Roaring Forties” for their ferocity, and pushing them further south towards Antarctica, researchers from the Australian National University (ANU) said.

    “The Southern Ocean winds are now stronger than at any other time in the past 1,000 years,” said the study’s lead researcher Nerilie Abram of an ocean notorious for having some of the fiercest winds and largest waves on the planet. …

    Traos more cold air around Antarctica, explaining why it’s bucking the warming trends.

  16. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    May 12, 2014 at 5:22 pm

    For Dak: Geithner book faces blowback

    http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/12/news/economy/geithner-critics/

  17. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 12, 2014 at 6:24 pm

    This excerpt from Hillary’s upcoming book is great. It’s about her mother and brought tears to my eyes.

    http://www.vogue.com/magazine/article/hillary-clinton-book-hard-choices/#1

  18. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 12, 2014 at 6:34 pm

    balloon-juice: First inkling for 2015 rates — not bad at all

    Insurance companies are starting to file their preliminary plans for 2015 with their state regulators. This is a long and involved multi-iteration negoatiation involving network adequacy, plan design, fee structures, geographic scope and coffee, lots of coffee. My company still has a few more weeks before our prelims need to get in, but Virginia has released their preliminary 2015 applications.
    …
    This is a first pass validation at how good the respective companies’ actuaries were in their enrollment model. Kaiser seems like they nailed it, while CareFirst Blue Choice seems to have a model that was significantly optimistic in its age projection. Some of the variance may have been in the Grandmothering of policies due to “If you like, you can keep it” sideshow. This kept reasonably healthier and younger people off of some exchanges.

    Overall, a market wide increase of 7% to 10% for community rated policies with unknown risk pool composition is not bad. That is no worse than most policy increases from my days as a neophyte insurance company bureaucrat. It is inline with past experiences. And given the subsidy structure, that type of increase won’t deter too many people from buying subsidized insurance next year.

    The next hurdle for Obamacare.

  19. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 12, 2014 at 6:53 pm

    If this is legitimate, I may not stop laughing for days. 🙂

    Anonymous Targets Greenwald

  20. minkoffminx's avatar JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
    May 13, 2014 at 7:35 am

    Dak, I am so glad you front-paged the Kennedy link, about what real religious freedom looks like. It is so damn depressing. The rednecks around here are fucking thrilled with the SCOTUS ruling, it has given them that extra kick in the ass to go out and become more hateful in the local forum/gossip site. As if the court legitimized their hate and intolerance…

    Did y’all see Clay Atkins opponent drop dead last night? He fell down or something and died. I can hear the calls of “Gay Mafia” now from the right wing…can you?

    Oh and Dak you have all those quotes up top, this was a good one to add:

    Elizabeth Warren Reads the Riot Act to the House GOP – Little Green Footballs

    As a Senator, I take oversight seriously because it is powerfully important. But Trey Gowdy gives oversight a bad name. The House GOP is on a waste-of-time-and-resources witch hunt and fundraising sideshow, shamefully grasping for any straw to make President Obama, former Secretary Clinton, or Secretary Kerry look bad. This stunt does a disservice to those who serve our country abroad, and it distracts us from issues we should be taking up on behalf of the American people.

    With millions of people still out of work and millions more working full time yet still living below the poverty line, with students drowning in debt, with roads and bridges crumbling, is this really what the House Republicans are choosing to spend their time on? Even for guys who have so few solutions to offer that they have voted 54 times to repeal Obamacare, this is a new low.

    Read more at http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/43383_Elizabeth_Warren_Reads_the_Riot_Act_to_the_House_GOP#MgtBElBbYKGHFmQq.99

    you can read more at the link…that is given at that link…

    Uh, Bebe now has the sinus infection I have, that Jake gave me….yuk. So see you when I see you!

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