Monday Afternoon Reads
Posted: July 6, 2015 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Euro Eurozone, Germany, Greek Debt Crisis 27 CommentsGood Afternoon!
Sorry that this post has been taking so long. My computer is having a complete meltdown. I’m on my old one right now and it’s reallllllyyyyyy slowwwwww.
I want to spend a little time with the meltdown in Greece which is a complex situation. The most interesting source that I’ve found to date is an interview with French Economist Thomas Piketty with Germany’s Zeit Magazine. Last night, I read a good translation of the piece here. It’s been removed–temporarily hopefully–from the medium site so you’ll have to struggle through the bad German-English translation at Zeit’s site. The most interesting part of the interview is that Piketty explains the history of nations having to repay their debt after losing wars or under other circumstances. He explains that the European fixation with austerity and punishing Greece denies how German debt was handled post WW2 and the reality that forgiving German national debt helped Germany become what it is today. So, why are the Germans not extending the same courtesy to Greece?
Piketty: When I hear the Germans now say that they maintain a very moral dealing with debt and firmly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: That’s a big joke! Germany is the country that has never paid his debts. It can be obtained in other countries no lessons.
TIME: Do you want to try the story in order to portray States who do not repay their debts as a winner?
Piketty: Just such a state is Germany. But slowly: The story teaches us two options for a highly indebted country to settle its arrears. One has fooled the British Empire in the 19th century after the Napoleonic Wars expensive: It’s slow method, which today also recommends Greece. The UK division at that time the debt through rigorous financial management from – although it worked, but took extremely long. Over 100 years the British relatives two to three percent of its economic output on the debt, spending more than they for schools and education.That must not be and should not be today. For the second method is much faster.Germany has it tried in the 20th century. Essentially, it consists of three components: inflation, a special tax on private assets and liabilities sections.
TIME: And now you want to tell us that our economic miracle was based on debt cuts that we deny the Greeks today?
Piketty: Exactly. The German government was in debt after the war ended in 1945 with more than 200 percent of its gross national product. Ten years later it had little choice but the national debt was less than 20 percent of the national product. France succeeded in that time a similar feat. This tremendously rapid debt reduction but we would never have reached with the budgetary resources that we recommend Greece today. Instead, our two countries turned to the second method, the three mentioned components, including debt restructuring. Think. To the London Debt Conference in 1953, canceled on the 60 percent of Germany’s foreign debt and also the domestic debt of the young Federal Republic were restructured
TIME: This was from the realization that the high repayment demands on Germany after the First World War on the grounds of the Second World Warincluded. They wanted this time forgive the Germans for their sins!
Piketty: Nonsense! This had nothing to do with moral insights, but was a rational economic decision. It was recognized at the time correctly: According to major crises which have a high debt burden result, there comes a time when you have to turn to the future. We can not expect to pay for decades for their parents’ mistakes of new generations. Now the Greeks have undoubtedly made great mistakes. By 2009, the government in Athens have forged their budgets. Why not the younger generation of Greeks now bears more responsibility for the mistakes of their parents as the young generation of Germans in the 1950s and 1960s. We must now look forward. Europe was founded on forgetting the debt and investing in the future. And it is not on the idea of eternal penance. We need to remember.
The Guardian similarly argues that what was good for Germany in 1953 is good for Greece today.
The arguments being used by the Greek government to secure debt relief can be traced back to a little-reported speech made to the students of Harvard University on 5 June 1947.
It was there that George Marshall, the then US secretary of state, floated the idea of a European programme of economic reconstruction. The Americans saw thatEurope was on the brink of economic collapse. Industrial capacity had been wiped out. Trade had ceased. People were going hungry and, in Marshall’s view, at risk of turning to communism.
Despite being the turning point for Europe’s economies after the second world war, Marshall’s speech was not considered as especially important at the time. The State Department did not bother to tell anybody in Europe about what he was about to say and the British embassy in Washington did not think it worth the cost to send a cable with an advance copy of the speech to London.
But the speech was covered by the BBC’s Washington correspondent and, by luck, his report was heard by the then UK foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, in a wireless set he kept by his bedside. Bevin seized on the opportunity provided by the Americans, who said the Europeans had to organise their own plan for disbursing the money. “It was like a life line to sinking men,” he said later. “It seemed to bring hope where there was none.”
Lessons had been learned from the mistakes made after the first world war. Then, the victorious Allied powers had imposed a punitive peace on Germany, demanding heavy reparations that bred resentment.
Marshall tried a different approach. Over four years, the US pumped $13bn into Europe (the equivalent of more than $150bn today) in the hope that it would rebuild economic capacity, enable countries to trade with each other, and rebuff the threat from Stalin’s Soviet Union. It was not an entirely selfless act. The US at the time accounted for 50% of the world’s output, and needed to find markets for its exports. The lack of demand in countries such as France, Italy and Germany in 1947 meant this was not possible.
Britain was the single biggest beneficiary of Marshall aid, receiving more than a quarter of the total. Germany took $1.4bn (11% of the total), four times as much as Greece received.
Paul Krugman had some analysis and advice.
The truth is that Europe’s self-styled technocrats are like medieval doctors who insisted on bleeding their patients — and when their treatment made the patients sicker, demanded even more bleeding. A “yes” vote in Greece would have condemned the country to years more of suffering under policies that haven’t worked and in fact, given the arithmetic, can’t work: austerity probably shrinks the economy faster than it reduces debt, so that all the suffering serves no purpose. The landslide victory of the “no” side offers at least a chance for an escape from this trap.<
But how can such an escape be managed? Is there any way for Greece to remain in the euro? And is this desirable in any case?The most immediate question involves Greek banks. In advance of the referendum, the European Central Bank cut off their access to additional funds, helping to precipitate panic and force the government to impose a bank holiday and capital controls. The central bank now faces an awkward choice: if it resumes normal financing it will as much as admit that the previous freeze was political, but if it doesn’t it will effectively force Greece into introducing a new currency.
Specifically, if the money doesn’t start flowing from Frankfurt (the headquarters of the central bank), Greece will have no choice but to start paying wages and pensions with i.o.u.s, which will de facto be a parallel currency — and which might soon turn into the new drachma.
Suppose, on the other hand, that the central bank does resume normal lending, and the banking crisis eases. That still leaves the question of how to restore economic growth.
In the failed negotiations that led up to Sunday’s referendum, the central sticking point was Greece’s demand for permanent debt relief, to remove the cloud hanging over its economy. The troika — the institutions representing creditor interests — refused, even though we now know that one member of the troika, the International Monetary Fund, had concluded independently that Greece’s debt cannot be paid. But will they reconsider now that the attempt to drive the governing leftist coalition from office has failed?
The European Central Bank (ECB)--which is akin to our FED for those countries in the EuroZone–has stated it will continue Emergency Liquidity Assistance to Greek Banks. However, they are imposing higher “haircuts”.
And the ECB has maintained the cap on emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) at €89bn, but crucially it has “adjusted” the haircuts it applies to the assets which Greek banks hand over in return for funds.
In simple terms, that probably means the ECB is treating Greek government bonds as riskier, and valuing them as such when it calculates how much liquidity it can provide.
It’s another tightening of the screw on Greece – meaning some banks may find it even tougher to qualify for emergency liquidity assistance.
This is from Robert Reich as posted to his Facebook page.
Five things you need to know about the Greek debt crisis as of now:
1. The Greek people voted correctly yesterday in rejecting more tax increases and spending cuts. They’ve already been punished too much by their creditors — mostly big banks, as represented by the IMF, European Central Bank, and European Commission.
2. Austerity was the wrong medicine to begin with. It put Greece into a death spiral of economic woe that worsened its debt crisis.
3. Now it’s up to the rest of Europe to respond. It’s in its interest to offer Greece easier bailout terms, and then help Greece get to work on what Greece has already agreed to do — reform its tax system so that wealthy Greeks can’t escape taxation, and reform its budget process to avoid political payoffs.
4. But if Europe doesn’t respond, the best of the worst cases to follow would be for Greece to withdraw from the euro. That will happen automatically if Greek banks issue IOUs instead of euros (cash is already being rationed), and those IOUs become, in effect, a different currency.
5. There could be “contagion” to Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Italy if creditors fear future defaults and the incapacity of the eurozone to govern itself economically. That would hurt the United States, especially Wall Street, whose exposure to European banks is still considerable.
Greek’s Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has resigned.
Varoufakis was sidelined a week or so ago, not because of the “disrespectful” style of his jackets, but because of the directness of his argument. As the Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras said, he speaks the language of economists better than they do.
He has always insisted that the responsibility for the Greek recovery did not lie with Greece alone, that there had to be realism in the conditions demanded by Greece’s creditors, as the sheer human cost was too much to bear. He showed how financial issues had become politicised, how the old paradigms were broken. Worse, he spoke to Eurocrats as equals.
He spoke to the rest of us as human beings, describing what Europe had laid on the shoulders of Greece as “fiscal waterboarding”. He railed at the birthplace of democracy being turned into what he called “a debt colony”.
As his heroic people last night rose up against “debt-bondage” he gave a press conference in a grey T-shirt and today announced his resignation, explaining that some Eurogroup participants don’t want him in the discussion. He says he does not care for the privilege of office but for collective support for Tsipras.
He is a man who walks like he talks, and that talk is open. This is so unlike the secretive deals usually made in airless rooms in Brussels. Here is a politician acting on his beliefs. He will be remembered not for his style, but for his substance. He faced down the automatons by insisting the Greek people should no longer be punished. And his people were with him. He refused the Eurocrats’ parameters and secrecy. He spoke with decency, and not in code. He is not afraid of the word “collective”. Nor is Syriza. Tsipras has said “negotiation does not belong to one person, it never did”. It is possible that Varoufakis was pushed rather than jumped, to smooth a deal, but whatever the case, he will not disappear, even as he revs off into the sunset. He knows, above all, that real style is substance. He saved his best look for last when he said, “I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride”.
I’m going to close this post with a quote from Lenin who wrote about the role of banks at the highest stage of capitalism which is supposed to lead to collapse from his viewpoint. I just always find it an interesting read whenever I see how concentrated the banking sector has become. I’m not a Marxist but I always love a bit of insight when it’s so, well insightful.
As banking develops and becomes concentrated in a small number of establishments, the banks grow from modest middlemen into powerful monopolies having at their command almost the whole of the money capital of all the capitalists and small businessmen and also the larger part of the means of production and sources of raw materials in any one country and in a number of countries. This transformation of numerous modest middlemen into a handful of monopolists is one of the fundamental processes in the growth of capitalism into capitalist imperialism; for this reason we must first of all examine the concentration of banking.
…These simple figures show perhaps better than lengthy disquisitions how the concentration of capital and the growth of bank turnover are radically changing the significance of the banks. Scattered capitalists are transformed into a single collective capitalist. When carrying the current accounts of a few capitalists, a bank, as it were, transacts a purely technical and exclusively auxiliary operation. When, however, this operation grows to enormous dimensions we find that a handful of monopolists subordinate to their will all the operations, both commercial and industrial, of the whole of capitalist society; for they are enabled-by means of their banking connections, their current accounts and other financial operations—first, to ascertain exactly the financial position of the various capitalists, then to control them, to influence them by restricting or enlarging, facilitating or hindering credits, and finally to entirely determine their fate, determine their income, deprive them of capital, or permit them to increase their capital rapidly and to enormous dimensions, etc.
Greece never met the convergence criteria for legitimate membership in the EuroZone. That’s an interesting story in itself. Now, the question is will they stay or will they go and how will all of this impact the EURO monetary union?
Fourth of July Reads
Posted: July 4, 2015 Filed under: Crime, Criminal Justice System, Democratic Politics, morning reads, U.S. Politics 33 Comments
Good Morning and Happy 4th of July!!
The media is continuing to breathlessly report that 73-year-old registered Independent Bernie Sanders is threatening Hillary Clinton’s chances for the Democratic nomination in 2016. Can you get the Democratic nomination if you are not registered as a Democrat? Earth to media: it’s not even 2016 yet–not even close. Sigh . . .
CNN: Sanders snags key endorsement in New Hampshire. Wow! Some woman with a strange name that no one has ever heard of before is rooting for Sanders. Bernie-Mentum!!!
Longtime New Hampshire Democratic activist Dudley Dudley told CNN Friday that she has decided to endorse Bernie Sanders for the Democratic 2016 nomination. Her decision comes less than two months after she hosted O’Malley at both her Durham, New Hampshire homes.
Since then, according to a recent CNN/WMUR New Hampshire primary poll, frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s lead over Sanders has shrunk from 38 percentage points to 8, with O’Malley trailing both. Likely Democratic primary voters are now more apt to see Sanders as the candidate who “best represents the values of Democrats like yourself,” the poll found.
Sanders recently finished a two-day swing through the state that saw 500-person crowds and high attendance at more intimate house parties.
Dudley told CNN she was won over by Sanders focus on money in politics, but was particularly impressed by his style of delivering his message.
How nice for Bernie and Dudley Dudley. Meanwhile Hillary “the fighter” Clinton is defending her liberal record, according to Politico.
Hillary Clinton: ‘I take a backseat to no one’ on liberal record.
Hanover, N.H. — Hillary Clinton arrived in this liberal New England enclave with a message for anyone thinking about voting for Sen. Bernie Sanders of next-door Vermont: “I take a backseat to no one when you look at my record in standing up and fighting for progressive values.” ….
“We have to take on the gun lobby one more time,” said Clinton, speaking without notes or a teleprompter in front of a crowd of about 850 Dartmouth students and native Granite Staters. “The majority of gun owners support universal background checks, and we have to work very hard to muster the public opinion to convince Congress that’s what they should vote for.”
She said it was the “height of irresponsibility not to talk about it.” Sanders, who represents a pro-gun constituency, has voted against the Brady Bill, which required federal background checks for gun purchasers, as well as other major bills supported by gun-control advocates.
She also signaled that she would have no problem defending President Barack Obama’s domestic agenda.
“If the country elects a Republican president, then they will repeal the Affordable Care Act,” she warned. “Let’s elect a Democratic president who is committed to quality affordable health care.”
She praised Obama’s moves to help the country recover from the economic crisis and said Republicans who say the recovery is too slow “just don’t know the theory of original sin,” blaming “the kind of poor management and bad economic policies that put us into the ditch in the first place.”
Go to the link to read some ignorant negative comments about Hillary that CNN was able to dig up.
If I sound irritable, it’s because I am. I read JJ’s Friday night post before I started this one and got really angry about the woman who was denied life-saving care at a Catholic hospital. That and the constant burning and itching that is still spreading all over my body are making me so agitated that I’d like to find the nearest low-information voter and strangle him or her.
ABC News on Hillary: Hillary Clinton Not Fazed by Bernie Sanders’ Crowds.
During a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Friday, the Democratic presidential front-runner responded to a question from a reporter about the massive crowds her challenger, Vermont Sen.Bernie Sanders, has seen at his own campaign events this week.
“We each run our own campaigns and I always knew this was going to be competitive,” Clinton said at Dairy Twirl ice cream shop in Lebanon, New Hampshire, when asked about the growing support behind Sanders and how he’s seeing crowds even bigger than she is.
“I want to have a great debate in the primary and caucus around the country and that is what I am looking forward to,” she added.
Not that anyone in the not-so-liberal media will take her words at face value. They will continue to insist that she is in danger of losing to someone who isn’t a Democrat and that she’s worried sick about it.
George Talei had the temerity to speak the truth about Clarence Thomas a couple of days ago, and now he has been pressured into apologizing.
Huffington Post: George Takei Calls Justice Clarence Thomas A ‘Clown In Blackface’ Over Marriage Equality Dissent.
George Takei has come under fire this week for calling Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas a “clown in blackface” over the judge’s stance on marriage equality. However, the “Star Trek” actor insists that his comment was not racially motivated.
During an interview with Fox 10 Phoenix, Takei, who is gay, discussed the Supreme Court’s recent landmark ruling to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. Takei said he was “angry” at Thomas, who dissented to the decision, for his position on the issue.
“He is a clown in blackface sitting on the Supreme Court,” said Takei. “He gets me that angry. He doesn’t belong there.”
What did Thomas say that made Takei so angry? Some pretty awful stuff.
In his dissent, Thomas, who is black, wrote that “human dignity cannot be taken away by the government,” adding: “Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them.”
Takei, whose family was held inside a Japanese internment camp during World War II, took issue with this logic.
“For him to say slaves have dignity, I mean, doesn’t he know that slaves were in chains? That they were whipped on the back?” Takei said. “My parents lost everything that they worked for in the middle of their lives, in their 30s. His business, my father’s business, our home, our freedom and we’re supposed to call that dignified?… This man does not belong on the Supreme Court. He is an embarrassment. He is a disgrace to America.”
I think Takei was absolutely right about Thomas. But the pressure was too much for him, I guess.
CNN reports: George Takei walks back ‘blackface’ remark about Clarence Thomas.
Takei said on Friday that his words “were not carefully considered.”
“When asked by a reporter about the opinion, I was still seething, and I referred to him as a ‘clown in blackface’ to suggest that he had abdicated and abandoned his heritage,” Takei said in a Facebook post. “This was not intended to be racist, but rather to evoke a history of racism in the theatrical arts. While I continue to disagree with Justice Thomas, the words I chose, said in the heat of anger, were not carefully considered.”
The full apology is on Takei’s Facebook page.
A few follow-ups to previous big stories:
The Baltimore City Police Department has launched an internal investigation after a WBAL-TV 11 News viewer shared four photographs of a sign inside a city police wagon.
The photos show the doors of the parked police van left open. On the inside of the back door is a sign, attached or possibly stenciled on, that reads: “Enjoy your ride, cuz we sure will!”
The pictures were taken Tuesday near the Central District Police Station on Baltimore Street.
The sign’s placement makes it clear that this is a message for people who are arrested to see after they’re put in the back of the van and the doors are shut.
Police Department officials told 11 News the photos are real and they triggered an internal investigation.
Nice, after the BPD killed Freddie Gray with a rough ride in a police van.
Now deceased prison escapee Richard Matt sent a letter to his daughter before he and David Sweat broke out of a “maximum security” prison in Dannamora, NY.
From the Buffalo News: ‘See you on the outside,’ Matt said in letter delivered to daughter in Buffalo suburb.
“I always promised you I would see you on the outside. I’m a man of my word,” a portion of the letter stated, according to information obtained by The Buffalo News from law enforcement officials.
The letter was postmarked prior to the June 6 escape and arrived June 9.
Matt had maintained a correspondence with his daughter while serving a prison sentence of 25 years to life for murder, acquaintances of the daughter confirmed.
But authorities say the daughter had no idea in advance that her father was planning an escape from Clinton Correctional Facility. Once he and David P. Sweat broke out, she fully cooperated with investigators. In fact, she requested round-the-clock protection, fearing that Matt would attempt to see her while he was on the run. That never happened.
The State.com: EXCLUSIVE: Charges possible against church shooter’s associates.
COLUMBIA, SC. A joint state and federal investigation into the activities of accused Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof has widened to include other persons of interest, according to multiple sources familiar with the ongoing investigation.
The expanded scope of the investigation now includes people with whom Roof associated in the weeks before the June 17 shootings of nine African-Americans at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, the sources said. Roof, 21, of Columbia, is white.
Although it appears Roof traveled alone to and from Charleston on the day of the killings, it is possible others had some knowledge of what he planned to carry out, said the sources, who are not being identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.
Investigators began to explore how much Roof’s associates knew, and when they knew it, after reviewing his cellphone and computer records, the sources said.
Prosecutors are still studying exactly what charges, if any, some of those associates might face, the sources said.
The New York Times Friday, citing sources with knowledge of the investigation, also said federal and state authorities have found Roof had been in contact with white supremacists online, though it does not appear they encouraged him to carry out the massacre.
More details at the link.
Do you have blue eyes?
If so, you might find this story from Pioneer News interesting and/or alarming: New Study Suggests Potential Link Between Alcoholism and Eye Color.
alcohol poisoning is a major problem in the United States. Previous studies have identified that genetics may play a factor in dependency but a new study suggests that blue eyes might also encourage the eventual development of alcoholism.
Study co-author Dawei Li is an assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics. He says, “These are complex disorders. There are many genes, and there are many environmental triggers.”
Additionally, lead study co-author Aris Sulovari is a doctoral student in cellular, molecular, and biological sciences at the university. He adds, “This suggests an intriguing possibility – that eye color can be useful in the clinic for alcohol dependence diagnosis.”
The researchers looked at data from 10,000 people—mostly those of African or European America descent—who had been diagnosed with more than one psychiatric disorder which might include schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression, in addition to alcohol or drug dependence.
So . . . what else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a fabulous holiday weekend.
Friday Reads
Posted: July 3, 2015 Filed under: morning reads, Republican politics, U.S. Politics 65 Comments
Painting by Susan Gallacher http://www.susangallacher.com/news–events/ogden-plein-air-quick-draw-ogden-arts-festival-june-2012
Good Morning!
I guess Dakinikat told you about what happened to me. I did some yard work on Monday and had a terrible allergic reaction to something–probably poison oak, judging from the pictures on the internet. My nephews and I were cutting down a bush that had other weeds entwined in it, but the boys didn’t have any reactions. I looked at these Cream Reviews to see which ones I could use for the rash and all of them were very promising so I got 3 of them.
I’ve gotten this rash before in my mother’s yard, but this time it was much worse than I’ve ever experienced. It started on my left inner arm where I was holding things to cut. Soon it was on my right arm, and next all over my face and neck. I had huge hives under each eye. I even have it on my eyelids! My face is completely red and it has spread into my ears, behind my ears, the back of my neck, my outer arms, hands, and upper arms.
I tried to treat it with Benedryl and anti-itch creams, but yesterday I felt so sick that I went to an urgent care clinic where they gave me Prednisone. I took the first dose yesterday, but the stuff is still spreading and I have new hives on my arms this morning. I’m taking Allegra, and the doctor told me to take 50 mg of Benedryl every six hours on top of that. So please send me some good vibes, and thanks for your sympathetic comments yesterday. I hope you’ll understand if this post isn’t too fancy.
Now for some news:
Bobby Jindal continues to be a dick about the SCOTUS same sex marriage decision. As of Wednesday night, he was still refusing to recognize gay marriages in Louisiana. First he claimed that he needed to wait for a lower court ruling; and when that court told him to allow marriage equality, he said he still had to wait for a another court decision. That kind of bigoted might work in Southern states and maybe Iowa, but I don’t think it will go over too well in New Hampshire.
The Times-Pickayune reports that as of today, the Bobby Jindal administration will start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in downtown New Orleans.
New Orleans is finally allowed to join the rest of Louisiana and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Following a court ruling ordering it to do so, Gov. Bobby Jindal‘s administration agreed Thursday (July 2) afternoon to allow the state Department of Vital Records in downtown New Orleans to issue the marriage licenses. Every other marriage license office in the state began doing so earlier this week.
“Today the Eastern District Court of Louisiana ordered the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples who complete a marriage application at the Department’s Office of Vital Records in Orleans Parish,” said Olivia Hwang, spokeswoman for the agency on Thursday afternoon.
Orleans Parish is the only place where a state agency — not a court clerk — is in charge of authorizing marriage documents. So, unlike elsewhere in the state, Jindal had more control in Orleans over the issuing of marriage licenses. Same-sex couples who wanted to be married in Orleans were having to travel to the 2nd City Court in Algiers for a license this week.
The administration was forced to relent following Thursday’s U.S. District Court ruling that struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban. The district court was responding to the decision made by the U.S. Supreme Court last week to recognize same-sex marriage in all 50 states.
Is there a bigger asshole on earth than Bobby Jindal? Come to think of it, he has lots of competition among the GOP presidential candidates. Case in point, Donald Trump.
CNN: Trump defends inflammatory comments, asks ‘Who is doing the raping?’
Businessman Donald Trump continued his verbal attack against illegal immigrants on Wednesday, in an interview on CNN Tonight with Don Lemon.
He has stirred up controversy in recent days for claiming “rapists” and “killers” are migrating over the United States’ southern border. Univision and NBC Universal have cut ties with the businessman, refusing to air the “Miss Universe” pageant he partially owns as a result, and Macy’s announced Wednesday it was also discontinuing his clothing line.
On Wednesday, Trump, who is a Republican presidential candidate, told Lemon he was pulling his facts from a Fusion article.
“Well if you look at the statistics of people coming, you look at the statistics on rape, on crime, on everything coming in illegally into this country it’s mind-boggling!” he told Lemon, in a clip previewed on CNN’s “Situation Room.”
“If you go to Fusion, you will see a story: About 80% of the women coming in, you know who owns Fusion? Univision! Go to Fusion and pick up the stories on rape. It’s unbelievable when you look at what’s going on. So all I’m doing is telling the truth,” Trump said.
Lemon replied that the press stories are about women being raped, but not about criminals coming across the border.
“Well, somebody’s doing the raping, Don! I mean somebody’s doing it! Who’s doing the raping? Who’s doing the raping?” he asked.
At the National Journal, Lauren Fox asks, Why Is Donald Trump Polling So Well?
Macy’s is ditching him, NBC has let him go, and Univision refuses to broadcast his famed beauty pageant. But American voters are still entertaining the idea of President Donald Trump.
In a Republican presidential field rich with esteemed governors and senators, tough-talking businessman Trump has managed to rise in the polls to be a top-tier candidate even after he elicited controversy for his statements about Mexican immigrants during his campaign announcement.
A CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday showed Trump had 12 percent of the vote among Republicans and Republican-leaners, second only to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who earned 19 percent. A Quinnipiac poll, which was also out Wednesday, revealed Trump was also tied for second with Dr. Ben Carson among likely Republican caucus voters in Iowa. Carson and Trump each had 10 percent of the vote. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker led the pack with 18 percent.
Fox writes that “so many qualified Republican presidential contenders out there, Trump’s rise is not expected to last.” I wonder who these GOP candidates she thinks are so “qualified”?
The media mavens are all excited because Bernie Sanders is attracting big crowds. From The Christian Science Monitor: Support swells for Bernie Sanders, he attracts biggest crowd to date (+video).
Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) of Vermont joined the Democratic race for the White House as a long shot, but he continues gaining momentum since he first emerged as Hillary Clinton’s biggest primary challenger.
The self-described “democratic socialist” has been gaining ground on the front-runner in Iowa, an important early marker of primary success. His support has more than doubled since May, with 33 percent of Democratic caucus-goers in the state favoring the Vermont senator, compared with 52 percent for Clinton, according to a new Quinnipiac poll.
A stop in Wisconsin on Wednesday garnered his biggest crowd to date, with 10,000 people packing the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Madison.
I don’t know why anyone is surprised that Sanders has some strong support in Madison, Wisconsin, but good for him.
KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA
From ABC News: How Bernie Sanders Is Attracting Monster Crowds (and Whether Hillary Should Be Worried).
The event [in Madison] was not an anomaly either. In June, 5,500 people came out to see Sen. Sanders in Denver, Colorado. In May, another 3,500 people attended a rally in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for Sanders. And approximately 5,000 people gathered in April in his hometown of Burlington, Vermont, for his campaign launch, roughly the same number who attended frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s campaign kickoff event in New York City.
“Also impressive,” Briggs added, “In Rochester, Minnesota, this morning — on a Thursday morning — we had 600 people for an hour-long town hall meeting,” The list of these smaller, but still relatively impressively well-attended events goes on and on. In the end of May, 300 people turned up for an event for Sanders in Kensett, Iowa, a rural town where only around 240 people live.
The campaign gauges interest in upcoming events based on RSVPs through their website and has had to change venues on more than one occasion based on a large number of people signed up to attend. It has already changed its venue for an event in Portland, Maine, on Monday, where the campaign expects more than 5,000 people to attend.
All this buzz is translating to movement in the polls, too. According to a Quinnipiac poll out today, the independent Vermont senator now trails Clinton (52–33 percent) among likely Democratic Iowa caucus goers. And in New Hampshire, WMUR has Sanders within eight points of Clinton (43-35), when just two months ago a previous poll there had him down by over 20 points.
Sanders does not have a PAC and he says he does not want donations from corporations. Still, according to a note out from the campaign today, he has raised an impressive $15 million since launching his campaign on April 30. They say that total comes from 250,000 individual donors, with the average donation size around $33 dollars.
I don’t want to hear any of these Sanders fans complaining about Hillary Clinton’s age. He’s 73 and she’s 67. BTW, Jim Webb, who announce his candidacy yesterday if 69. Has anyone remarked on how old he is?
Meanwhile, Hillary raised a stunning $45 million in primary money over the first quarter. From The Washington Post: Here’s just how impressive Hillary Clinton’s $45 million haul is, by Philip Bump.
Hillary Clinton’s team teased its first fundraising numbers on Tuesday, suggesting that the campaign had pulled in over $45 million from April to June. That’s a lot of money by “normal American” standards. It’s also a lot of money by “presidential primary candidate” standards.
First, some perspective. If I handed you a dollar bill every second, starting at midnight on April 1, you wouldn’t have $45 million until September. If I handed you a $5 bill every second — you still wouldn’t have as much as Clinton raised by the time July 1 rolled around.
According to the Federal Election Commission, Clinton’s quarterly total is the highest for a non-incumbent in the year before an election. She even raised more than two of the three quarters Barack Obama was fundraising as an incumbent president in 2011.
Check out some charts at the WaPo link.
What else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a great Fourth of July weekend!
Tuesday Reads: Indiana Summer Blogging
Posted: June 30, 2015 Filed under: morning reads, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: arson, black church fires, Bree Newsome, Charleston massacre, civil disobedience, Civil Rights, cruel and unusual punishment, death penalty, Indiana in Summer, lethal injection, Samuel Alito, Ted Cruz, US Constitution, US Supreme Court 25 Comments
Summer thunderstorm in Indiana
Good Morning!!
I’m still staying with my mother in Indiana. Her 90th birthday party was a huge success. Everyone that we expected showed up, and I got to talk to some cousins I haven’t seen in ages–except on Facebook. The weather sort of cooperated. It had been raining for days, but we just had intermittent showers on Saturday, the day of the party. We had the canopy set up over part of the driveway so the tables were on solid ground. We had too much food, so we donated some of it to a local homeless mission, ate some leftovers, and froze the rest. Since that day, we’ve had gorgeous sunny weather.
The image above of the first lighting strike of an Indiana thunderstorm comes from Schweiger Photo. I’m including other scenic photos of various parts of Indiana throughout this post.
Supreme Court Decisions and Reactions to Them
A country road in Randolph County, Indiana
The U.S. Supreme Court continues to dominate the news today. I know you have already heard about the terrible decision to allow Oklahoma to continue using drugs that cause intense, extended pain for their inhuman executions. The U.S. Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment, but Samuel Alito thinks it’s much more important to preserve the death penalty than to worry about whether the victims feel like they are being burned alive.
Carimah Townes at Think Progress: It’s ‘The Chemical Equivalent Of Being Burned At The Stake.’ And Now It’s Legal.
By a vote of 5-4, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that the use of the lethal injection drug midazolam does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The ruling comes more than a year after the botched executions of several inmates who remained conscious and experienced pain as they were put to death.
According to the majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, “petitioners have failed to establish a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the use of midazolam violates the Eighth Amendment. To succeed on an Eighth Amendment method-of execution claim, a prisoner must establish that the method creates a demonstrated risk of severe pain and that the risk is substantial when compared to the known and available alternatives. Petitioners failed to establish that any risk of harm was substantial when compared to a known and available alternative method of execution. Petitioners have suggested that Oklahoma could execute them using sodium thiopental or pentobarbital, but the District Court did not commit a clear error when it found that those drugs are unavailable to the State.”
In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote, “as a result, [the Court] leaves petitioners exposed to what may well be the chemical equivalent of being burned at the stake.”
The Indiana Dunes at Lake Michigan
Alito’s “reasoning” is that since the death penalty is “settled” law, whatever drug is available must be used even if it causes extreme pain and does not cause unconsciousness. Remember when Clayton Lockett “gasped for 43 minutes” before he finally died?
Cristian Farias at New York Magazine: In Lethal-Injection Case, the Supreme Court Essentially Ruled That Death-Row Inmates Have to Pick Their Poison.
Now we know why the Supreme Court left Glossip v. Gross — a contentious case about the constitutionality of lethal-injection protocols — for the very last day of its term. Four out of five justices who had something to say in the case announced their opinions from the bench — an extremely rare occurrence that the American public won’t get to hear for itself until audio of the session is released sometime in the fall.
In a 5-to-4 decision, the justices ruled that the death-row inmates in the case failed to establish that Oklahoma’s use of midazolam, a sedative they claimed was ineffective in preventing pain, violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The case’s various opinions and dissents run a whopping 127 pages — far longer than even the Obamacare and marriage-equality decisions. And they’re a sign that states’ methods of punishment are a major point of conflict at the court.
But Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the lead opinion, went further: He said it is up to the death-row inmates and their lawyers — and not up to Oklahoma — “to identify a known and available alternative method of execution that entails a lesser risk of pain,” which is “a requirement of all Eighth Amendment method-of-execution claims.” In other words, it is the responsibility of those condemned to death to plead and prove the best alternative method to execute them. They have to pick their poison — otherwise, no harm, no foul under the Constitution.
And just so that there aren’t any doubts, even though the case was not about the death penalty proper, Alito went out of his way to remind us that “we have time and again reaffirmed that capital punishment is not per seunconstitutional.”
Samuel Alito should never have been approved by the Senate. He’s a monster.
Indiana corn, “knee high by the Fourth of July.”
The Court ordered that abortion clinics in Texas could remain open for the time being. Ian Millhauser at Think Progress: BREAKING: Supreme Court Allows Texas Abortion Clinics To Remain Open.
The Supreme Court issued a brief, two paragraph order on Monday permitting Texas abortion clinics that are endangered by state law requiring them to comply with onerous regulations or else shut down to remain open. The order stays a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which imposed broad limits on the women’s right to choose an abortion within that circuit.
The Court’s order is temporary and offers no direct insight into how the Court will decide this case on the merits. It provides that the clinics’ application for a stay of the Fifth Circuit’s decision is granted “pending the timely filing and disposition of a petition” asking the Court to review the case on the merits.
Ugh. I can hardly wait for the final decision./s
And then there’s the continuing unhinged right wing response to the Supremes’ decision on gay marriage. Texas Senator Ted Cruz has been in dangerous meltdown mode ever since the announcement on Friday.
A Converse County, Indiana road.
Politico reports: Ted Cruz: States should ignore gay-marriage ruling.
“Those who are not parties to the suit are not bound by it,” the Texas Republican told NPR News’ Steve Inskeep in an interview published on Monday. Since only suits against the states of Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan and Kentucky were specifically considered in the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which was handed down last Friday, Cruz — a former Supreme Court clerk — believes that other states with gay marriage bans need not comply, absent a judicial order.
“[O]n a great many issues, others have largely acquiesced, even if they were not parties to the case,” the 2016 presidential contender added, “but there’s no legal obligation to acquiesce to anything other than a court judgement.”
Izzat so?
While Cruz’s statement may be technically true, federal district and circuit courts are obligated to follow the Supreme Court’s precedent and overrule all other states’ same-sex marriage bans as unconstitutional.
The Texas senator then went on to suggest that Republicans who have called for following the court’s decision are members of a “Washington cartel” and are lying when they say they do not support same-sex marriage.
“[Republican Party leaders] agree with the rulings from last week, both the Obamacare ruling and the marriage ruling,” Cruz said. “[T]he biggest divide we have politically is not between Republicans and Democrats. It’s between career politicians in both parties and the American people.”
I guess Cruz hasn’t bothered to look at the polls that show most Americans support same sex marriage–or, more likely, he couldn’t care less what Americans think about it. Get over it, Ted. Marriage equality is “settled law” now.
Another view of the Indiana Dunes.
From The Hill: Cruz bashes ‘elites’ on Supreme Court.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Monday bashed “elites” on the Supreme Court for imposing their will on America’s heartland in its decision to legalize same-sex marriage.
“You’ve got nine lawyers, they are all from Harvard or Yale — there are no Protestants on the court, there are no evangelicals on the court,” the 2016 GOP presidential candidate said on NBC’s “Today,” echoing criticism from Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissenting opinion.
“The elites on the court look at much of this country as flyover country; they think that our views are simply parochial and don’t deserve to be respected.”
ROFLMAO! Earth to Ted: You graduated from Princeton and Harvard and worked under former Chief Justice Rehnquist. Obviously you think the inhabitants of “flyover country” are too stupid to know that.
A couple more reactions:
AL.com: Roy Moore: Alabama judges not required to issue same-sex marriage licenses for 25 days.
The Texas Tribune: Some Counties Withholding Same-Sex Marriage Licenses.
Following the Charleston Massacre,
A windmill on an Indiana farm
a number of black churches have been burned in the South, according to Think Progress.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, at least six predominantly black churches in four Southern states have been damaged or destroyed by fire in the past week. While some may have been accidental, at least three have been determined to be the result of arson.
The first arson fire was on Monday at the College Hills Seventh Day Adventist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Knoxville fire department has said that the arsonist set multiple fires on the church’s property and the church’s van was also burned. On Tuesday, a fire in the sanctuary of God’s Power Church of Christ in Macon, Georgia was also blamed on arson, although the investigation is ongoing. And on Wednesday, a fire at the Briar Creek Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina was determined to be caused by arson, destroying an education wing that was meant to house a summer program for children, impacting its sanctuary and gymnasium, and causing an estimated $250,000 in damage.
The cause of a fire that destroyed the Glover Grover Baptist Church in Warrenville, South Carolina on Friday is unknown, while lightning is suspected in a fire that destroyed the Fruitland Presbyterian Church in Gibson County, Tennessee on Wednesday and a tree limb that fell on electrical lines is suspected in a fire at the Greater Miracle Apostolic Holiness Church in Tallahassee, Florida on Friday that destroyed the church and caused an estimated $700,000 in damage.
That is truly frightening. Read more details at the link.
A log cabin in Brown County, Indiana
Blue Nation Review: EXCLUSIVE: Bree Newsome Speaks For The First Time After Courageous Act of Civil Disobedience.
Over the weekend, a young freedom fighter and community organizer mounted an awe-inspiring campaign to bring down the Confederate battle flag. Brittany “Bree” Newsome, in a courageous act of civil disobedience, scaled a metal pole using a climbing harness, to remove the flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol. Her long dread locks danced in the wind as she descended to the ground while quoting scripture. She refused law enforcement commands to end her mission and was immediately arrested along with ally James Ian Tyson, who is also from Charlotte, North Carolina.
Read all about it and see photos at the link.
What else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread below and have a terrific Tuesday!
Lazy Saturday Reads: No Joy in Wankerville
Posted: June 27, 2015 Filed under: Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, morning reads | Tags: Bobby Jindal, ERA, Mike Huckabee, right wing reaction to Marriage Equality, Votes Rights Act 41 CommentsHope your weekend is going great!
It seems Republicans are having terrible, horrible, very bad weeks because even when you attempt to stack the Supreme Court with wankers, there are still times when some of them respect the constitutional rights and civil rights of individuals. They also occasionally respect the lawmaking process. Aren’t they sorry they can’t clone Uncle Clarence Thomas, the right wing rubber stamp of all things truly UnAmerican?
I seriously think that a lot of today’s Republicans have mental health issues. Is there a syndrome for reaction to losing privilege or is that just some kind of perverse temper tantrum best left to unruly toddlers? They definitely have a warped sense of what is moral.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal jumped the shark a long time ago with his insistence that Birmingham, UK had No Go Zones where Muslims ruled with shariah law. This is odd given he’s been trying to make Louisiana a No Go Zone for anything but radical evangelical, right wing christianists.
Jindal continues to show just how much he’s losing it with the idea that we’d save ourselves a lot of money by just getting rid of the Supreme Court. Read your constitution much PBJ? How much do you hate this country?
Jindal’s office also provided remarks on the court’s ruling from a speech in Iowa on Friday.
“The Supreme Court is completely out of control, making laws on their own, and has become a public opinion poll instead of a judicial body. If we want to save some money lets just get rid of the court.
“Yesterday, Justice Scalia noted that in the Obamacare ruling “words have no meaning.
“Today, Chief Justice Roberts admitted that the gay marriage ruling had nothing to do with the Constitution.
Marriage between a man and a woman was established by God, and no earthly court can alter that.“Hillary Clinton and The Left will now mount an all-out assault on Religious Freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment.
“Regardless of your views on marriage, all freedom loving people must pledge to respect our first amendment freedoms.”
Jindal is among the many Republican using religious freedom as an excuse to discriminate and disobey the law. You also hear the worn out refrain of state’s rights. These are the same arguments that were used to protect slavery, continue segregation, deny interracial marriage, and promote all kinds of basically evil things. If any one is guilt of promoting the tyranny of religious rule, it is folks like Bobby Jindal. It’s also the same throwback states refusing to carry out the SCOTUS decision legalizing marriage equality. Louisiana’s Governor and Attorney General are being complete assholes about issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. The elected officials in many southern states are acting like cheeky, spoiled little brats who didn’t get their way.
Louisiana and Mississippi are the only two states left in the country not issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples, according to Washington Post reports.
In Louisiana, Attorney General Buddy Caldwell on Friday indicated that he will not instruct parish clerks of court to immediately issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
In a statement, Caldwell’s office wrote that “it has found nothing in today’s decision that makes the Court’s order effective immediately.”
“The Attorney General’s Office will be watching for the Court to issue a mandate or order making today’s decision final and effective and will issue a statement when that occurs,” the statement noted.
In the statement, Caldwell expressed disappointment in the high court’s ruling.
In Mississippi, Attorney General Jim Hood said in a statement: “The Office of the Attorney General is certainly not standing in the way of the Supreme Court’s decision. We simply want to inform our citizens of the procedure that takes effect after this ruling. The Supreme Court decision is the law of the land and we do not dispute that. When the 5th Circuit lifts the stay of Judge Reeves’ order, it will become effective in Mississippi and circuit clerks will be required to issue same-sex marriage licenses.”
Before the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling Friday, Louisiana and Mississippi were two of 14 states with a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. After the court’s ruling, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia and Florida began issuing licenses.
Clearly, many folks in the South still haven’t gotten the idea that we’re a country ruled by laws and not their pet religious fetishes. Even the dissenting SCOTUS justices were way off the petulant scale and not only 
on the wrong side of history, but wrong about history. Chief Justice Roberts cited a list of civilizations that supposedly had his modern, wanker christianist view of marriage in the dissent. Simple research and googles would have disabused the Justice of his conveniently wrong views.
In his written dissent to the Supreme Court’s decision to effectively legalize gay marriage in all 50 states in the United States, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. made a conspicuous gesture to the rest of the world. He referred to the “social institution” that the majority of the court was “transforming,” and anchored its legitimacy in the currents of history.
…the Court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the States and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are?
It’s not quite clear to WorldViews why Roberts decided to implicate these four particular cultures in his opposition to the legalizing of gay marriage. But we can suggest reasons why they are hardly exemplars of “traditional” unions between men and women.
It’s absolutely funny how completely wrong definitions of “traditional marriage” can be. Here’s the actual practices of the Kalahari Bushmen.
These hunter-gatherers in sub-Saharan Africa have long been the world’s stock image of “primitive man,” and presumably that’s why Roberts referenced them — as the stereotype of an atavistic people, whether it’s fair or not. (It’s not, but let’s move on.) The Kalahari Bushmen don’t have very strong wedding practices, and don’t pay much attention to ceremonies around mating.
Early European accounts of tribes and kingdoms encountered in southern Africa included details of warrior women styling themselves as kings (not “queens”), polygamous households where lesbianism was common, and even ancient Bushmen rock paintings depicting explicit homosexual sex.
Ouch. I already mentioned the misogynous and incest-based traditional marriages of ancient Greece yesterday. You really have to look to the Dark Ages to get even a remote historical resemblance to what these crack pot religious whackos describe as “traditional marriage”.
In fact, when you really dig into the history of marriage, the only consistent feature is change. My own professional group, the American Historical Association, filed an amicus brief that leveraged the combined expertise of twenty historians of marriage. The AHA brief used examples drawn largely from American history to show that marriage has never been solely about procreation, with issues like property management taking center stage. Moreover, Ruth Karras, author of Unmarriages, told me in an interview that marriage has almost never been about joining one man and one woman, but instead about “two families.” In that sense, same-sex couples looking for equal protection under the law with respect to healthcare and property rights are pretty consistent with “traditional marriage.”
That is, if there even is such a thing as “traditional marriage.” Karras began studying the multiple forms of medieval marriage—or at least the socially-accepted and often semi-legal long-term forms of relationships—because of her frustration with the idea that, “there was some sort of time that we could go back and look at where marriage was this perfect ideal between a man and woman for purposes of reproduction or creating family. The Middle Ages clearly haunts that formulation.” In fact, Karras continued, for many medieval people, “traditional marriage didn’t even exist. Yes, for aristocrats there was this system, but it’s really not very possible to know much about how people without any money formed and possibly didn’t form their marriages. People seem to have this idea that until the 1960s in America, everybody was pro-marriage—in fact, in the Middle Ages a lot of people lived in other kinds of relations besides what was recognized formally as marriage.”
So many of these folks have views based on what they read in the incredibly fabricated St James Bible which was put together in the early 17th century. 
The King James Bible is considered by many today to be the ‘original’ Bible and therefore ‘genuine’ and all later revisions simply counterfeits forged by ‘higher critics’. Others think the King James Bible is ‘authentic’ and ‘authorized’ and presents the original words of the authors as translated into English from the ‘original’ Greek texts. However, as Tony points out, the ‘original’ Greek text was not written until around the mid fourth century and was a revised edition of writings compiled decades earlier in Aramaic and Hebrew. Those earlier documents no longer exist and the Bibles we have today are five linguistic removes from the first bibles written. What was written in the ‘original originals’ is quite unknown. It is important to remember that the words ‘authorized’ and ‘original’, as applied to the Bible do not mean ‘genuine’, ‘authentic’ or ‘true’.
We have an entire group of people–including elected officials and SCOTUS justices that basically can’t get beyond a nearly completely fabricated, contradictory, and false account of what may or may not be a set of fictional characters. Thank goodness the Constitution isn’t grounded in promoting religion even if so many of the whackadoos in public life build their entire life’s delusions around it.
Some of the most disturbing comments have come from crazy Mike Huckabee who is still running for President and searching for relevance beyond a small group of Southern Baptists.
Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) said Friday in a statement that he would not “acquiesce to an imperial court” and its decision to make gay marriage legal in all 50 states.
Huckabee’s comments came after the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges.
“The Supreme Court has spoken with a very divided voice on something only the Supreme Being can do-redefine marriage,” Huckabee said in the statement. “I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch. We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat.”Huckabee called the ruling “unconstitutional.”
“This ruling is not about marriage equality, it’s about marriage redefinition,” Huckabee said. “This irrational, unconstitutional rejection of the expressed will of the people in over 30 states will prove to be one of the court’s most disastrous decisions, and they have had many. The only outcome worse than this flawed, failed decision would be for the President and Congress, two co-equal branches of government, to surrender in the face of this out-of-control act of unconstitutional, judicial tyranny.”
Huckabee also questioned the authority of the Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court can no more repeal the laws of nature and nature’s God on marriage than it can the law of gravity,” Huckabee said. “Under our Constitution, the court cannot write a law, even though some cowardly politicians will wave the white flag and accept it without realizing that they are failing their sworn duty to reject abuses from the court. If accepted by Congress and this President, this decision will be a serious blow to religious liberty, which is the heart of the First Amendment.”
Again, we have some people that are totally unhinged and seem to have no concrete knowledge about even the most basic facts about the creation of our Republic and the Constitution.
Religious liberty is not a right to force your religious fetishes on others. Religious liberty deals with the ideal that the Government cannot establish a state religion and force its tenets on every one in the country. What these whackos do in their homes, churches and minds are their own business. What they do with our government and public lives is something completely different. You don’t have to be a constitutional scholar or lawyer to grok that.
Here’s another short list of what the Republican Candidates for President say about the ruling. Can there be any doubt that these folks are out of step with the majority of people in the country and will only be relevant in outback states where they wreck the economies and persecute minorities? I wrote about Bush and Rubio yesterday so I’ll just fill you in on the other troglodytes.
Of the reactions released so far, all by Republican presidential candidates opposed the Supreme Court ruling, as expected. But they differed in tone. Some were defiant, others appealed for respect.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is expected to enter the race soon, called the ruling “a grave mistake” and reiterated his support for a constitutional amendment.
“The only alternative left for the American people is to support an amendment to the US Constitution to reaffirm the ability of the states to continue to define marriage,” Governor Walker said in a statement.
Such an amendment would be impossible to pass, observers say, given the requirement that three-quarters of the states ratify it, and so his pronouncement is effectively a symbolic gesture. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, another 2016-er, is the biggest champion of a marriage amendment.
Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, who announced his candidacy Wednesday, was also clearly not in the “court has spoken” camp.
“Marriage between a man and a woman was established by God, and no earthly court can alter that,” Governor Jindal said in a statement.
As the governor of a state that did not already recognize same-sex marriage, Jindal’s posture toward Friday’s ruling has special significance. Ditto Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is expected to enter the race soon.
“Neither governor would be able to do anything to stop same-sex marriage in their state,” in light of Friday’s decision, National Journal notes.
“But they could take actions to speed up or delay implementation of the ruling – actions that would surely become a topic of the presidential campaign over the next year.”
At press time, Governor Kasich had yet to release a statement on the decision, though in April he told reporters at a Monitor luncheon that he would be willing to attend a gay friend’s wedding, suggesting some ease with the issue. But he was also clear that he supports only the traditional definition of marriage.
It is still unbelievable to me that we can literally be held hostage by reactionaries in mostly lowly populated, insignificant states and the rural populations of some of the mid-sized states. Popular support for the issues like marriage equality are at all time highs and continue to show upward trends. Still, horrible reactionary pundits and republican politicians continue to thwart progress towards full enfranchisement of racial and religious minorities, ethnic minorities, GLBTs, and women. I’ve been reading some of the worst things ever from the always wrong Bill Kristol. This man should not be allowed a public forum other than his irrelevant rag. Since when is granting civil rights “Peak Liberalism”?
We see a French Revolution-like tendency to move with the speed of light from a reasonable and perhaps overdue change (taking down the Confederate flag over state buildings) to an all-out determination to expunge from our history any recognition or respect for that which doesn’t fully comport with contemporary progressive sentiment. The left’s point, of course, is not to clarify and sharpen appreciation for our distinctive history; the point is to discredit that history.
And the point is not to advance arguments and criticize alternative views; it is to deny the legitimacy of opposing arguments and to demonize opponents and purge them from the public square.
We see a pitiful aversion to standing up to barbarism abroad and a desperate willingness to accommodate and appease. This requires an amazing ability to shut one’s eyes to reality, and an extraordinary refusal to make tough decisions and assume real responsibilities. As Harvey Mansfield put it in the 1970s, “From having been the aggressive doctrine of vigorous, spirited men, liberalism has become hardly more than a trembling in the presence of illiberalism. . . . Who today is called a liberal for strength and confidence in defense of liberty?”
Since when is liberty defined as the right to take liberty away from others?
Maybe, these assholes should pick up a few things written by Thomas Paine and embrace the true roots of revolution.
“Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.”
― Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
The real struggles for complete civil rights still exist. There is ENDA and there is still the ERA. There is correcting the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act. In those last links you will see that there is work going on to get all of these things on track. Until we are all safe from discrimination in our public lives including in our jobs, in our ability to live where we choose, in our ability to exercise our voting rights and to achieve pay equity, none of us are safe.
No matter what these jerks say, their religion isn’t a get out of complying with our laws free card.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
jjlo
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
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