"... Coffman’s site takes the opposite approach, making clear her strong fealty to Big Energy." In other words Coffman has been bought and paid for by the Koch brothers.

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Why The Koch Brothers Are So Interested In Who Becomes The Next Attorney General Of Colorado
By Josh Israel, July 31, 2014

The campaign for the usually little-noticed position of Colorado Attorney General has been jolted with a stunning influx of outside money — a total one candidate says is more than quadruple the largest amount ever spent by a candidate for the position.

The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) has reportedly reserved a historic $2.6 million television ad buy in support of Colorado Republican attorney general nominee Cynthia Coffman. The group has received significant funding from the fossil fuel industry — and dark money groups backed by petrochemical billionaires Charles and David Koch. Probably not coincidentally, Coffman is a staunch supporter of the oil and gas industry who has vowed to use the position to protect the rights of frackers and drillers.

RAGA is a Washington, DC-based “527? political organization dedicated to helping elect and re-elect Republicans across the country to be state attorneys general and to help them in “fighting federal encroachment, protecting citizens against crime and promoting free markets.” So far this election cycle, it has disclosed about $7.4 million in contributions. The ad buy marks the group’s biggest reported expenditure to date.

Of these contributions, at least $868,400 came from Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, and other energy sector companies and trade associations, a ThinkProgress analysis of IRS data revealed. This accounted for more than 11 percent of RAGA’s funding, as of June 30. Another $1,204,700 came from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which receives a large amount of its funding from energy companies and Koch-backed entities. The Kochs have also supported conservative political organization that contributed to RARA, including the American Future Fund ($670,000) and the Republican Governors Association ($175,000).

Attorneys general play a huge role in choosing which state regulations to defend in court, how much effort will go to prosecuting environmental crimes, and what whether to challenge EPA rules in court. Coffman’s opponent, Democratic nominee Don Quick, highlights on his campaign website that he as Colorado AG would “strengthen and expand our efforts to protect all of Colorado’s natural resources” and “make protection of our land, water and wildlife” a top priority.

But Coffman’s site takes the opposite approach, making clear her strong fealty to Big Energy. In a section called “Oil and Gas,” she calls the industry “integral to Colorado’s economic health as well as to the U.S. energy supply.” If elected, Coffman pledges to take action against localities who try to prevent fracking, which “effectively deprive landowners and companies of their property rights in contravention of the law.”

“Similarly,” she says, “bans pertaining to oil and gas processes result in an odd patchwork of regulations that serve to impede activity deemed necessary by the Colorado General Assembly.” Should local groups or governments try to impede the oil and gas industry, she vows, she would “enforce the law — even if it means taking overreaching, anti-drilling jurisdictions to court.”

A poll of Colorado voters taken in May found strong support among respondents for giving cities and towns more authority over oil and gas development in their communities.

As of July 1, Coffman reported having raised $252,820, total, for her campaign. While her July fundraising totals are not yet available, the RAGA expenditure would be more than ten times Coffman’s own haul through June 25.
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The "... strange encounter with the 'frightening' and 'fact-averse' Louisiana State Rep. Lenar Whitney."

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Louisiana Republican Flees Interview When Asked About Obama's Birthplace
By Colin Campbell, July 30, 2014

A Republican congressional candidate fled her interview with a major election-forecasting group after being asked why she believed global warming was a hoax and whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States, according to a new report in The Washington Post.

In the Post, David Wasserman, the House editor at the Cook Political Report, detailed his strange encounter with the "frightening" and "fact-averse" Louisiana State Rep. Lenar Whitney.

Whitney, who is running for Louisiana's open sixth district, gained some prominence in June when she released a campaign video blasting global warming as a "hoax" and the press as "lamestream media." Wasserman said he pressed Whitney on the issue of climate change only to find her unable to answer his questions.

"But it’s not unreasonable to expect candidates to explain how they arrived at their positions, and when I pressed Whitney repeatedly for the source of her claim that the earth is getting colder, she froze and was unable to cite a single scientist, journal, or news source to back up her beliefs," he wrote.

Wasserman said he attempted to "change the subject" and ask whether she believed Obama was born in the United States. Her aides then ended the interview.

"When she replied that it was a matter of some controversy, her two campaign consultants quickly whisked her out of the room, accusing me of conducting a 'Palin-style interview,'" he continued. "It was the first time in hundreds of Cook Political Report meetings that a candidate has fled the room."

Whitney could not immediately be reached for comment.

Update (10:10 a.m.): In a Facebook post last week, after the interview was conducted, Whitney slammed the Cook Political Report. "It was obvious, from the onset of the interview, that Wasserman had planned to jump me simply because I am a Conservative Woman and liberal shills like Dave Wasserman want to destroy us," she wrote.
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"The Grimes ad ... aims to portray McConnell as a lawmaker who has worked against women’s rights throughout his Senate career ..."

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McConnelling McConnell: Grimes’ new video relies entirely on opponent’s B-roll

The Kentucky Senate campaigns wage war over women's issues

By Chris Moody, July 30, 2014



In March, Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign posted a strange video on its YouTube channel showing the senior lawmaker taking on random tasks and poses. The video, silent except for a jaunty soundtrack, contained a series of unrelated shots: a smile with his wife, a handshake on the campaign trail, a rousing speech at a factory.

The video, it turns out, was created to provide free B-roll to friendly supporters to use for their own pro-McConnell ads — which isn’t a bad idea, because campaigns are legally barred from coordinating with outside groups. The footage also became the source for scores of hilarious parody videos, which the Internet quickly dubbed “McConnelling.”

But now McConnell’s Democratic opponent, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, is using the free footage in ads against him. Grimes’ campaign on Wednesday released a Web ad, seen first on Yahoo News, accusing the five-term senator of advocating against women, and every physical shot in the 45-second spot comes directly from the video McConnell’s campaign produced for friendly campaigns.



The Grimes ad, which is meant for the Web and not backed by a television airtime buy, aims to portray McConnell as a lawmaker who has worked against women’s rights throughout his Senate career, which spans nearly three decades.

As the Senate minority leader, McConnell is one of the most powerful elected Republicans, and Democrats are pouring massive resources into the campaign for his defeat as polls show the race tightening.

Most recently, the party has targeted female voters in Kentucky as part of that effort and released a television ad this week pointing to past votes against the “Violence Against Women Act” and other bills that address women’s issues. McConnell was, in fact, a co-sponsor of the VAWA in 1991, but he voted against final passage of a version of the bill in 1994 because it included an assault weapons ban. McConnell supported reauthorization in 2000 and 2005 but not in 2013, when, instead, he supported an alternative version proposed by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley that failed to pass the Senate.
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"The truth is, Christianity is not under fire in the United States and it is ridiculous to think it is. ..."

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War on Christianity?
By Roy Speckhardt, July 31, 2014

When Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, was asked how LGBTQ couples could form a meaningful relationship in a country often hostile to gay people, he responded without a sense of irony that "The bigotry question goes both ways. And there is a lot more anti-Christian bigotry today than there is on the other side."

Hearing elected officials alleging U.S. based Christian persecution is surprisingly common given the prominent position of Christianity in all walks of American life. It used to be that just the unelected extreme religious right that would use the tactic of pretending the majority was an embattled underdog. The early darling of ultra-conservative Christianity, Ralph Reed, was famous for saying in 1991: "I do guerrilla warfare ... I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night." But it seemed that despite the Christian Coalition's departure from the political scene, Reed and others were ultimately successful as their ideological colleagues now walk the halls of Congress. With the blaring megaphones of politicians, they assert false claims of a U.S. "War on Christianity."

Failed GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum may be the right-wing champion in the War on Christianity. Santorum believes Christians are fighting a war against extinction, referring constantly to what Ronald Reagan said in his 1967 California governor's inaugural address, "Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction." Santorum points to his own claim that Christians discriminating against those in the LGBT community will be forced into re-education camps as "proof" of Christian persecution and part of this war on Christianity. Santorum's fervor is so intense that his film company, EchoLight Studios, will soon release One Generation Away: the Erosion of Religious Liberty - a documentary-style film focusing on the disintegration of religious freedom across the country.

According to Right Wing Watch, Texas Representative Louie Gohmert made a statement that President Obama and his administration has "gone to war with Christianity" because, according to Gohmert, "you can't practice what you believe... this administration will tell you what religious practices you can participate in and what you can't." And previous Republican Party nominee for Vice President, Sarah Palin spoke at Liberty University in December of 2013 saying, "Those who want to try to abort Christ from Christmas... these are angry atheists armed with an attorney, they are not the majority of Americans..." Only in this supposed war against Christianity are attorneys considered artillery.

However popular the War on Christianity may seem, it is simply a fallacy in the United States. When it comes to holding office, since 1869 "every [American] president has been affiliated with a Christian church," whereas an atheist has never been president. A Pew survey conducted in 2013 revealed overwhelmingly that the American Public is still much more likely to vote for a Christian candidate as opposed to an atheist, and generally, as opposed to atheists, Americans feel more favorably towards Christians. Amidst all the talk of religious persecution, Christmas is still the only religious holiday that is federally recognized with a holiday. Political humorist Bill Maher pointed out that when Eric Cantor leaves after being booted from office, there will be "no non-Christian Republicans in Congress."

The truth is, Christianity is not under fire in the United States and it is ridiculous to think it is. Sarah Palin was right on one point, atheists are not the majority in this country, Christians are, and they are over-represented on Capitol Hill and in other positions of influence. There is no American war on Christianity and masquerading the fight for religious imposition as a fight to protect Christians from this fabricated war is offensive to those truly suffering prejudice and persecution. Fundamentalist Christians should stop subverting religious freedom for all by dropping the religious war metaphors and ceasing their efforts to use the power of government to impose their faith on others.
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"... millennials’ waning interest in politics may be causing them to overlook, or even not know, about the political influence of the makers of their favorite products."

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Millennials: Are Your Favorite Brands Influencing Politics?
By David Joyner, July 29, 2014

Studies have confirmed several statistics about the group known as millennials, the generation born between 1980 and 2000. They’re on track to be the most educated generation to date, they’re getting married significantly later in life, and they’re in debt. They’re also the most civically engaged generation the United States has ever seen.

Millennials are more likely to discuss current events than their parents and more likely to volunteer or donate to a cause they care about. What’s more, not only does the generation participate in boycotts, but they’re particularly interested in “buycotting” or buying strictly from producers they see as ethical and philanthropic.

One civic duty the group doesn’t seem particularly passionate about is voting. This isn’t surprising, since young Americans haven’t mobilized to vote since the 1960s. It is noteworthy though, since millennials will make up 40 percent of the electorate in 2020. While the generation seems concerned about the ethical practices of the brands they’re loyal to — think Chick-Fil-A boycotts by social liberals and buycotts by conservatives — millennials’ waning interest in politics may be causing them to overlook, or even not know, about the political influence of the makers of their favorite products.

A recent survey asked millennials which brands they’re most likely to buy for their next purchase in a given category. What follows is a look into where the parent companies have their money-in-politics.

Though millennials tend to eat at home when they’re trying to save money, they do have a fondness for Olive Garden. They ranked going to a restaurant as their second most likely splurge. Darden Restaurants, which owns the Italian eatery, has been involved with money-in-politics for several years. Darden has favored Republicans since the 1990s, and in the 2012 election cycle set its own record by giving $591,575 to candidates and committees supporting conservative causes. Darden has given $324,000 to Republicans so far this cycle, which is slightly more than its $268,000 in contributions to Democrats. In 2013 it spent more than $1.3 million on lobbying, and is on track to do the same this year with $690,000 already reported. CRP records show that while the group has been lobbying on expected issues such as the minimum wage and employee health care, it has also expressed support for immigration reform on three separate occasions.

Alcohol made it to the top of millennials’ shopping lists. Vodka is the generation’s favorite liquor, and it’s showing a preference for Smirnoff. Manufactured by the London-based Diageo PLC, millennials might be interested to know that their purchases of Smirnoff are helping the company to hire a line-up of lobbyists that includes former Sens. Trent Lott (R) and John Breaux(D). As far as donations go, Diageo PLC has leaned to the left since 2008, giving at least $40,000 more to Democrats than to Republicans in the past three election cycles. This cycle’s donation split is nearly even between both parties: $73,604 to Democrats and $73,003 to Republicans so far.

When it comes to technology, millennials gravitate towards Apple Inc. iPads, iPods, and Macbooks are at the top of every 20-something’s wish list, and it looks as though Apple wants to see those devices in classrooms as well. The nearly $3.4 million the company spent on lobbying in 2013 was used in part to advocate on a handful of bills that included language about increasing access to technology in the education system. Education bills are also on the group’s lobbying reports so far for 2014, in addition to patent protection and online privacy. The company has already spent $2.2 million on lobbying in the first half of this year. Apple has no corporate PAC, but donations by employees to candidates and political committees show a strong preference for Democrats. While the company’s employees donate significantly more during presidential elections, they have already given $71,500 to Democrats in this election cycle, compared to the $9,500 donated to Republicans.

The fact that this generation is waiting until later in life to have children and is more interested in adopting a pet may be having a positive impact on the pet services industry. Purina is the brand millennials are most loyal to for their pet food. Purina is owned by the Swiss company, Nestle SA. Until 2010 the company made large donations to Republicans, donating $197,164 more to the GOP than to Democrats in 2008.  It has since scaled back its political giving, and so far this cycle has given more to Democrats for the first time, according to CRP records. As far as lobbying expenditures go, the company passed the $1 million mark in the second quarter of this year; it has spent $1.1 million on lobbying so far in 2014.

When it comes to jewelry, millennials’ spending tends to be split between Kay Jewelers and Tiffany & Co. Kay is owned by Signet Group, which has no corporate PAC, and employees of which have donated just $3,500 so far this cycle, all to Democrats. The group has spent $100,000 so far this year on lobbying, and its efforts have focused on the Marketplace Fairness Act as well as a bill involving supply chain transparency and human trafficking. Meanwhile in this election, employees of Tiffany have given $41,450 to Democratic candidates and committees, compared to $1,000 to Republicans. It has spent $160,000 on lobbying, with its top interest being natural resources and trade.

Another item millennials admitted they might splurge on is a live performance, such as a concert or sporting event. Of those, the most likely was baseball, and the Major League Baseball Commissioner’s Office has favored Democrats in its political giving since 2006. This cycle has seen $260,300 donated to Democrats and $217,000 to Republicans so far. Some of the top recipients include Ed Markey (D-Mass.) with $17,000 and Eric Cantor (R-Va.) — who lost his June primary — with $7,500. The commissioner’s office has spent $260,000 on lobbying efforts through the first half of 2014, though no specific bills have been reported. Its top issues include disaster & emergency planning, health, and telecommunications.

Though millennials said they either can’t afford or don’t need to buy a new car anytime soon, their preferences were Honda Motor Company and Toyota Motor Corporation. Honda has already spent $1.4 million on lobbying this year, mostly on bills involving trade and patent protections. Honda does very little donating directly to candidates and campaigns, having given just $500 to both Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) so far this cycle. Toyota has been more generous with its campaign donations, giving $63,264 to Democrats and $118,000 to Republicans for this election. The group spent nearly $4.6 million on lobbying in 2013.
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"... if your only exposure to political news in the coming elections is to passively listen to those with whom you agree ... you’ll never learn anything new or have reason to question anything that you have heard."

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Noise, spin undermine political process
Guest editorial, July 30, 2014

With politics jammed at voters 24/7 from every form of media, the cacophony of partisan noise is undermining the political process rather than expanding knowledge and understanding of it.

America has transformed into a nation where individuals hear and see news the way they want it spun with political outcomes predicted to occur the way they want them to. And when it doesn’t happen, rather than doubt their own judgment or the sources of their information, they lose faith in government and democracy.

At least that’s the takeaway from a report on a study released last week by the University of Georgia.

In the research, Barry Hollander, a UGA professor, analyzed 5,914 survey responses conducted by the American National Election Study that were taken before and after the 2012 presidential election in which President Barack Obama won re-election over the challenge of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. That was an election in which a great many Romney supporters, confident there would be a change in the White House, were surprised that their candidate did not prevail.

Hollander calls that the theory of wishful thinking. Another way of looking at it is simply false hope.

In examining the data, Hollander found that “surprised losers” — those who incorrectly predicted their candidate would win — were more skeptical of government, democracy and the election process than were those who supported the same candidate but had been expecting the loss. In the Obama-Romney race, he noted, 78 percent of Romney’s supporters believed Romney would win, though polls showed Obama leading.

Hollander said one problem may have been the way Americans consume information. For instance, we can recall hearing a number of conservative pundits, particularly on cable TV news and talk radio, decry the polls as flawed, arguing the numbers just “looked” bad because the pollsters were supportive of Democrats.

The more fragmented our media have become the more people are hearing what they want to out of their news and the more surprised they are when the outcome doesn’t turn out as they’ve expected, which could further erode trust in elections, democracy and government.

Indeed, if your only exposure to political news in the coming elections is to passively listen to those with whom you agree — whether on TV, on radio or on social media — you’ll never learn anything new or have reason to question anything that you have heard. It may feel more comfortable, but it is a false security with no opportunity for growth as critical thinking skills atrophy.
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"You can’t escape the Koch brothers. They’re everywhere. ..."

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All Koch Bros., all the time
By Rekha Basu, July 29, 2014

You can’t escape the Koch brothers. They’re everywhere. Underwriting efforts to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Trying to get rid of aid to education, the Environmental Protection Agency and minimum-wage laws. They’re the brunt of late-night monologues, dramatic TV series and comedy film. They’re even supporting Iowa candidates.

On a recent Sunday, billionaires Charles and David Koch and their well-oiled political organization, Americans for Prosperity, were the focus of a spread in my newspaper, The Des Moines Register, for setting down long-term roots in Iowa. That same day, I happened to reach the third episode of the first season of HBO’s “The Newsroom,” in which a fictitious TV network’s owner is fixing to silence an outspoken anchor from undermining the Koch brothers on air.

“I got where I am by knowing who to fear,” she tells the show’s producer, “and the Koch brothers are not fooling around.” By that she means they will pull advertising and their newly elected surrogates in Congress will sit on committees that wield power over the network.

In other words, with one Koch hatchet, down comes the hope of fair elections and a free press — and perhaps the future employment of journalists with integrity.

It was the wrong day to see that episode.

Even as I sat down to write this, two emails involving the Koch brothers popped up, unprompted. One promotes an Americans for Prosperity summit in August in Dallas. The other, from the left-leaning, grassroots MoveOn.org, is a call to arms by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, to prevent America’s descent into an oligarchy of the very wealthy.

Can a pair of businessmen brothers really be that powerful and dangerous? The short answer is yes, but only if we let them by closing our eyes to their agenda and who benefits from it. For all their lofty-sounding calls for liberty, freedom of expression and prosperity, ordinary people won’t.

There have always been wealthy people wanting to skew public policy toward their financial and corporate interests — to minimize the taxes they must pay, the environmental and labor protections they must abide by and now the health care benefits they must provide workers.

But what has changed is that they are now free to spend limitless amounts flooding the airwaves and hosting political events without identifying their objectives or individual donors. Americans are still learning the rules of this new game, which came from the 2010 Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United.

“The Newsroom” depicts a couple of fictitious Tea Party leaders being interviewed before the 2010 midterm elections that ushered many into Congress. They call their movement grassroots, with no central control, while faulting President Barack Obama and Congress for being beholden to special interests.

“What little funding we have comes from private citizens who mail in $5, $10, $1, whatever they can spare,” declares one of them. It falls to anchor Will McAvoy to enlighten them that the Koch brothers, the second-largest private company in America, are bankrolling their activities.

Before the 2012 presidential election, the Koch brothers and Americans for Prosperity spent a record amount of money to defeat Obama. In California, the Koch-affiliated American Future Fund spent millions to oppose organized labor and support Proposition 32, a ban on paycheck deductions for political ends. The unions spent more — $36.2 million — to successfully kill the initiative.

Americans for Prosperity plans to spend $300 million on campaigns around the country this year. MoveOn and Sanders warn of more income inequality and global warming if they get their way.

The good news is that for all their expenditures, the Kochs’ campaigns so far have had mixed results.

But the challenge for those of us who care about protecting democracy from being sold to the highest bidder, and believe that freedom comes with responsibilities to the planet, the poor and the general public, is to make sure voters understand the self-serving agendas behind the claims.
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"'... the data show very clearly that voters like their own party and its leaders as much as ever. They just dislike the other party and its leaders much more than ever.'"

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America really is two different political countries these days

By Chris Cillizza, July 28, 2014

I wrote my newspaper column today on a theme I started exploring in the Fix last week: The idea that America -- and American politics -- are fundamentally adrift, caught between an old way of doing things that they know is broken and an uncertain future that feels too far away to grasp right now.

My argument in the piece was that our politics have reflected this broader anxiety and tension, flip-flopping from predictions of a permanent Republican majority in the early part of the 2000s to back-to-back Democratic White House victories in 2008 and 2012 and now an electoral environment that looks like it will deliver gains to Republicans this fall.

Alan Abramowitz, a professor of political science at Emory University, in Georgia sent me an email Sunday night offering an alternate theory: It's not growing uncertainty that is afflicting the country but rather growing partisan divisions.  "Democrats and Republicans disagree much more than in the past about what they want government to do,  and right now neither party’s supporters are getting what they want," Abramowitz wrote.  "But the data show very clearly that voters like their own party and its leaders as much as ever.  They just dislike the other party and its leaders much more than ever. "

He provided this chart -- taken from a piece he wrote earlier this month for UVA's Center for Politics -- that makes that point strikingly. This chart, using data from the American National Election Studies (ANES), shows how partisans view their own party and the other party using a 0 (very cold/negatively) to 100 (very hot/positive) rating.

Image courtesy of Alan Abramowitz

As you can see, sentiment toward one's own party has been both positive and steady for the last three decades, generally at or above 70 on the temperature scale.  Since the 1980s, however, feelings about the opposition party have absolutely cratered -- from the mid 40s in 1982 all the way down to the mid 20s by the 2012 presidential election.

Here's another way to look at how far the two parties have pulled away from each other.  The table below shows how people feel about the two parties over the last three decades. Pay particular attention to the far right column, which documents the number of people who feel positively about one party and negatively toward the other.

Image courtesy of Alan Abramowitz

In the space of three decades, that number has DOUBLED.  People seeing both parties in a positive light has dropped five-fold in that time.

The conclusion I draw from the numbers above -- and I believe Abramson shares -- is that we are increasingly moving toward two entirely separate Americas, a liberal one and a conservative one.  Residents in each of those countries have responded in drastically different ways to the consequential events -- the September 11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the NSA spying scandal, the economic downturn -- of the last decade.  Each country is certain that their policy prescriptions are the right reaction to the societal and cultural upheaval facing the U.S. and the world. And, they are even more convinced that the other country's solutions are totally and completely wrong. And not just wrong but potentially very, very dangerous.

There seem to be only two outcomes to these tensions: 1) One country wins out or 2) The two countries split in some irreversible way. It's hard to imagine either scenario coming to pass right now. But, something has to give.

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"While these PACs have the money they don't necessarily have the political infrastructure to come up with a particularly sophisticated campaign strategy." If they do get "sophisticated", our electronic toys will be inundated!

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Outside Spending on TV Advertising is on Pace to Break $2 Billion This Election Cycle
By Tess VandenDolder, July 29, 2014

It doesn't seem to add up. With Americans spending less time watch[ing] cable television in favor [of] online streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, you would think that political campaigns would reduce their spending on traditional television campaigns in favor of new digital outlets. But it looks like that memo was never delivered, with outside spending groups on track to spend over $2 billion on television ads ahead of the midterm elections, a 70 percent increase in television spots since the 2010 midterms.

This phenomenon is most noticeable in a handful of the most competitive Senate races, such as those taking place in Alaska, Colorado and North Carolina, however the number of ads for Senate candidates is up across the board. This summer has already seen 150,000 distinct ad spots, more than were on the air during the entire 2010 Senate election cycle.

The Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, the Senate Majority PAC and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have already spent a combined total of $80 million on television buys. This extreme spending has allowed these outside groups to shape the narratives of a race, independent of whatever strategies are put together by the campaigns themselves, which in many instances has made the races seem more negative.

This boom in outside spending has also been facilitated by the Supreme Court cases of Citizens United  and McCutcheon. The first made it legal for corporations, associations and labor unions to spend as much as they wanted on political expenditures. The second allowed individuals to give as much as they wanted to political groups. The result is that these PACs are able to raise much more money than they ever could before, more than the campaigns themselves are able to raise.

Putting the obvious debate over money in politics aside for a moment, it's worth wondering why these PACs see TV ads as their most important expense. A March study found that Americans spend more time every day looking at their smartphone screens than their television sets. And the combined amount of time Americans spend on their mobile phones, tablets and laptops a day is two and a half hours more than they spend watching television. So why the TV ads?

Primarily it comes down to demographics. While these PACs have the money they don't necessarily have the political infrastructure to come up with a particularly sophisticated campaign strategy. In that regard, television ads still reign supreme as the easiest way to reach a ton of Americans. But that conventional wisdom is rapidly changing. Voters under the age of 34 watch far less TV a week then their older counterparts, with Americans over the age of 65 watching twice the amount of television programing.

Therefore the conclusion to be drawn from this story is twofold. First, the breakdown of campaign finance laws has opened the floodgates for PACs to spend exponentially more than they have ever before. But, it doesn't look like they're wielding their newfound spending power as smartly as they could be.
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"The Republican strategy of lawsuits and approaching impeachment is fundamentally misfiring ..."

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Rep. Steve Israel: why 'impeachment' talk is a winner for Democrats
Rep. Steve Israel calls on Republicans to drop talk of impeachment and lawsuits. But he also notes that Democrats raised $1 million in a day on that theme, which could also deliver higher voter turnout in November. 
By Francine Kiefer, July 29, 2014

For Democrats, impeachment talk is turning out to be the goose that lays the golden eggs, dropping $1 million in one day into Democratic coffers, according to Rep. Steve Israel (D) of New York.

“At 1 o’clock this morning, I got an e-mail from our online fundraising department telling me that yesterday we raised $1 million online. In one day. In one day,” said Congressman Israel, who is tasked with helping elect Democrats to the House, at a Monitor breakfast with reporters on Tuesday.

Over the weekend, Democratic solicitations based on some GOP calls for impeachment and a pending GOP lawsuit against President Obama brought in $2.1 million in online donations to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the party’s campaign arm chaired by Israel.

“The Republican strategy of lawsuits and approaching impeachment is fundamentally misfiring,” said Israel. It may gin up the GOP base, but it is “moving our base in a big way.”

The Republican leadership in the House is quick to remind the news media that Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio has flatly ruled out impeachment. Over the weekend, the new House whip, Rep. Steve Scalise (R) of Louisiana, said that it is the White House that is pushing the impeachment idea.

“This might be the first White House in history that’s trying to start the narrative of impeaching their own president,” he said on Fox News Sunday.

At the breakfast, Israel sprinkled the word "impeachment" like salt and pepper, even while denying GOP claims that this is a strategy. “It’s not our strategy…. This is what [Republicans] believe. And in their most recent CNN poll, 57 percent of their base believes it. They’re pushing it because they believe it in their souls, or because they believe it in their political calculations.”

It may work to turn out the GOP base, he said, “but it’s not going to work for this country, and I wish they would just give it up.” He pointed out that Mr. Scalise, a strong conservative, never denied impeachment as a possibility when he spoke on Fox. “He breathed new life into it.”

The impeachment talk “is something close to a no-lose proposition for the Democrats. They can raise money off of it AND make the GOP look extreme, which is strategy Nos. 1, 2, and 3 in the Democratic playbook,” says Kyle Kondick of the University of Virginia Center for Politics in an e-mail. “That said, I think Israel is being a bit overoptimistic in his hopes that this will really gin up [Democratic] turnout.”

Turnout is the key for Democrats, who are fighting the historic trend of midterm-election disinterest by voters and low presidential approval ratings in the president’s party. Democrats this cycle are also fighting the results of 2010 redistricting that favored Republicans. The Virginia Center for Politics, for instance, forecasts a GOP gain of five to eight seats in the House this fall. The Cook Political report puts the gain at two to 12 seats, if the election were held today.

Israel, however, said he’s not looking at predictions of seat gains or losses, but at factors that Democrats can control: mobilization, money, and message.

Recognizing the need to up their game, Israel says he started six months earlier this election cycle and doubled the budget for field workers. House Democrats are ahead of House Republicans in campaign fundraising. They are targeting women voters with issues such as paycheck fairness, and he predicts that education is a sleeper topic that will “erupt” among suburban families struggling with student debt.

He described their message as one of daily contrasts between “Republicans who are obsessed with lawsuits and appear to be moving closer to impeachment, and Democrats who are focused on the economy.”

There’s that I-word again.
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C'mon, Sarah Palin is a "major Republican"? Really?

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Republicans Have Lost Control of the Impeachment Plot They Hatched
By Arit John, July 29, 2014

The impeachment debate is another example of fringe conservative ideology hurting the establishment's election chances. House Speaker John Boehner knows that, which is why he said Tuesday that impeachment is a "scam" created by Democrats to motivate their base to vote and donate ahead of the midterm elections, according to the Associated Press. That's half true. Democrats are fundraising off impeachment, but this conversation was started by Sarah Palin and her fans.

Democrats are capitalizing off the idea that House Republicans will try to impeach the president, and even fundraising off comments made by White House officials — last week senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said they take the impeachment threat "very seriously," and soon after the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sent this email:  [snipped]

Between last Thursday, when the House Rules Committee voted to move forward with the lawsuit against President Obama, and Sunday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised $2.1 million, making that the best four day period of the election cycle, according to The Washington Post. That was fueled by impeachment talk — the group sent nine emails mentioning it.

Byron York at the right-leaning Washington Examiner noted that while there was talk of impeaching President Bush when Democrats won the House in 2006, then Speaker Nancy Pelosi said impeachment was off the table. "But Boehner has not made a far-reaching, definitive statement comparable to declaring impeachment 'off the table,'" he added. (House Whip Steve Scalise also declined to say impeachment if off the table.)

That's because impeachment is popular among conservatives. It's so popular that Boehner had to explicitly state that his lawsuit "is not about impeachment ... This is about his faithfully executing the laws of our country," as he said last month. A few days later Sarah Palin (who Republicans once chose as their nominee for Vice President of the United States of America) was the first major Republican to directly call for President Obama's impeachment earlier this month. All the DCCC emails in the world can't change that fact.

And a recent CNN poll found that 57 percent of Republicans and 56 percent of conservatives support impeachment. The problem is, while the GOP's base supports impeachment, the general public — aka moderate and independent voters —doesn't. As Aaron Blake at The Washington Post argued, that leaves Republicans with three options: oppose impeachment and have your seat challenged by a Tea Partier; support impeachment, though it won't pass, and prove that the GOP is run by its radical wing; or just dodge the question. But now there's a fourth option: blame Democrats for a conservative thought experiment that got out of hand.
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"What the plaque would actually do, in practical terms, is insult people who think the Pierce County Council has no business preaching to them."

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UPDATE:  The Council passed this atrocity 5-2.
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Our neighbors to the north are messing again with something best left alone.

Taken from a LTE by William F. Johnston:
"Apparently Pierce County Councilmember Jim McCune and his supporters are so insecure in their 'faith' that they feel their God needs advertising!

It is true Washington is the most 'unchurched' state in the country, so maybe they think to turn it around God needs to be tacked up on the wall like an ad for soap or candy bars.

McCune and his allies claim our country was founded on some 'values' demanding that their concept of 'God' be forced on the rest of us."
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Stirring up the culture wars in Pierce County
July 29, 2014

You’d think the Pierce County Council would have more pressing business than inciting another battle in America’s incessant culture wars.

This particular war revolves around the national motto, “In God We Trust.” Councilman Jim McCune has proposed a resolution to have the motto “permanently and prominently displayed” in the council chambers, presumably on a big plaque.

McCune’s protestations to the contrary, this idea didn’t pop out of nowhere. It has a political context, and words get meaning from context. A group of religious conservatives, virtually all conservative Christians, is pushing to have the motto mounted on plaques or otherwise posted in every government meetinghouse in the land.

The federal courts have been fine with the motto as a vague, time-hallowed expression of civic piety. “In God We Trust” has been stamped on American coins since 1864. In 1956, during the Cold War, Congress felt moved to officially adopt the phrase as a retort to the official atheism of the Soviet Union and Red China.

That’s part of history. What’s not part of history is the current campaign to use the motto to squeeze Christian-flavored conservatism into local council chambers – while implying that anyone who objects is lacking in patriotism, Americanism or whatnot.

In this context, the phrase is loaded. Embracing the “In God We Trust” campaign will do nothing but rile up nonbelievers, non-Christians and the very considerable number of Christians who believe faith flourishes best without the tender mercies of the state.

The people promoting the plaques insist that they aren’t trying to insert religion into local government. If that’s true, what’s the point of invoking deity?

We could toy with the notion that the God of the plaques isn’t any particular sort of deity, just a one-size-fits-all generic higher power that anyone – Baptist, Buddhist, Catholic, Wiccan, Hindu, maybe even an atheist – could buy into.

That leads to no end of theological problems, but let’s run with it.

What, exactly, would this higher power do for the County Council? Help it expand the wastewater plant? Retire sewer bonds? Appoint people to the Frederickson Advisory Commission?

Outbid Fife for jail inmates? Prohibit compression brakes on South Prairie Road?

What the plaque would actually do, in practical terms, is insult people who think the Pierce County Council has no business preaching to them.

Since the council is contemplating getting religion, permit us to recommend a verse from Proverbs:

“He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.”

Or, as moderns would put it, “Let sleeping dogs lie.”
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They just can't give it up

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"Ultimately, it’s not the fundraisers who are at fault, it's the gullible partisans who open their wallets every time someone on their side say “Boo!”"

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Bad Politics Is Funded by Nincompoops
By Jonathan Bernstein, July 28, 2014

People are dopes.

The Democrats' congressional campaign arm pulled in $2.1 million in online donations over the weekend -- the best four-day haul of the current election cycle -- largely propelled by fundraising pitches tied to speculation that House Republicans could pursue the impeachment of President Obama.

I don't have a beef with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Those operatives are just doing their jobs, raising millions. No, it’s the saps who fall for the “Impeachment!” scare and pony up a contribution who are at fault.

Equally, or even more, at fault are Republican rank-and-file donors easily parted with their hard-earned cash by those who imply that, yes, this time impeachment really, really, really is going to happen.

I do think there is such a thing as ethics among fundraisers, and the DCCC pitch falls well within the lines. After all, while President Barack Obama won't be impeached and convicted of anything, as long as Republican Whip Steve Scalise, the third-ranking Republican in the House, plays footsy with the impeachment crowd it doesn’t seem unethical for Democratic fundraisers to exploit the possibility.

Republican politicians who talk of impeachment, or who won’t shut off the discussion, are irresponsible. But the Republican fundraisers who raise money off the chatter? Nope. They do battle with the issues their political leadership creates.

Ultimately, it’s not the fundraisers who are at fault, it's the gullible partisans who open their wallets every time someone on their side say “Boo!”

Hey, folks: I’m all for giving money to candidates and parties. But every time you respond to ridiculous scare pitches, you make politics a little bit worse. And, yeah, I can just hear you complaining about how politics and politicians are so awful and all the rest of it. Forget that: It's you. You're the problem. Cut it out.
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"... the numbers for pet ownership line up relatively neatly with a state's politics."

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What our cats and dogs say about our politics
By Aaron Blake, July 28, 2014

Our politics align with all manner of other things in life, from our religion to the brands we choose to where we live. Another area where Republicans and Democratic states apparently come down on different sides: Family pets.

According to new data from the American Veterinary Medical Association, the United States is a country torn between two pets, with some states having nearly two cats for every dog (looking at you, Maryland and Massachusetts), and others having significantly more dogs than cats.

Here's how that looks, courtesy of Wonkblog's great Christopher Ingraham:
[snipped; see link above]

If you take even a cursory glance at that map, you'll notice that it looks a little like some other maps you might have seen -- including of the 2012 presidential election. While the East and West coasts are much more cat-friendly, the South is dog country.

Not surprisingly, the numbers for pet ownership line up relatively neatly with a state's politics. Below, we have ranked the contiguous 48 states and the District of Columbia from 1 to 49, with Nos. 1 being the most cat-friendly, the most liberal, and the most urban. (AVMA did not have data for Alaska and Hawaii.)

Of the 10 most liberal states in the country, according to Gallup's rankings, six of them also rank in the top 10 for cat ownership, relative to dogs.

On the other end of the spectrum, all but one of the 13 states that favor dogs the most are red states. And only one blue state favors dogs over cats.

[Demo-cats and Re-pup-licans chart snipped]

Of course, just because blue states like cats more and red states like dogs more doesn't necessarily mean that liberals love cats and conservatives love dogs.

So what else could account for the differences between states of felines and canines? One likely suspect would seem to be how urban or rural a state is.

But there's actually more correlation between the pet of choice and a state's politics than there is to how urban or rural it is. While cats are seen as more urban pets and dogs more rural, the numbers don't line up so nicely.

Of the top 10 most urban states, according to the Census, only three rank in the top half of cat ownership. And the two most rural states -- Vermont and Maine -- both rank in the top four in terms of cat ownership.

Here's that comparison, with cat-friendly and urban states in blue-green and dog-friendly and rural states in dark purple:


And here's the comparison between cat/dog ownership and a state's liberal/conservative lean. Again, cats are in blue-green, as are more liberal states:

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"About the only good thing that can be said for Boehner’s lawsuit is that it’s clearly meant to deflect the hard-right fervor for impeaching Obama."

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GOP lawsuit looks like political sideshow
July 27, 2014

President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans are in the political equivalent of a bad marriage. They bicker about everything, accuse each other of acting in bad faith and don’t much like one another. Now, like a lot of dysfunctional relationships, this one is heading to court.

This week, before the House leaves for its August recess, the GOP majority is expected to approve a lawsuit against Obama. Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, says it will accuse the president of unconstitutionally abusing his executive power by delaying the Obamacare requirement that larger companies provide health insurance or pay a fine — the so-called employer mandate.

It’s possible to view this as a high-minded dispute over where the Constitution draws the lines of authority between Congress and the president. Republicans cite scores of examples of what they say is executive overreach, such as Obama’s decision not to deport children brought here illegally by their parents.

But the lawsuit focuses solely on a small part of Obamacare, one that Republicans would love to see delayed forever. A fair-minded look at the suit’s merits suggests it’s really more of a political grudge match, one in which the GOP is seeking an outcome it hasn’t been able to achieve at the polls or through the legislative process.

For one thing, Obama’s temporary delay to part of the health law doesn’t seem much different from former President George W. Bush’s action in 2006 to extend the deadline and waive penalties for certain seniors who hadn’t signed up in time for the new Medicare prescription program. Both presidents appeared to be making reasonable, short-term accommodations to reality, and courts have traditionally given the executive branch broad discretion in implementing complex new laws.

The ultimate remedy when Congress believes the president has acted unconstitutionally is impeachment, but that should be reserved only for major abuse of power, such as former President Richard Nixon’s role in the Watergate scandal four decades ago. About the only good thing that can be said for Boehner’s lawsuit is that it’s clearly meant to deflect the hard-right fervor for impeaching Obama.

Judges have overwhelmingly rejected these interbranch lawsuits, which have also been brought by Democrats aggrieved by something a Republican president has done. For one thing, plaintiffs must show actual harm. And Congress has other remedies short of running to a judge: It can pass a law or use its power of the purse to deny the president funding for what he seeks to do.

Most important, courts are wary of inserting themselves between the other two branches.

“Opportunities for dragging the courts into disputes hitherto left for political resolution are endless,” conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a dissent last year. Putting the “political arm wrestling” between the president and Congress into the courts “does not do the system a favor,” Scalia added.

Not only that, the power of so-called activist judges would soar if the courts began routinely refereeing disagreements between the other two branches. Is that really what Boehner and his colleagues want?
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"More apathy, more ads, more alienation, more ads. It is mutually-assured destruction in politics. And it’s working."

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Vicious circle of political marketing: Ads, alienation, more ads

Number of political ads up 70 percent this cycle

By Dick Meyer, July 28, 2014

“The polarization of American politics is not an accident,” according to the dean of political reporters. It is the “direct result of political communication, the 30-second ads, whose negative tone and content heighten partisanship and drive centrist voters away from the ballot box.”

The late David Broder wrote that in January of 1996.

The infection Broder spotted early has turned into antibiotic-resistant, flesh-eating political bacteria that would have been hard to imagine 20 years ago.  The polarization of the political class has hardened.  But the explosion in the volume of political ads has been dizzying.

The New York Times has analyzed data about campaign ads collected by a company called Kantar Media/CMAG. Through July, the number of political ads on television has increased 70 percent since the last midterm elections in 2010. That growth comes from the explosion of ads by independent groups since the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizen’s United that lifted restrictions on political spending.   Take a look:


The total number of ads for Senate races has almost doubled. They are concentrated, of course, in the seven or eight states with tight races. “Pity the poor voter in swing states,” said Harrison Hickman, a Democratic pollster. The ads are “bludgeoning people.”

The Times says spending is set to add up to $2 billion for the midterms.  And that is in a year when there are no close races in the biggest media markets such as New York, California, Texas and Florida.  Imagine the deluge of dough and ads in 20116 [sic] and 2018.

Democratic independent groups have joined the arms race with gusto, according to the Times.  Four top Democratic outfits -- Senate Majority PAC, House Majority PAC, Patriot Majority USA and Put Alaska First PAC – have spent about $36 million on ads so far.  That compares to the $44 million spent by Americans for Prosperity, the group backed by the Koch brothers.

Americans for Prosperity aired its first ads for this cycle in September 2013.  So there’s another benefit of Citizen’s United; we’ll never have to endure a season without political ads on TV again.

The Times story notes that the parties and candidates have lost control of campaigns. “The outside groups are dictating the terms and message of the 2014 contests, defining candidates long before the candidates are able to define themselves and start reaching voters,” reporter Ashley Parker wrote.

Even if two congressional candidates try to have a classy campaign now, the independent groups can drag them into the gutter.  The groups “interfere with any attempt to have a civil conversation,” Hickman says.

But more worrisome, according to Hickman, is how the nuclear wars exacerbate to negative trends – apathy and polarization. Ads run by independent groups tend to be more negative than candidate ads. And they focus on true believers and the parties’ hard core. “The messages are intended to incite not inform,” Hickman said.

So more ads create more polarization.

At the same time, they are a huge turn off to what Richard Nixon might have called the “unpolarized majority.”  Most voters, unlike their representatives in Washington, aren’t extreme in their views and aren’t especially consistent in them either.  Most voters don’t pay enormous attention to elections.  Negative and sleazy ads, study after study have shown, further alienate voters. Hickman says the volume of advertising and the low-rent content of them makes “apathetic voters aggressively apathetic.”

The more apathetic the voters are, the harder it is to sway them and the more ads candidates and independent groups buy in hopes they can penetrate. Rinse, repeat. More apathy, more ads, more alienation, more ads. It is mutually-assured destruction in politics.  And it’s working.
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"The public knows it’s not getting what it wants from its politics and politicians. But it has very little idea of what exactly it does want ..."

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Politics of the past decade reflects growing uncertainty among people
By Chris Cillizza, July 27, 2014

President Obama spent three days on the West Coast last week, raising money for the Democratic National Committee, among other groups. These sorts of fundraising jaunts are not typically trips during which this president (or any president) says much of anything interesting.

Yet, Obama did just that in a speech in Seattle at a DNC fundraiser. Here’s part of what he said: “Part of people’s concern is just the sense that around the world, the old order isn’t holding, and we’re not quite yet to where we need to be in terms of a new order that’s based on a different set of principles, that’s based on a sense of common humanity, that’s based on economies that work for all people.”

The unease — Obama used the word “anxiety” to describe the feeling earlier in the speech — that the president identifies is, to my mind, one of the most critical elements of understanding the American electorate (and the American people) at this point in our history.

The Cold War is over. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — began a new era in terms of how the United States interacts (and doesn’t) with the world. The economic collapse in the late 2000s — and the subsequent evidence of Wall Street’s blind greed — changed how people view the financial world. The child-abuse scandal that engulfed the Catholic Church in the late 1990s and through much of the early 2000s caused a rethinking of religion and its role in society. Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath forced an examination of what government can and should do.

Revelations about the breadth and depth of the National Security Agency’s spying program have raised doubts about what our government tells us (and doesn’t). And overarching all of it is our increased technological capacity to be constantly in contact with one another — at both superficial and deeply personal levels. (Want to be scared about what this technological boom might mean for us? Read “A Super Sad True Love Story” by Gary Shteyngart.)

All of these new realities have combined to create a deep uncertainty among the public about whom and what they can trust or rely on. And increasingly, the answer is — no one.

A Gallup poll from June makes that point. Of 17 institutions, just three — the military, small business and the police — were trusted either a “great deal” or “quite a lot” by a majority of Americans. Fewer than one in three Americans expressed confidence in the presidency; less than one in 10 (7 percent) felt confident about Congress.

Yes, approval of Congress and the presidency has been in the gutter for quite some time. But confidence in the Supreme Court — that once-beyond-reproach institution — is at or near all-time lows, too. (Just 30 percent of people in the Gallup poll said they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the nation’s highest court.)

That almost total lack of trust in the longtime institutional pillars of our society leaves people feeling even more at sea — adrift from the way things used to work but unable to see the distant shore where the future lies.

Politics in the past decade has reflected that uncertainty. The early part of the 2000s was dominated by George W. Bush and his “compassionate conservatism.” After the 2004 election, Republicans openly pondered the idea of an enduring majority in the House and the Senate built around their policy prescriptions. Then came the 2006 “wave” election for Democrats, followed by the election of Barack Obama, a moment heralded by many Democrats — and even some independents and Republicans — as a pivotal point in the country’s history. The 2010 election made those predictions seem misguided, with Republicans picking up 63 seats and control of the House. In 2012, the country reelected Obama convincingly. This November, signs point to Republican gains.

What should we make of all the back and forth? Confusion. The public knows it’s not getting what it wants from its politics and politicians. But it has very little idea of what exactly it does want — which puts politicians in something very close to an impossible position. (It is why, in poll after poll, you see analysts struggling to explain where the public is on a broad swath of issues. It’s hard to explain because, well, people lack a consistent — or, at times, coherent — worldview.)

All of which brings us back to Obama’s point. We are in a transition phase societally. The public is deeply skeptical of long-standing institutions, but that skepticism hasn’t been replaced by any surety in an alternative set of beliefs or institutions. Which makes the dominant feeling one of considerable unrest, unease and anxiety.
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"... the Center for Immigration Studies does not in fact support drawing and quartering the president." I should hope not!

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Comment: "Conservative Scholar" - I had no idea such a thing existed.
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Conservative Scholar Disciplined For Suggesting Obama Be 'Hung, Drawn And Quartered'
By Sam Levine, July 24, 2014



An immigration policy analyst from a think tank often cited by Republicans suggested to a tea party crowd last week that President Barack Obama should be executed.

Stephen Steinlight, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, told the Highlands Tea Party in Florida that efforts to impeach Obama did not go far enough because "there's no court that's going to stop Obama from doing anything."

"We all know, if there ever was a president that deserved to be impeached, it’s this guy. Alright? And I wouldn’t stop. I would think being hung, drawn and quartered is probably too good for him," Steinlight said, according to ThinkProgress. "But you know, this man who wants to rule by the use of a pen, a telephone, let us not forget his teleprompter … the fact is that it would backfire very badly and we’ve got to be grownups and accept that we can’t have everything we want, you know, [like] his head on a skewer.”

The blog Imagine 2050 first noticed Steinlight's comments, which were posted July 20 on YouTube by Highlands Tea Party Chairman John Nelson. That video has since been removed, although The Huffington Post viewed it while it was still publicly available. The site Right Wing Watch also captured part of his remarks and re-posted it on YouTube. (Watch the clip above.)

When reached for comment, Steven Camarota, director of research at CIS, distanced the organization from Steinlight's remarks.

"Steve was speaking figuratively and hyperbolically, obviously, for effect. In that respect his intemperate comments were similar to those who are often critics of President Bush, and I would say like those comments, they are ill-advised," Camarota told The Huffington Post. "I would also say that the Center for Immigration Studies does not in fact support drawing and quartering the president."

CIS officials also said Steinlight had been disciplined and instructed to avoid similar rhetoric in the future.

"I reprimanded him and put a reprimand in his personnel file," said CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian.

CIS is an organization that advocates reducing immigration into the United States. Steinlight has said that Hispanic immigration would lead to the "unmaking of America," and that Muslims should be banned from immigrating to the United States because they "believe in things that are subversive to the Constitution."

"Steve sometimes has used impolitic language and I admonished him to choose his words more carefully in the future," Krikorian said.

CIS research has been influential with Republicans, being cited by lawmakers such as House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
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"... I can use my brain ..." -- obviously the Republicans can't claim that!

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Charlie Crist Delivers Perfect Response To Rick Scott On Climate Change
By Igor Bobic, July 26, 2014

Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist on Friday delivered the perfect response to Republicans who claim they lack the scientific background to express an opinion as to whether man-made climate change is real.

“I’m not a scientist either, but I can use my brain, and I can talk to one,” Crist said Friday at a Florida State University presentation on greenhouse gases and rising sea levels, according to SaintPetersBlog.

The claim is a common refrain in the Republican Party. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) explained in 2012 that, while he "wasn't a scientist, man," he believed the age of Earth was "one of the great mysteries." House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) similarly said earlier this year that he was "not qualified to debate the science over climate change." And Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) also used the line when asked whether he was worried that rising sea levels posed a threat to his coastal home.

President Barack Obama made hay out of the line in June, slamming politicians who use it for failing to curb the harmful effects of carbon emissions.

“Let me translate," he said in drought-stricken California. "What that means is, ‘I accept that man-made climate change is real, but if I admit it, I’ll be run out of town by a radical fringe that thinks climate science is a liberal plot.'"

"I'm not a scientist either, but we've got some good ones at NASA," he added.

Crist, who is a former Republican, currently leads Scott 45 percent to 40 percent in Florida’s hotly contested governor’s race, according to a new Quinnipiac University survey.
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"... people believe that all politicians tell lies but that there are good lies and bad lies."

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Do politicians believe their own lies?
By Alan Chartock, July 24, 2014

Of course all politicians aren’t lying all the time. There are plenty of people who are in the world’s second oldest profession who don’t always fail to tell the truth.

The problem is that most people have gotten so cynical about politicians that increasing numbers don’t believe them. Take a look at the polls about the respect that people have for Congress and the state legislature. The results are lower than a hound’s belly. So, if politicians lie, we have to ask why, how often and whether they believe their own lies. The answer, it turns out, is complicated. I have always asked my students if you put a lie detector cuff on a politician’s arm when they are telling a lie, will you get a straight line indicating truth, or will you get a wavy line indicating they are lying? Obviously you will get both. Some political liars are brilliant tacticians who will, for example, tell you that they are for women’s rights but create an economic system that will punish women in their quest for equality and fair treatment. Put a lie detector cuff on their arm and you might well get that straight line. They may actually believe their own lies.

Some of our best and most impressive politicians have lied constantly to get their public to a point where they are allowed to follow the politician in a laudable direction. Take the case of Franklin Roosevelt. FDR knew that the country had to protect the world from fascism, but the country, still reeling from World War I, had to be led kicking and screaming into what is now seen as the greatest American effort ever. Was Roosevelt aware that he wasn’t exactly telling the truth when he promised that America wouldn’t get into the war? Did we know that a Japanese attack was coming somewhere, somehow? Most historians now give FDR great credit for his manipulations. I certainly do. What would the lie detector have said if he was asked the lying question?

Now take the question of ethics reform in the New York State Legislature. The folks there are always anxious about job security and their ability to act with as much personal latitude as possible, so they keep passing weak, watered down ethics reforms. Do they know that these efforts are hardly the thing that will really clean up Albany? Of course they do. Are they lying? Put in a total context, of course they are. A governor who establishes a Moreland Act Commission and then kills that very commission when they get on the scent as a hound chasing a criminal in order to get half-baked reforms says that politics is a matter of tactics and compromise. Was he lying when he set up the commission?

When asked about Governor Cuomo and why people are voting for him they will tell you that “He gets things done.” So, one might come away from this discussion thinking that people believe that all politicians tell lies but that there are good lies and bad lies. Governor Cuomo passed a courageous “SAFE Act” to try to stop the gun mayhem. If you put the lie detector on his arm and ask him whether he did it to really protect people, or to further his own career or both, you might get a wavy line, but who cares? He did the right thing.

When the Assembly Democrats pass campaign financing for politicians knowing that the Republicans in the Senate would never permit the bill to pass and they say that they want the bill to pass, even though they know they will get opponents who will run against them, are they liars? You tell me. When Andrew Cuomo told you that he would veto a bill that allowed the Republicans in the state Senate to draw their own districts and then didn’t, was he lying? You tell me.
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