...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Real freedom of religion does not exist in the US. Native American religions were illegal from 1888 to 1979 because they were thought to be un-American and dangerous. You cannot just start a religion. It has to be recognized by the state as a religion to be free of the burden of taxes and exercise of the religion's principles. A marijuana-based church in Indiana is not recognized by the state and thus cannot be practiced nor is it free of taxes. We really have no freedom of religion unless that religion has political traction. Pitiful.
* "It has to be recognized by the state as a religion" Yep. Seperation of Church and State is a one-way street.
* "The difference in how many people seem to view the religious rights of one group as opposed to another is disturbing. Freedom of religion is freedom for all religions, or it isn't freedom." This is such a straightforward no-brainer. One would have to be practiced at willful ignorance and denial of internal inconsistencies to think otherwise -- kind of like religious people.
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Only the little religions
By George Pyle, January 1, 2016
"Only the little people pay taxes." — Leona Helmsley
And, according to the results of a poll released the other day, only the big religions really have First Amendment freedoms.
The survey, from the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, suggests that when many people think about the supposedly guaranteed freedom of religion in the United States, they think only — or mostly — of their religion. Other faiths, not so much.
The results of the poll show that 82 percent of those surveyed said that religious liberty protections were due to Christians. But the number fell to about 70 percent who favored such safeguards for Jews, 67 percent for Mormons and 61 percent for Muslims, about the same as the number who would extend such freedom of conscience to people who identify with no religion.
The difference in how many people seem to view the religious rights of one group as opposed to another is disturbing. Freedom of religion is freedom for all religions, or it isn't freedom. It's permission, granted either by some authority or by majority vote. Which exactly what we were trying to avoid by putting religious freedom — along with press freedom, free speech, free assembly, all that jazz — into the Constitution instead of just passing a law that could be repealed or adopting a resolution that could be ignored.
It is also curious that, in a nation that is supposedly so overwhelmingly Christian, as many as 18 percent of those polled didn't see constitutionally protected religious rights as due to the many sects and subdivisions of that faith tradition.
Is it that those folks are of other religions? Or that they see Christianity's superior numbers as being such a potent protection that any legal or constitutional provision are unnecessary?
Perhaps we can take comfort in the fact that — even as most of the news reports that use the word "Muslim" in any way these days also include words such as "radical" or "Islamist," or include a tally of people killed — the number of people who support religious rights for Muslims is still well above half. A candidate receiving 61 percent in any election would be seen to have received a landslide of support.
That's slim solace, though, for anyone who really believes in the whole concept of freedom of religion, and knows that belief isn't being applied to real life unless the numbers supporting it for each faith group are the same, and darn close to 100 percent.
It all recalls the infamous Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case. That's the one where Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion upheld the right of a private company's owners to stay away from any employee insurance plan that covered certain kinds of contraception because to pay for it would violate a "sincerely held religious belief" that such things were really abortion and thus in violation of the dictates of their faith.
When challenged to say why the same judicial logic would not allow those with different, but just as sincerely held, religious beliefs to refuse to pay for, say, vaccinations, blood transfusions or psychiatric treatment, Alito just said it wouldn't. He didn't even attempt to explain the difference.
But the only difference can be that some demanded religious exemptions from general laws are granted because the religion involved is either a majority or a favored or politically powerful minority. Little religions, such as those that may abhor any other aspect of modern medicine, may be safely swept aside in favor of laws passed by the majority.
Again, when that happens, religious freedom isn't a constitutional principle. It's a permit that can be granted or denied based on, well, almost anything the powerful say it can.
It is sadly possible that the tiny minority of Muslims who think they are commanded by their faith to kill certain people have managed to convince nearly 40 percent of the American electorate that, indeed, that is what Islam means. And if they were right, then, of course, limiting that freedom of religion would be a good idea.
But murder, mass and otherwise, is already against the law, with no religious exemption.
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Monday, January 4, 2016
"... differences in race, party identification and gender account for differences in what produces the most angry reaction."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* ... The unhappy American white women are eager to lap up evangelical insanity, attend church function obsessively, belong to the Exclusive Republican Womens' Clubs, avoid contact with "the lower classes". They are "believers", religious and politically twisted who refer to black people with the N-word. They are convinced that they personally have direct and exclusive connections to Jesus. ...
* so because we have it better than other women in the world(debateable) we should just shut up and deal with it, when we are treated less than white men in THIS country?? Well guess what SCREW YOU.. We are NOT going to sit down and shut up, so you mught as well just get used to that right now!
* I had an angry Conservative woman rant to me in a supermarket once about Native American casinos. I knew she was a Conservative before she pivoted to Hillary Clinton bc of the bigoted language she used when expressing her disdain for the planned casino in her town. When she discussed Hillary she said we dont need a woman President. She said we dont need women politicians at all or women police officers for that matter. She said that women are petty, vindictive and manipulative people and they are simply unfit for positions of authority. Angry conservative self hating white woman. Thats the Donald Trump constituency right there.
* Trump appeal to adults with arrested development syndrome..
* You have to wonder when there is going to be a backlash from republican women against their establishment. It seems to me, they are taking a lot of abuse from their male counterparts. Maybe they are ok with all of it. I am bewildered over it.
* Conservative Fundamentalist Republican women all turned into Sarah Palin. They've all gone backwoods crazy and batshit crazy.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Who's angry? White, female Republicans
By Nick Gass, January 3, 2016
The Americans most likely to say they find themselves feeling more angry at the news in 2015 than in the previous year skewed white, Republican and female.
That's according to the results of a new NBC News/SurveyMonkey/Esquire online poll released Sunday, which found that differences in race, party identification and gender account for differences in what produces the most angry reaction.
Overall, 49 percent of all respondents said they found themselves feeling angrier at the headlines. That share is higher among whites (54 percent) and lower among African-Americans (33 percent) and Latinos (43 percent).
Women were more likely to say current events made them get angry — 53 percent said that, compared with 44 percent of men. Women were more likely to express frustration over police violence against unarmed blacks and campaign finance abuses, while men were more likely than women to be angry about same-sex marriage and global warming.
Among Republicans, 61 percent said the past year of news made them more angry, while just 42 percent of Democrats responded that way. More than three in four Republicans and two in three Democrats said they get angry at least once a day. Shown a series of fake headlines, 80 percent of Republicans said the headline "Congress: More Dysfunctional Than Ever" made them angriest, while 84 percent of Democrats were most touched off by the headline "Cop Shoots Unarmed Black Man." The headline that struck a nonpartisan chord of anger: "CEO Resigns: Admits Massive Consumer Fraud" (80 percent for Republicans, 83 percent for Democrats).
On the issue of immigration, 73 percent of Hispanics and 63 percent of African-Americans said immigrants strengthen the country, compared with 43 percent of whites.
Asked about police violence against unarmed African-Americans, nine in 10 black Americans said they felt very angry when they heard about another incident, while seven in 10 white Americans reported feeling the same way.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* ... The unhappy American white women are eager to lap up evangelical insanity, attend church function obsessively, belong to the Exclusive Republican Womens' Clubs, avoid contact with "the lower classes". They are "believers", religious and politically twisted who refer to black people with the N-word. They are convinced that they personally have direct and exclusive connections to Jesus. ...
* so because we have it better than other women in the world(debateable) we should just shut up and deal with it, when we are treated less than white men in THIS country?? Well guess what SCREW YOU.. We are NOT going to sit down and shut up, so you mught as well just get used to that right now!
* I had an angry Conservative woman rant to me in a supermarket once about Native American casinos. I knew she was a Conservative before she pivoted to Hillary Clinton bc of the bigoted language she used when expressing her disdain for the planned casino in her town. When she discussed Hillary she said we dont need a woman President. She said we dont need women politicians at all or women police officers for that matter. She said that women are petty, vindictive and manipulative people and they are simply unfit for positions of authority. Angry conservative self hating white woman. Thats the Donald Trump constituency right there.
* Trump appeal to adults with arrested development syndrome..
* You have to wonder when there is going to be a backlash from republican women against their establishment. It seems to me, they are taking a lot of abuse from their male counterparts. Maybe they are ok with all of it. I am bewildered over it.
* Conservative Fundamentalist Republican women all turned into Sarah Palin. They've all gone backwoods crazy and batshit crazy.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Who's angry? White, female Republicans
By Nick Gass, January 3, 2016
The Americans most likely to say they find themselves feeling more angry at the news in 2015 than in the previous year skewed white, Republican and female.
That's according to the results of a new NBC News/SurveyMonkey/Esquire online poll released Sunday, which found that differences in race, party identification and gender account for differences in what produces the most angry reaction.
Overall, 49 percent of all respondents said they found themselves feeling angrier at the headlines. That share is higher among whites (54 percent) and lower among African-Americans (33 percent) and Latinos (43 percent).
Women were more likely to say current events made them get angry — 53 percent said that, compared with 44 percent of men. Women were more likely to express frustration over police violence against unarmed blacks and campaign finance abuses, while men were more likely than women to be angry about same-sex marriage and global warming.
Among Republicans, 61 percent said the past year of news made them more angry, while just 42 percent of Democrats responded that way. More than three in four Republicans and two in three Democrats said they get angry at least once a day. Shown a series of fake headlines, 80 percent of Republicans said the headline "Congress: More Dysfunctional Than Ever" made them angriest, while 84 percent of Democrats were most touched off by the headline "Cop Shoots Unarmed Black Man." The headline that struck a nonpartisan chord of anger: "CEO Resigns: Admits Massive Consumer Fraud" (80 percent for Republicans, 83 percent for Democrats).
On the issue of immigration, 73 percent of Hispanics and 63 percent of African-Americans said immigrants strengthen the country, compared with 43 percent of whites.
Asked about police violence against unarmed African-Americans, nine in 10 black Americans said they felt very angry when they heard about another incident, while seven in 10 white Americans reported feeling the same way.
...................................................................................................................................................................
So far, Trump's bad behavior isn't linked to consequences, either.
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Sunday, January 3, 2016
"'... the governor is widely and rightly seen as a secretive, devious officeholder with a taste for luxury and a thin skin.'"
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Everyone knows that this man is unfit to be President of anything. He is rude, vulgar, and incredibly stupid; not to mention his addiction to food and his inabilty to exercise self-control. He is an immature narsicist with an enemies complex that would make Nixon blush. His causing traffic jams in neighborhoods that opposed him is indictitive of a man incapable of the exercise of power. I would not vote for idiot for dog catcher, as the power would go to his aready about to explode, big, fat, head. A man without self-discipline ought never have such power. A man so intellectually deficient is incapable of such responsibility. Buy him a donut and let's talk about serious candidates.
* He's an out of control glutton, and a vindictive sleazebag..No backbone, no morals, no convictions.... principles for sale to the highest bidder
* As Christie starts to garner the interest of more voters, the truth about his failure as a governor will come out. We, in NJ, know that he has been a disaster and that he will do or say anything to get a vote in this presidential campaign. I'm so glad those Bridgegate trials are set for April. If he gets that far, these will stir the pot again and remind voters that he surrounds himself with people who are as devious and self serving as he is.
* Usuaklly you will read at least one positve comment about a story. So far there hasn't been one; not even a kind remark. Well, it is the Democrats fault that CC got elected a second time. They did not offer a viable candidate nor did they support the poor fool who tried to run.
* Every has a choice in Nov 2016 Election! This white senior femaale VOTES every single election on FACTS! HISTORY!...never vote by race! your name! NEVER VOTE BY RELIGION! Its a loser every time! You have to C.A.R.E.about the 320 MILLION living here not those that put their 3,000 yr old religion first! Religion and women's rights should be kept seprate...FACT! Religion is a Freedom of choice in this nation, "Take or leave it" there is no crime or sin wheather you belive in any religion or not...Religion is not our law!
...................................................................................................................................................................
Two N.J. papers slam Christie's record as governor
By Ann Marie Awad, January 2, 2016
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may have garnered an endorsement from an influential New Hampshire newspaper, but the broadsheets back home are not rooting for him.
Two New Jersey newspapers -- The Asbury Park Press and The Courier News -- published staff editorials slamming Christie's track record as governor. Both editorials reviewed a joint reader survey on Christie's job performance. According to both papers, Christie received mostly C's and D's in many areas.
The Asbury Park Press editorial, published Friday, found three reasons for Christie's low approval ratings in New Jersey:
The Courier editorial, published Saturday, was not any more forgiving.
"The Christie spin on the campaign trail is that New Jersey's dissatisfaction is evidence that he's willing to make the tough calls on important issues, even if those decisions are unpopular," the editorial reads. "Nice try, but how many tough calls has he made? The kind that have delivered some needed medicine for the state's ills?"
The piece goes on to call Christie "a disaster on the environment," and "embarrassingly weak on gun control." It also criticized Christie for lacking in transparency, saying "the governor is widely and rightly seen as a secretive, devious officeholder with a taste for luxury and a thin skin."
That makes three editorial boards that have slammed Christie so far this election cycle. After winning the endorsement of the Manchester Union Leader in November, The New Jersey Star-Ledger criticized the decision. Star-Ledger editor Tom Moran reached out to Union Leader editor Grant Bosse to ask why the paper chose to endorse Christie, and then penned an editorial of his own.
"It's all about performance, not substance," Moran said. "What else could explain the fact that nearly two-thirds of Republican voters say their first choice is Donald Trump, Ben Carson, or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz?"
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Everyone knows that this man is unfit to be President of anything. He is rude, vulgar, and incredibly stupid; not to mention his addiction to food and his inabilty to exercise self-control. He is an immature narsicist with an enemies complex that would make Nixon blush. His causing traffic jams in neighborhoods that opposed him is indictitive of a man incapable of the exercise of power. I would not vote for idiot for dog catcher, as the power would go to his aready about to explode, big, fat, head. A man without self-discipline ought never have such power. A man so intellectually deficient is incapable of such responsibility. Buy him a donut and let's talk about serious candidates.
* He's an out of control glutton, and a vindictive sleazebag..No backbone, no morals, no convictions.... principles for sale to the highest bidder
* As Christie starts to garner the interest of more voters, the truth about his failure as a governor will come out. We, in NJ, know that he has been a disaster and that he will do or say anything to get a vote in this presidential campaign. I'm so glad those Bridgegate trials are set for April. If he gets that far, these will stir the pot again and remind voters that he surrounds himself with people who are as devious and self serving as he is.
* Usuaklly you will read at least one positve comment about a story. So far there hasn't been one; not even a kind remark. Well, it is the Democrats fault that CC got elected a second time. They did not offer a viable candidate nor did they support the poor fool who tried to run.
* Every has a choice in Nov 2016 Election! This white senior femaale VOTES every single election on FACTS! HISTORY!...never vote by race! your name! NEVER VOTE BY RELIGION! Its a loser every time! You have to C.A.R.E.about the 320 MILLION living here not those that put their 3,000 yr old religion first! Religion and women's rights should be kept seprate...FACT! Religion is a Freedom of choice in this nation, "Take or leave it" there is no crime or sin wheather you belive in any religion or not...Religion is not our law!
...................................................................................................................................................................
Two N.J. papers slam Christie's record as governor
By Ann Marie Awad, January 2, 2016
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may have garnered an endorsement from an influential New Hampshire newspaper, but the broadsheets back home are not rooting for him.
Two New Jersey newspapers -- The Asbury Park Press and The Courier News -- published staff editorials slamming Christie's track record as governor. Both editorials reviewed a joint reader survey on Christie's job performance. According to both papers, Christie received mostly C's and D's in many areas.
The Asbury Park Press editorial, published Friday, found three reasons for Christie's low approval ratings in New Jersey:
"[H]is absence from New Jersey due to his out-of-state travels to campaign for president; the widely shared, and largely accurate, perception that his positions on issues have shifted in order to make him more palatable to conservative Republican voters; and the sense that he has abandoned New Jersey while the state's main issues have gone unresolved."The editorial slammed Christie for failing to resolve issues facing New Jersey such as "unaffordable property taxes, unfunded pension and health care liabilities, a depleted Transportation Trust Fund and school funding inequities[.]"
The Courier editorial, published Saturday, was not any more forgiving.
"The Christie spin on the campaign trail is that New Jersey's dissatisfaction is evidence that he's willing to make the tough calls on important issues, even if those decisions are unpopular," the editorial reads. "Nice try, but how many tough calls has he made? The kind that have delivered some needed medicine for the state's ills?"
The piece goes on to call Christie "a disaster on the environment," and "embarrassingly weak on gun control." It also criticized Christie for lacking in transparency, saying "the governor is widely and rightly seen as a secretive, devious officeholder with a taste for luxury and a thin skin."
That makes three editorial boards that have slammed Christie so far this election cycle. After winning the endorsement of the Manchester Union Leader in November, The New Jersey Star-Ledger criticized the decision. Star-Ledger editor Tom Moran reached out to Union Leader editor Grant Bosse to ask why the paper chose to endorse Christie, and then penned an editorial of his own.
"It's all about performance, not substance," Moran said. "What else could explain the fact that nearly two-thirds of Republican voters say their first choice is Donald Trump, Ben Carson, or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz?"
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Guess what? The prognosticators turned out to be prevaricators!
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4 Things That Were Supposed To Happen By 2016 Because Obama Was Reelected
By Judd Legum, January 1, 2016
It’s now 2016, the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency. A few years ago, prognosticators were very confident about what would happen to America by now because of Obama’s reelection. Let’s check in and see how their predictions turned out:
1. Gas was supposed to cost $6.05 per gallon.
In March 2012, on the floor of the United States Senate, Mike Lee (R-UT) predicted that if Obama was reelected gas would cost $6.05 per gallon by the start 2015. Lee said that gas prices would rise 5 cents for every month Obama was in office, ultimately reaching $6.60 per gallon.
Lee was not alone. Newt Gingrich, running for the GOP nomination, predicted that if Obama was reelected he would push gas to “$10 a gallon.” Gingrich said he would reduce gas prices dramatically by reversing Obama’s energy policies. Gingrich flanked himself with campaign signs promising $2.50 gas if he was elected.
Today, the nationwide average for a gallon of gas is $2.00.
Some of the reasons for the decline in gas prices were beyond Obama’s control — including weak international demand and OPEC’s failure to reduce supply. Also driving prices lower was increased gas production in the U.S., which has doubled over the last 6 years. The policies that Lee, Gingrich and others criticized — the rejection of Keystone XL pipeline, more EPA regulation and limiting drilling on public land — have not gotten in the way of historically low prices.
2. Unemployment was supposed to be stuck at over 8%
In September 2012, Mitt Romney predicted that if Obama is reelected “you’re going to see chronic high unemployment continue four years or longer.” At the time, the unemployment rate was 8.1% and had been between 8.1% and 8.3% for the entire year.
What would breaking out of “chronic high unemployment” look like in a Romney presidency? Romney pledged that, if elected, he could bring the unemployment rate down to 6% by January 2017.
The unemployment rate currently stands at 5.0% and has been under 6% since September 2014. Since January 2013, the economy has created over 7.8 million new jobs.
3. The stock market was supposed to crash
Immediately after Obama won reelection in November 2012, many commenters predicted that the stock market was toast.
On Bloomberg TV, investor Marc Faber predicted that, because of Obama’s reelection, the stock market would drop at least 20%. According to Faber, “Republicans understand the problem of excessive debt better than Mr. Obama who basically doesn’t care about piling up debt.” Faber joked that investors seeking to protect their assets should “buy themselves a machine gun.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average currently stands at 17,425.03 and, despite a downturn in 2015, is up over 27% since Obama was reelected.
4. The entire U.S. economy was supposed to collapse
Rush Limbaugh predicted that “the country’s economy is going to collapse if Obama is re-elected.” Limbaugh was confident in his prediction: “There’s no if about this. And it’s gonna be ugly. It’s gonna be gut wrenching, but it will happen.”
The economic freefall would begin, according to Limbaugh, because “California is going to declare bankruptcy” and Obama would force states like Texas to “bail them out.” California currently has a $4 billion budget surplus.
Limbaugh added, “I know mathematics, and I know economics. I know history. I know socialism, statism, Marxism, I know where it goes. I know what happens at the end of it.”
Limbaugh said the economic apocalypse could take “a year and a half, two years, three years.” It’s been three years and two months since Limbaugh’s prediction.
The U.S. economy grew at a respectable 2% in the 3rd quarter of 2014, following 3.9% growth in the second quarter.
Although these dire economic predictions have proven false, it doesn’t mean there aren’t real, persistent problems with the U.S. economy. Most critically, wage growth for American workers remains anemic. With a tightening labor market, however, some economists are predicting a better 2016.
This post is based on a similar analysis from 2015 and has been revised and updated.
...................................................................................................................................................................
4 Things That Were Supposed To Happen By 2016 Because Obama Was Reelected
By Judd Legum, January 1, 2016
It’s now 2016, the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency. A few years ago, prognosticators were very confident about what would happen to America by now because of Obama’s reelection. Let’s check in and see how their predictions turned out:
1. Gas was supposed to cost $6.05 per gallon.
In March 2012, on the floor of the United States Senate, Mike Lee (R-UT) predicted that if Obama was reelected gas would cost $6.05 per gallon by the start 2015. Lee said that gas prices would rise 5 cents for every month Obama was in office, ultimately reaching $6.60 per gallon.
Lee was not alone. Newt Gingrich, running for the GOP nomination, predicted that if Obama was reelected he would push gas to “$10 a gallon.” Gingrich said he would reduce gas prices dramatically by reversing Obama’s energy policies. Gingrich flanked himself with campaign signs promising $2.50 gas if he was elected.
Today, the nationwide average for a gallon of gas is $2.00.
Some of the reasons for the decline in gas prices were beyond Obama’s control — including weak international demand and OPEC’s failure to reduce supply. Also driving prices lower was increased gas production in the U.S., which has doubled over the last 6 years. The policies that Lee, Gingrich and others criticized — the rejection of Keystone XL pipeline, more EPA regulation and limiting drilling on public land — have not gotten in the way of historically low prices.
2. Unemployment was supposed to be stuck at over 8%
In September 2012, Mitt Romney predicted that if Obama is reelected “you’re going to see chronic high unemployment continue four years or longer.” At the time, the unemployment rate was 8.1% and had been between 8.1% and 8.3% for the entire year.
What would breaking out of “chronic high unemployment” look like in a Romney presidency? Romney pledged that, if elected, he could bring the unemployment rate down to 6% by January 2017.
The unemployment rate currently stands at 5.0% and has been under 6% since September 2014. Since January 2013, the economy has created over 7.8 million new jobs.
3. The stock market was supposed to crash
Immediately after Obama won reelection in November 2012, many commenters predicted that the stock market was toast.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrumpCharles Bilderman, the author of the “Intelligent Investing” column at Forbes, wrote that the “market selloff after Obama’s re-election [was] no accident,” predicting “stocks are dropping with no bottom in sight.” Bilderman said that the policies the Obama administration would pursue in his second term would “crash stocks.”
The stock market and US dollar are both plunging today. Welcome to @BarackObama’s second term.
1:05 PM - 7 Nov 2012
On Bloomberg TV, investor Marc Faber predicted that, because of Obama’s reelection, the stock market would drop at least 20%. According to Faber, “Republicans understand the problem of excessive debt better than Mr. Obama who basically doesn’t care about piling up debt.” Faber joked that investors seeking to protect their assets should “buy themselves a machine gun.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average currently stands at 17,425.03 and, despite a downturn in 2015, is up over 27% since Obama was reelected.
4. The entire U.S. economy was supposed to collapse
Rush Limbaugh predicted that “the country’s economy is going to collapse if Obama is re-elected.” Limbaugh was confident in his prediction: “There’s no if about this. And it’s gonna be ugly. It’s gonna be gut wrenching, but it will happen.”
The economic freefall would begin, according to Limbaugh, because “California is going to declare bankruptcy” and Obama would force states like Texas to “bail them out.” California currently has a $4 billion budget surplus.
Limbaugh added, “I know mathematics, and I know economics. I know history. I know socialism, statism, Marxism, I know where it goes. I know what happens at the end of it.”
Limbaugh said the economic apocalypse could take “a year and a half, two years, three years.” It’s been three years and two months since Limbaugh’s prediction.
The U.S. economy grew at a respectable 2% in the 3rd quarter of 2014, following 3.9% growth in the second quarter.
Although these dire economic predictions have proven false, it doesn’t mean there aren’t real, persistent problems with the U.S. economy. Most critically, wage growth for American workers remains anemic. With a tightening labor market, however, some economists are predicting a better 2016.
This post is based on a similar analysis from 2015 and has been revised and updated.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Where is your compassion, Christie?
...................................................................................................................................................................
Chris Christie Refuses To Help Unemployed New Jersey Residents Hold Onto Food Stamps
By Bryce Covert, January 2, 2016
About 11,000 New Jersey residents are set to lose their food stamps after Gov. Chris Christie (R)’s administration said it won’t seek any waivers from the program’s work requirements.
Since 2009, state governors have been encouraged to get waivers from the federal government for the requirement that able-bodied, childless adults work at least 20 hours a week to enroll in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, thanks to a weak economy where jobs have been scarce. Those waivers are now being rescinded in states with unemployment levels below 10 percent.
Yet Christie and other governors can seek county and municipal waivers for the areas in their states that still have struggling job markets. Forty-two cities, counties, and townships in New Jersey will qualify as “Labor Surplus Areas” in 2016, according to the Department of Labor, meaning that there are too many job seekers for the number of available jobs. Christie’s announcement, however, indicates he won’t seek any such waivers. As Diane Riley, advocacy director for the Community Food Bank of New Jersey, told NJ.com, “That is concerning for me because, as a food bank, we’re going to get hit hard by this. We’re going to have to brace for that and especially at our southern branch.”
Now those who had been getting food stamps thanks to the waiver will have three months to meet the work requirements in order to keep receiving the benefit. Unlike many other safety net programs, spending time searching for a job won’t count, so anyone who can’t find employment or a spot in a training program will automatically be cut off.
Christie, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, has not overseen a robust economic recovery in his state. Its unemployment rate has been worse than the national average, while the long-term unemployment rate is worse than 48 other states. In November, the most recent data, the state’s unemployment rate was 5.3 percent.
New Jersey isn’t the only state that will no longer have a work requirement waiver. Ten others have made the same decision. While the incumbent governor of New Orleans plans to undo lame duck Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R) decision to reinstate the requirements, Jindal is refusing to reverse course before he vacates the office. An estimated 1 million people will lose food stamps this year as the waivers expire.
This population is already extremely vulnerable: unemployed, able-bodied, childless adults on SNAP have an average gross income of just $2,200 a year for an individual. Their job prospects are also limited, as they are more likely than others who receive food stamps to lack basic skills like reading, writing, and math.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Chris Christie Refuses To Help Unemployed New Jersey Residents Hold Onto Food Stamps
By Bryce Covert, January 2, 2016
About 11,000 New Jersey residents are set to lose their food stamps after Gov. Chris Christie (R)’s administration said it won’t seek any waivers from the program’s work requirements.
Since 2009, state governors have been encouraged to get waivers from the federal government for the requirement that able-bodied, childless adults work at least 20 hours a week to enroll in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, thanks to a weak economy where jobs have been scarce. Those waivers are now being rescinded in states with unemployment levels below 10 percent.
Yet Christie and other governors can seek county and municipal waivers for the areas in their states that still have struggling job markets. Forty-two cities, counties, and townships in New Jersey will qualify as “Labor Surplus Areas” in 2016, according to the Department of Labor, meaning that there are too many job seekers for the number of available jobs. Christie’s announcement, however, indicates he won’t seek any such waivers. As Diane Riley, advocacy director for the Community Food Bank of New Jersey, told NJ.com, “That is concerning for me because, as a food bank, we’re going to get hit hard by this. We’re going to have to brace for that and especially at our southern branch.”
Now those who had been getting food stamps thanks to the waiver will have three months to meet the work requirements in order to keep receiving the benefit. Unlike many other safety net programs, spending time searching for a job won’t count, so anyone who can’t find employment or a spot in a training program will automatically be cut off.
Christie, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, has not overseen a robust economic recovery in his state. Its unemployment rate has been worse than the national average, while the long-term unemployment rate is worse than 48 other states. In November, the most recent data, the state’s unemployment rate was 5.3 percent.
New Jersey isn’t the only state that will no longer have a work requirement waiver. Ten others have made the same decision. While the incumbent governor of New Orleans plans to undo lame duck Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R) decision to reinstate the requirements, Jindal is refusing to reverse course before he vacates the office. An estimated 1 million people will lose food stamps this year as the waivers expire.
This population is already extremely vulnerable: unemployed, able-bodied, childless adults on SNAP have an average gross income of just $2,200 a year for an individual. Their job prospects are also limited, as they are more likely than others who receive food stamps to lack basic skills like reading, writing, and math.
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Nah, Donald-- there will still be loopholes left for the rich to keep their "golfing money".
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COMMENTS:
* And this guy is the leading candidate for the GOP??? Heaven help us...
* Trump is NOT speaking to the middle class. He is speaking to a population of people in this country who aren't very well educated and typically work at low-to-middle income jobs. These are people that love a quippy policy sound bite, but don't really care about the cost or logistics of making any of those ideas a reality. A wall along Mexico? Forcing Iran to suspend its nuclear program? Deporting all illegal immigrants? Not allowing any Muslims to enter the country? While they all sound like great ideas to his supporters, Trump has offered zero substance or strategy on how he would actually achieve any of these things.
* Trump's no idiot. He's saying and doing all the right things to appeal to the far-right conservatives. Everything out of his mouth is just a more extreme version of what Republicans have been saying for years. Too bad for Trump and Republicans though... their message of hate doesn't really have much appeal outside of the far-right wing of their party.
* You can look at gerrymandering districts as a big reason for the house. more folks actually voted Democrat but the district slice up gave the house to the GOP. Democracy at it's finest.
* no, no, no, all Bernie wants to take away is the long drive, the short putts will still be in play
* Golfer's love Trump. Polls say so.
* Last time i checked the corporations never picked up my golf tab. Trump is a joke. ...
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Donald Trump warns that Bernie Sanders will take golf away if elected
By Kyle Porter, January 1, 2016
New year, same Donald Trump. The Republican candidate spoke to a group of supporters at Hilton Head this week and warned that Bernie Sanders would effectively remove golf from their lives because of tax hikes.
"You'll have to move out — I love this area by the way, I've been here many times," said Trump. "Great golfing area, right? We love it. No more golf — no more golf. You won't have any golf any more. You won't have any money left to be golfing.”
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COMMENTS:
* And this guy is the leading candidate for the GOP??? Heaven help us...
* Trump is NOT speaking to the middle class. He is speaking to a population of people in this country who aren't very well educated and typically work at low-to-middle income jobs. These are people that love a quippy policy sound bite, but don't really care about the cost or logistics of making any of those ideas a reality. A wall along Mexico? Forcing Iran to suspend its nuclear program? Deporting all illegal immigrants? Not allowing any Muslims to enter the country? While they all sound like great ideas to his supporters, Trump has offered zero substance or strategy on how he would actually achieve any of these things.
* Trump's no idiot. He's saying and doing all the right things to appeal to the far-right conservatives. Everything out of his mouth is just a more extreme version of what Republicans have been saying for years. Too bad for Trump and Republicans though... their message of hate doesn't really have much appeal outside of the far-right wing of their party.
* You can look at gerrymandering districts as a big reason for the house. more folks actually voted Democrat but the district slice up gave the house to the GOP. Democracy at it's finest.
* no, no, no, all Bernie wants to take away is the long drive, the short putts will still be in play
* Golfer's love Trump. Polls say so.
* Last time i checked the corporations never picked up my golf tab. Trump is a joke. ...
...................................................................................................................................................................
Donald Trump warns that Bernie Sanders will take golf away if elected
By Kyle Porter, January 1, 2016
New year, same Donald Trump. The Republican candidate spoke to a group of supporters at Hilton Head this week and warned that Bernie Sanders would effectively remove golf from their lives because of tax hikes.
"You'll have to move out — I love this area by the way, I've been here many times," said Trump. "Great golfing area, right? We love it. No more golf — no more golf. You won't have any golf any more. You won't have any money left to be golfing.”
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Being an atheist I can't vouch for this guy's statements, but they sure seem logical: you can't call yourself a xtian if you don't follow the teachings.
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COMMENTS:
* I've read it many times. In many versions. Along with many other religions "scriptures." A minor in comparative religion will do that for you. I have also read the Tao te Ching, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Torah and the Q'ran. Human beings know so little about who and what we and the rest of the multitude of universes are, that that we make up gods and answers that match our own ideas. No absolute truth in any religion. Some universal truths are voiced in all of them, but none of them are anything but a sign of how fearful of death humans are. Keep your holy book. I'm glad it brings you joy, but keep all of them out of our politics. They don't belong there. I find it very interesting that one person on this board praises my christianity and another calls me an atheist. Neither of you know anything about what I believe or don't, except that I firmly believe religions have no place in politics, and I am sick to death of being told what religion a political candidate ascribes to. We are not supposed to have any religious tests to hold office, but we in do have such a test, it just isn't a formal one and it's conducted by the press for idiots, who think that someone's religion will tell how they will govern.
* ... Your church is subsidized by the government, which means unwilling taxpayers such as myself, in the form of tax exemptions for your buildings, money you give to your churches and the often extremely expensive homes of your pastors. For a very good lesson on this, google John Oliver on Utube and check out his Church of the Perpetual Exemption. (His language is a bit off, but he is spot on with the information and all the scams that are out there as well.)
* Having a secular government that presumably favors no one religion above another is the only reason we have freedom of religion. This nation was founded by men who were deeply alienated by religious wars. If we Christians insist on governmental preference, we may ourselves be oppressed in the future. It's good to be a majority, but being a minority takes real courage.
* ... The only Miracle is that there are people who still believe in this garbage. I take that back. The other miracle is the men in the suits can still con the flock into a new Jet by Invoking "Gods will".
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Letter: ‘Christian’ presidential candidates not Christ-like
By Michael J. Lombardi, January 2, 2016
I have a request to make of all candidates for president of the United States who have declared themselves followers of Christ, and of those who support these men and women under the banner of preserving our Christian-American civilization.
Please stop calling yourselves Christian.
What you call yourself should have at least a nodding acquaintance with your actions. Jesus Christ teaches us to turn the other cheek, not to slap it. He preached that the hungry should be fed, the homeless sheltered and the sinner forgiven. He did not advocate throwing the poor out onto the street to starve, nor did he advise us to revile them for suffering misfortunes which could strike any of us through no fault of our own.
He said, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me." He did not say that the suffering and deaths of those little children was an acceptable price to pay so that adults could play with their guns.
He told us to "Be not afraid." He did not at any time tell us that out of our fear we should annihilate what we have taught ourselves to fear, or what amoral politicians have told us we should fear.
Perhaps the only true Christian in all history died on the cross 2,000 years ago, I do not know, but I am certain that no one worthy of that description is running for president of the United States in 2016.
Michael J. Lombardi
Bluffdale
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COMMENTS:
* I've read it many times. In many versions. Along with many other religions "scriptures." A minor in comparative religion will do that for you. I have also read the Tao te Ching, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Torah and the Q'ran. Human beings know so little about who and what we and the rest of the multitude of universes are, that that we make up gods and answers that match our own ideas. No absolute truth in any religion. Some universal truths are voiced in all of them, but none of them are anything but a sign of how fearful of death humans are. Keep your holy book. I'm glad it brings you joy, but keep all of them out of our politics. They don't belong there. I find it very interesting that one person on this board praises my christianity and another calls me an atheist. Neither of you know anything about what I believe or don't, except that I firmly believe religions have no place in politics, and I am sick to death of being told what religion a political candidate ascribes to. We are not supposed to have any religious tests to hold office, but we in do have such a test, it just isn't a formal one and it's conducted by the press for idiots, who think that someone's religion will tell how they will govern.
* ... Your church is subsidized by the government, which means unwilling taxpayers such as myself, in the form of tax exemptions for your buildings, money you give to your churches and the often extremely expensive homes of your pastors. For a very good lesson on this, google John Oliver on Utube and check out his Church of the Perpetual Exemption. (His language is a bit off, but he is spot on with the information and all the scams that are out there as well.)
* Having a secular government that presumably favors no one religion above another is the only reason we have freedom of religion. This nation was founded by men who were deeply alienated by religious wars. If we Christians insist on governmental preference, we may ourselves be oppressed in the future. It's good to be a majority, but being a minority takes real courage.
* ... The only Miracle is that there are people who still believe in this garbage. I take that back. The other miracle is the men in the suits can still con the flock into a new Jet by Invoking "Gods will".
...................................................................................................................................................................
Letter: ‘Christian’ presidential candidates not Christ-like
By Michael J. Lombardi, January 2, 2016
I have a request to make of all candidates for president of the United States who have declared themselves followers of Christ, and of those who support these men and women under the banner of preserving our Christian-American civilization.
Please stop calling yourselves Christian.
What you call yourself should have at least a nodding acquaintance with your actions. Jesus Christ teaches us to turn the other cheek, not to slap it. He preached that the hungry should be fed, the homeless sheltered and the sinner forgiven. He did not advocate throwing the poor out onto the street to starve, nor did he advise us to revile them for suffering misfortunes which could strike any of us through no fault of our own.
He said, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me." He did not say that the suffering and deaths of those little children was an acceptable price to pay so that adults could play with their guns.
He told us to "Be not afraid." He did not at any time tell us that out of our fear we should annihilate what we have taught ourselves to fear, or what amoral politicians have told us we should fear.
Perhaps the only true Christian in all history died on the cross 2,000 years ago, I do not know, but I am certain that no one worthy of that description is running for president of the United States in 2016.
Michael J. Lombardi
Bluffdale
...................................................................................................................................................................
"'The idea that you can hate your way to the presidency is disgusting to me.'" -- Stan Pate. This is the Trump campaign in a nutshell.
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The man behind that anti-Trump Rose Bowl message? A Rubio backer
By Silvia Ascarelli, January 2, 2016
Those aerial messages at the Rose Bowl Parade that called GOP presidential contender Donald Trump “disgusting”?
Paid for by a real-estate developer who has donated to rival Marco Rubio, according to several news reports.
“Donald Trump is embarrassing to the country, and he’s embarrassing to me,” Stan Pate, an Alabama developer, said, according to CBS News. Pate donated $5,200 to Rubio’s presidential campaign committee in early 2015 but says he’s officially undecided, CBS said.
CNN, meanwhile, quoted Pate as saying: “The idea that you can hate your way to the presidency is disgusting to me.”
If the skywriting message sounds somewhat familiar — “America is great! Trump is disgusting!” — it might be because it plays off some of the favorite phrases of Trump, the GOP frontrunner in national poll. (The Washington Post highlights some of Trump’s favorite phrases in this highlights video of his 2015 insults.)
Trump wasn’t the only political story at the Rose Bowl. Carly Fiorina unleashed #CarlyCurse in response to this tweet:
...................................................................................................................................................................
The man behind that anti-Trump Rose Bowl message? A Rubio backer
By Silvia Ascarelli, January 2, 2016
Those aerial messages at the Rose Bowl Parade that called GOP presidential contender Donald Trump “disgusting”?
Paid for by a real-estate developer who has donated to rival Marco Rubio, according to several news reports.
“Donald Trump is embarrassing to the country, and he’s embarrassing to me,” Stan Pate, an Alabama developer, said, according to CBS News. Pate donated $5,200 to Rubio’s presidential campaign committee in early 2015 but says he’s officially undecided, CBS said.
CNN, meanwhile, quoted Pate as saying: “The idea that you can hate your way to the presidency is disgusting to me.”
If the skywriting message sounds somewhat familiar — “America is great! Trump is disgusting!” — it might be because it plays off some of the favorite phrases of Trump, the GOP frontrunner in national poll. (The Washington Post highlights some of Trump’s favorite phrases in this highlights video of his 2015 insults.)
Trump wasn’t the only political story at the Rose Bowl. Carly Fiorina unleashed #CarlyCurse in response to this tweet:
Carly Fiorina ✔ @CarlyFiorinaCritics saw it as political pandering, given that the Iowa caucus kicks off the presidential nomination process on Feb. 1. (Iowa lost the football game.)
Love my alma mater, but rooting for a Hawkeyes win today. #RoseBowl
11:00 AM - 1 Jan 2016
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Saturday, January 2, 2016
"She looks solid, reliable, stable. Which ... might be enough — to go a long way."
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COMMENTS:
* Tulsi has made it this far...she has a good head on her shoulders and doesn't play partisan games...she puts the people first. That's what we need.
* It's nice to hear about a politician who really cares about what she does.
* "solid, reliable, stable"...this is my impression of her as well from listening to her talk during interviews. She may be young, but she's already sacrificed so much in her service. I trust her to be a strong righteous leader no matter what position she serves in.
* She’s a progressive Democrat who has fought for breaking up the big banks, women’s rights, LBGT rights, she’s strong on the environment and she fights for veterans. She knows her stuff foreign policy wise. I think she’d be a great asset to any cabinet.
* I can't claim to support many or agree with many Dems, but Gabbard is something special. I've seen her interviewed quite a few times and her responses have always been reasoned and well explained. Even if I don't agree with her on a certain position, I can understand the logic of why she feels a certain way. It's been a long time since I've admired a Democrat, but I admire her.
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Tulsi Gabbard: A Young Star Headed for the Cabinet?
By Sanjena Sathian, January 1, 2016
It all seems too easy: At a quarter till 6 in the morning at Kailua Beach on Oahu, in the same neighborhood where Barack Obama stays at Christmas, the congresswoman from Hawaii’s 2nd District mounts her yellow longboard, takes her paddle in hand and sculls her way out into the water, where she stands, balances and drifts vaguely toward the sunrise, the so-called Flat Island in front of her, the Ko’olau mountain range behind her.
I’ve received in advance a whole neat schedule marking out Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s movements for the next two days, which include no baby-kissing but plenty of veteran handshaking and nodding to tunes on native rights and bidding aloha. These are the kinds of things you do when you are the congresswoman from Hawaii’s 2nd District. You throw up hang-loose signs in photo ops with the aforementioned, you wear three different leis throughout the day and you definitely indulge a mainland reporter’s fascinations with … your island and its beaches and its sunrises by demonstrating your habit of waking up at 5 a.m. to be one with the waves. I mean, if you’ve got it, flaunt it.
Gabbard, at 34, has a lot to flaunt, actually, and it’s usually manifested in the following epithets: first Hindu in Congress, first American Samoan in Congress, once the youngest state legislator ever elected (at age 21). She’s also a deployed veteran of the Iraq War who still serves in the National Guard reserves — which earns her automatic respect from either side of the aisle. And then there’s the double-edged sword of being an attractive woman in politics: it gets you noticed, though not on your terms — she lands on things like The Hill’s 50 Most Beautiful, and no one, not constituents, not my comrades in media ogling, mentions her without mentioning her prettiness. Regardless, Gabbard has managed to get on three enviable committees in Congress — Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security — which puts her in an even more enviable position to talk veterans and combat, and to take on the Obama administration on Iraq and terrorism on a national stage.
“Senate?” “Maybe.” “Secretary of Defense?” “Maybe.” “State?” “I’m just going to keep saying the same thing,” she cuts in, with a real, wide, rare Cheshire cat smile. “Let me just get through it,” I say, because now that I am here, I have to get the damn quotes. “Homeland Security?” “Maybe.” “VP?” “Maybe.” Drum roll … “President?”
“Maybe.”
If it weren’t for the palms and the tourists and the soft, dreamy sand, you might notice some similarities between this place and the South, or the Midwest: This is a military town. A small town. Gabbard’s press person brags to me that she swoops into communities where there are “like, 20” voters present. It’s far from the stuff she touches in Washington; the foreign policy issues on which she weighs in don’t much touch down on islanders’ day-to-day lives. But small-town Hawaii — and Gabbard’s small-town childhood — have a different face than the Baptist-football-tailgate of much of the rest of Middle America. For one, you can take for granted that Democrats have an upper hand here; Gabbard beat her Republican opponent for Congress in 2012 with 81 percent of the vote.
And for another, Gabbard’s mixed parentage — a bit like the president’s — doesn’t seem so crazy here. But it’s a far-from-average tale in the rest of the country. Born to teacher parents who also ran a candy company, Gabbard was home-schooled with her three brothers and sister — all of whom have deeply traditional Hindu names. Gabbard’s American Samoan-born father considers himself an “eclectic” Catholic (i.e., yoga-doing Catholic), as she puts it, the son of an Air Force man; her mother was a good Midwestern girl who later found Hinduism. Even now, despite all the cultural hubbub around her First title, she says she never had to choose between the religions.
That Hindu label has added a whole other layer or two to her political identity: It might be a complicator, for one; if America couldn’t handle the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, it’s hard to guess at how the country would take videos like this one, in which she celebrates the legacy of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. That’d be a mouthful on Fox. On the flip side, though, Gabbard was an early invitee to India under the Narendra Modi government — and you can bet your hat that she wasn’t invited just because she works on Asia-Pacific for the Foreign Affairs Committee. “Part of it,” confirms Kostro of the CSIS, speaking about her traction in Asia, “is Ms. Gabbard’s religion, which plays a role.”
Most recently, Gabbard has made her name in Washington in a series of television-waged battles with the Obama administration over its stance on Iraq, terrorism and the so-called Islamic State (IS) group. There’s some nuance to her objections, but the headline grabber: This spring, she told Obama he’d sure as hell better call the IS terrorists Islamic and stop pussyfooting around. She’s been a vocal critic of what she called, on CNN in May, the “fantasy” of a unified Iraq — please, please, a three-state solution already, she begged. She’s not “reflexively partisan,” says Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, with whom she’s worked on privacy bills, among other topics; thanks to her service (necessary nod) and in part to those Obama disagreements, he says, his party has somewhat of a soft spot for her. “If ever a Republican won the White House,” he muses, well … “there’s a tradition of picking someone from the other side for one of your slots.” Gabbard, he figures, might be ideal.
On the flip side, if you ask her colleagues about their guesses at Gabbard’s dream job, after they praise her service and future career prospects, many of them — Gowdy, Democrat Rep. Joseph Kennedy of Massachusetts — reflect that Hawaii is a long, draining commute. She misses home on long weekends. “D.C. can be a tough place,” Gowdy says. So what if she were to go back home for the long run? Gabbard would land back on an archipelago where people remember more: 13 years on the record, after all.
About 10 years ago, Gabbard violated some of the tenets that now make her so popular as a Democrat with an EMILY’s List endorsement to boot — she was neither pro-choice nor pro-gay-marriage, and in fact fell in line with her erstwhile Republican father. “She’s definitely distanced herself since,” says Jacqueline Lasky, professor of state politics at the University of Hawaii. “She wouldn’t have been successful otherwise.” (Nationally, there’s little talk about it; Kennedy told me he “didn’t really know” about Gabbard’s early conservative stances.) Hawaii bloggers and reporters widely have Gabbard on record as referring to the agendas of “homosexual extremists” at one point; when I ask her, she replies, “That thing I said ages ago?” Yes, I say. “Honestly, I’d have to go back and look,” she says. After repeated follow-ups, the congresswoman replies with a note about her sponsorship of the Equality Act (adding sexual orientation to categories of prohibited discrimination) and of her support for equal treatment of gay service members’ spouses.
Fittingly for her narrative, though, the explanation for her changed ideology feints us back onto familiar territory — the military. It was, she says, the days in the Middle East that taught her the dangers of a theocratic government “imposing its will” on the people. (She tells me that, no, her personal views haven’t changed, but she doesn’t figure it’s her job to do as the Iraqis did and force her own beliefs on others.)
It’s easy to forget how young Gabbard is; much took place through the first decade of adulthood. She dropped out of community college to run for local office — at the same time as her father’s first-ever political race. (Today, he’s a state senator.) She didn’t finish school until Iraq, where she spent dusty nights answering test questions on a computer in a tent in the heart of the Sunni triangle. Her 20s saw her in a war zone, in a marriage, in office and through a divorce. The military practically raised her: In Iraq, she tells me, she lost “brothers and sisters,” saw their dog tags, their rifles, their boots come through the medical tent just a day after eating with them in the chow hall. One of her jobs was to painstakingly comb through every injury, every casualty, every day. (She wrote me later that she wondered if “those who voted to send us to Iraq really understood why we were there.”) In Alabama, she learned to “sleep standing up” at officer school, where you don’t walk anywhere but run (unless you’ve just eaten). In Kuwait, she was frequently the only (“invisible”) woman in the room while leading a platoon. Before her first deployment, before any of that growing up, she married her first love; they split when they were barely through their mid-20s. We’ve just been to a Marine Corps base where she shook the hands of two or three military wives and listened to them, consternation in her brow. She reflects to me that the distance and toll of deployment were too much.
After all, she was young.
It was 2012, and Gabbard had just won her primary — the general hadn’t even been held — for Congress. She got a call from Nancy Pelosi, who asked: How would Gabbard like to come speak at the Democratic National Committee? The “speech” ran about 90 seconds or so. Gabbard introduced herself as a combat veteran, plugged Obama and Biden as military advocates and lost some of her stage time to applause. The enormity of the convention and the people she was introducing — women of the House, of whom she was not yet one — seemed to dwarf her. Today, she takes up more of her allotted space, but never dominates a room. She admits to shyness in younger years, speaking of “sweating bullets” before her first attempt at door-knocking. It’s not clear she’s outgrown it. Speaking one morning in a drab hotel conference room at a breakfast for native businesses, she stays behind the podium, eyes down at what is presumably a pre-written speech. It seems a bad squandering of an easy crowd.
But to be fair, there are times when Gabbard is squarely on her own turf. Like when she walks onto the expansive Marine Corps base on Oahu, where everything is “ma’am”s and “as you well know”s. She is tailed by admiring young lieutenant corporals and respectful sergeants, all male, and there’s nothing controversial at all. Wounded Warriors are hard to disagree with. Instead, she stands with her hands behind her back, almost at attention, and listens. She looks solid, reliable, stable. Which, as Lasky suggests, might be enough — to go a long way.
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COMMENTS:
* Tulsi has made it this far...she has a good head on her shoulders and doesn't play partisan games...she puts the people first. That's what we need.
* It's nice to hear about a politician who really cares about what she does.
* "solid, reliable, stable"...this is my impression of her as well from listening to her talk during interviews. She may be young, but she's already sacrificed so much in her service. I trust her to be a strong righteous leader no matter what position she serves in.
* She’s a progressive Democrat who has fought for breaking up the big banks, women’s rights, LBGT rights, she’s strong on the environment and she fights for veterans. She knows her stuff foreign policy wise. I think she’d be a great asset to any cabinet.
* I can't claim to support many or agree with many Dems, but Gabbard is something special. I've seen her interviewed quite a few times and her responses have always been reasoned and well explained. Even if I don't agree with her on a certain position, I can understand the logic of why she feels a certain way. It's been a long time since I've admired a Democrat, but I admire her.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Tulsi Gabbard: A Young Star Headed for the Cabinet?
By Sanjena Sathian, January 1, 2016
It all seems too easy: At a quarter till 6 in the morning at Kailua Beach on Oahu, in the same neighborhood where Barack Obama stays at Christmas, the congresswoman from Hawaii’s 2nd District mounts her yellow longboard, takes her paddle in hand and sculls her way out into the water, where she stands, balances and drifts vaguely toward the sunrise, the so-called Flat Island in front of her, the Ko’olau mountain range behind her.
I’ve received in advance a whole neat schedule marking out Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s movements for the next two days, which include no baby-kissing but plenty of veteran handshaking and nodding to tunes on native rights and bidding aloha. These are the kinds of things you do when you are the congresswoman from Hawaii’s 2nd District. You throw up hang-loose signs in photo ops with the aforementioned, you wear three different leis throughout the day and you definitely indulge a mainland reporter’s fascinations with … your island and its beaches and its sunrises by demonstrating your habit of waking up at 5 a.m. to be one with the waves. I mean, if you’ve got it, flaunt it.
Gabbard, at 34, has a lot to flaunt, actually, and it’s usually manifested in the following epithets: first Hindu in Congress, first American Samoan in Congress, once the youngest state legislator ever elected (at age 21). She’s also a deployed veteran of the Iraq War who still serves in the National Guard reserves — which earns her automatic respect from either side of the aisle. And then there’s the double-edged sword of being an attractive woman in politics: it gets you noticed, though not on your terms — she lands on things like The Hill’s 50 Most Beautiful, and no one, not constituents, not my comrades in media ogling, mentions her without mentioning her prettiness. Regardless, Gabbard has managed to get on three enviable committees in Congress — Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security — which puts her in an even more enviable position to talk veterans and combat, and to take on the Obama administration on Iraq and terrorism on a national stage.
If ever a Republican won the White House … there’s a tradition of picking someone from the other side for one of your slots.Indeed, it has been some of those last headline grabbers that has brought us here. That, and the nagging feeling that people have about this unusual second-termer. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she became the chair of a powerful committee — and then went for Senate,” says Stephanie Sanok Kostro, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). But the day I meet her, amid all her cameos and handshaking, she isn’t quite ready to let me in. Sitting in a coffee shop, she is thoughtful, understated, even a little awkward. We move painstakingly into the personal, touching on her athleticism (martial arts; she hates running), to her perfect hair (which she only gets done in Hawaii), to her second marriage to a “very private” 26-year-old cinematographer who proposed on a surfboard. Then, to a grander space.
Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina
“Senate?” “Maybe.” “Secretary of Defense?” “Maybe.” “State?” “I’m just going to keep saying the same thing,” she cuts in, with a real, wide, rare Cheshire cat smile. “Let me just get through it,” I say, because now that I am here, I have to get the damn quotes. “Homeland Security?” “Maybe.” “VP?” “Maybe.” Drum roll … “President?”
“Maybe.”
***
If it weren’t for the palms and the tourists and the soft, dreamy sand, you might notice some similarities between this place and the South, or the Midwest: This is a military town. A small town. Gabbard’s press person brags to me that she swoops into communities where there are “like, 20” voters present. It’s far from the stuff she touches in Washington; the foreign policy issues on which she weighs in don’t much touch down on islanders’ day-to-day lives. But small-town Hawaii — and Gabbard’s small-town childhood — have a different face than the Baptist-football-tailgate of much of the rest of Middle America. For one, you can take for granted that Democrats have an upper hand here; Gabbard beat her Republican opponent for Congress in 2012 with 81 percent of the vote.
And for another, Gabbard’s mixed parentage — a bit like the president’s — doesn’t seem so crazy here. But it’s a far-from-average tale in the rest of the country. Born to teacher parents who also ran a candy company, Gabbard was home-schooled with her three brothers and sister — all of whom have deeply traditional Hindu names. Gabbard’s American Samoan-born father considers himself an “eclectic” Catholic (i.e., yoga-doing Catholic), as she puts it, the son of an Air Force man; her mother was a good Midwestern girl who later found Hinduism. Even now, despite all the cultural hubbub around her First title, she says she never had to choose between the religions.
That Hindu label has added a whole other layer or two to her political identity: It might be a complicator, for one; if America couldn’t handle the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, it’s hard to guess at how the country would take videos like this one, in which she celebrates the legacy of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. That’d be a mouthful on Fox. On the flip side, though, Gabbard was an early invitee to India under the Narendra Modi government — and you can bet your hat that she wasn’t invited just because she works on Asia-Pacific for the Foreign Affairs Committee. “Part of it,” confirms Kostro of the CSIS, speaking about her traction in Asia, “is Ms. Gabbard’s religion, which plays a role.”
***
Most recently, Gabbard has made her name in Washington in a series of television-waged battles with the Obama administration over its stance on Iraq, terrorism and the so-called Islamic State (IS) group. There’s some nuance to her objections, but the headline grabber: This spring, she told Obama he’d sure as hell better call the IS terrorists Islamic and stop pussyfooting around. She’s been a vocal critic of what she called, on CNN in May, the “fantasy” of a unified Iraq — please, please, a three-state solution already, she begged. She’s not “reflexively partisan,” says Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, with whom she’s worked on privacy bills, among other topics; thanks to her service (necessary nod) and in part to those Obama disagreements, he says, his party has somewhat of a soft spot for her. “If ever a Republican won the White House,” he muses, well … “there’s a tradition of picking someone from the other side for one of your slots.” Gabbard, he figures, might be ideal.
On the flip side, if you ask her colleagues about their guesses at Gabbard’s dream job, after they praise her service and future career prospects, many of them — Gowdy, Democrat Rep. Joseph Kennedy of Massachusetts — reflect that Hawaii is a long, draining commute. She misses home on long weekends. “D.C. can be a tough place,” Gowdy says. So what if she were to go back home for the long run? Gabbard would land back on an archipelago where people remember more: 13 years on the record, after all.
About 10 years ago, Gabbard violated some of the tenets that now make her so popular as a Democrat with an EMILY’s List endorsement to boot — she was neither pro-choice nor pro-gay-marriage, and in fact fell in line with her erstwhile Republican father. “She’s definitely distanced herself since,” says Jacqueline Lasky, professor of state politics at the University of Hawaii. “She wouldn’t have been successful otherwise.” (Nationally, there’s little talk about it; Kennedy told me he “didn’t really know” about Gabbard’s early conservative stances.) Hawaii bloggers and reporters widely have Gabbard on record as referring to the agendas of “homosexual extremists” at one point; when I ask her, she replies, “That thing I said ages ago?” Yes, I say. “Honestly, I’d have to go back and look,” she says. After repeated follow-ups, the congresswoman replies with a note about her sponsorship of the Equality Act (adding sexual orientation to categories of prohibited discrimination) and of her support for equal treatment of gay service members’ spouses.
Fittingly for her narrative, though, the explanation for her changed ideology feints us back onto familiar territory — the military. It was, she says, the days in the Middle East that taught her the dangers of a theocratic government “imposing its will” on the people. (She tells me that, no, her personal views haven’t changed, but she doesn’t figure it’s her job to do as the Iraqis did and force her own beliefs on others.)
It’s easy to forget how young Gabbard is; much took place through the first decade of adulthood. She dropped out of community college to run for local office — at the same time as her father’s first-ever political race. (Today, he’s a state senator.) She didn’t finish school until Iraq, where she spent dusty nights answering test questions on a computer in a tent in the heart of the Sunni triangle. Her 20s saw her in a war zone, in a marriage, in office and through a divorce. The military practically raised her: In Iraq, she tells me, she lost “brothers and sisters,” saw their dog tags, their rifles, their boots come through the medical tent just a day after eating with them in the chow hall. One of her jobs was to painstakingly comb through every injury, every casualty, every day. (She wrote me later that she wondered if “those who voted to send us to Iraq really understood why we were there.”) In Alabama, she learned to “sleep standing up” at officer school, where you don’t walk anywhere but run (unless you’ve just eaten). In Kuwait, she was frequently the only (“invisible”) woman in the room while leading a platoon. Before her first deployment, before any of that growing up, she married her first love; they split when they were barely through their mid-20s. We’ve just been to a Marine Corps base where she shook the hands of two or three military wives and listened to them, consternation in her brow. She reflects to me that the distance and toll of deployment were too much.
After all, she was young.
***
It was 2012, and Gabbard had just won her primary — the general hadn’t even been held — for Congress. She got a call from Nancy Pelosi, who asked: How would Gabbard like to come speak at the Democratic National Committee? The “speech” ran about 90 seconds or so. Gabbard introduced herself as a combat veteran, plugged Obama and Biden as military advocates and lost some of her stage time to applause. The enormity of the convention and the people she was introducing — women of the House, of whom she was not yet one — seemed to dwarf her. Today, she takes up more of her allotted space, but never dominates a room. She admits to shyness in younger years, speaking of “sweating bullets” before her first attempt at door-knocking. It’s not clear she’s outgrown it. Speaking one morning in a drab hotel conference room at a breakfast for native businesses, she stays behind the podium, eyes down at what is presumably a pre-written speech. It seems a bad squandering of an easy crowd.
But to be fair, there are times when Gabbard is squarely on her own turf. Like when she walks onto the expansive Marine Corps base on Oahu, where everything is “ma’am”s and “as you well know”s. She is tailed by admiring young lieutenant corporals and respectful sergeants, all male, and there’s nothing controversial at all. Wounded Warriors are hard to disagree with. Instead, she stands with her hands behind her back, almost at attention, and listens. She looks solid, reliable, stable. Which, as Lasky suggests, might be enough — to go a long way.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Scalia has been around for too damned long.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* OK, it is past time for this crazy old coot to retire. If Scalia has lost his senses to the point that he no longer understands "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" or doesn't remember the writings of Madison and Jefferson, then it is time for him to go and feed birds. "God has been good to America"? Give me a break, if it weren't for the secularization placed into the Constitution, the United States would still be under the thumb of the Church of England and Papists like Scalia would never have been allowed to practice their religion.
* Myths, magic and superstitions. Religion poisons everything.
* Past time for this twatwaffle to be put out to pasture. Vote blue in the next election. A Republiscum president will give us a bunch more like this waste of space.
* I have no quarrel with people mentioning God in their speeches. It's when they treat us nonbelievers as though we have less rights than they do that I will complain.
* Scalia gives today's right a bad name but then again he fits right in with the far right loony tunes.
* Scalia is a proud bigot and now he says he believes in god. That makes perfect sense...the more religious, the more hateful and violent one becomes. Islam has ISIS, America has the Tea Party. And while our founding fathers were Deists who believed in a god, they didn't believe in the bible nor did they follow any particular religion. And they wrote the Constitution to both protect religion from government and protect citizens from religion.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Scalia dismisses concept of religious neutrality in speech
By Rebecca Santana, January 2, 2016
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Saturday the idea of religious neutrality is not grounded in the country's constitutional traditions and that God has been good to the U.S. exactly because Americans honor him.
Scalia was speaking at a Catholic high school in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, Louisiana. Scalia, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 is the court's longest serving justice. He has consistently been one of the court's more conservative members.
He told the audience at Archbishop Rummel High School that there is "no place" in the country's constitutional traditions for the idea that the state must be neutral between religion and its absence.
"To tell you the truth there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition. Where did that come from?" he said. "To be sure, you can't favor one denomination over another but can't favor religion over non-religion?"
He also said there is "nothing wrong" with the idea of presidents and others invoking God in speeches. He said God has been good to America because Americans have honored him.
Scalia said during the Sept. 11 attacks he was in Rome at a conference. The next morning, after a speech by President George W. Bush in which he invoked God and asked for his blessing, Scalia said many of the other judges approached him and said they wished their presidents or prime ministers would do the same.
"God has been very good to us. That we won the revolution was extraordinary. The Battle of Midway was extraordinary. I think one of the reasons God has been good to us is that we have done him honor. Unlike the other countries of the world that do not even invoke his name we do him honor. In presidential addresses, in Thanksgiving proclamations and in many other ways," Scalia said.
"There is nothing wrong with that and do not let anybody tell you that there is anything wrong with that," he added.
Scalia's comments Saturday come as the court prepares to hear arguments later this year in a case that challenges part of President Barack Obama's health care law and whether it adequately shields faith-based hospitals, colleges and charities from having to offer contraceptive coverage to their employees.
Scalia is often a lightning rod for controversy on the court.
In December he came under fire for comments he made during an affirmative action case, questioning whether some black students would benefit from going to a "slower-track school" instead of Texas' flagship campus in Austin.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* OK, it is past time for this crazy old coot to retire. If Scalia has lost his senses to the point that he no longer understands "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" or doesn't remember the writings of Madison and Jefferson, then it is time for him to go and feed birds. "God has been good to America"? Give me a break, if it weren't for the secularization placed into the Constitution, the United States would still be under the thumb of the Church of England and Papists like Scalia would never have been allowed to practice their religion.
* Myths, magic and superstitions. Religion poisons everything.
* Past time for this twatwaffle to be put out to pasture. Vote blue in the next election. A Republiscum president will give us a bunch more like this waste of space.
* I have no quarrel with people mentioning God in their speeches. It's when they treat us nonbelievers as though we have less rights than they do that I will complain.
* Scalia gives today's right a bad name but then again he fits right in with the far right loony tunes.
* Scalia is a proud bigot and now he says he believes in god. That makes perfect sense...the more religious, the more hateful and violent one becomes. Islam has ISIS, America has the Tea Party. And while our founding fathers were Deists who believed in a god, they didn't believe in the bible nor did they follow any particular religion. And they wrote the Constitution to both protect religion from government and protect citizens from religion.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Scalia dismisses concept of religious neutrality in speech
By Rebecca Santana, January 2, 2016
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Saturday the idea of religious neutrality is not grounded in the country's constitutional traditions and that God has been good to the U.S. exactly because Americans honor him.
Scalia was speaking at a Catholic high school in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, Louisiana. Scalia, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 is the court's longest serving justice. He has consistently been one of the court's more conservative members.
He told the audience at Archbishop Rummel High School that there is "no place" in the country's constitutional traditions for the idea that the state must be neutral between religion and its absence.
"To tell you the truth there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition. Where did that come from?" he said. "To be sure, you can't favor one denomination over another but can't favor religion over non-religion?"
He also said there is "nothing wrong" with the idea of presidents and others invoking God in speeches. He said God has been good to America because Americans have honored him.
Scalia said during the Sept. 11 attacks he was in Rome at a conference. The next morning, after a speech by President George W. Bush in which he invoked God and asked for his blessing, Scalia said many of the other judges approached him and said they wished their presidents or prime ministers would do the same.
"God has been very good to us. That we won the revolution was extraordinary. The Battle of Midway was extraordinary. I think one of the reasons God has been good to us is that we have done him honor. Unlike the other countries of the world that do not even invoke his name we do him honor. In presidential addresses, in Thanksgiving proclamations and in many other ways," Scalia said.
"There is nothing wrong with that and do not let anybody tell you that there is anything wrong with that," he added.
Scalia's comments Saturday come as the court prepares to hear arguments later this year in a case that challenges part of President Barack Obama's health care law and whether it adequately shields faith-based hospitals, colleges and charities from having to offer contraceptive coverage to their employees.
Scalia is often a lightning rod for controversy on the court.
In December he came under fire for comments he made during an affirmative action case, questioning whether some black students would benefit from going to a "slower-track school" instead of Texas' flagship campus in Austin.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"... it went down exactly the way Republicans wanted it to go down. They've always used fear to win elections. ... they've always understood that fear works to motivate their white base."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* The land of the free and the home of the brave has become the land of the watched and the home of the terrified. Despicable politicians exploiting the irrational fears of the gullible for purposes that have nothing to do with the stated issues.
* The GOP festival of fear and ignorance has worked wonderfully for American's dark side of consciousness. Hartmann does a good job here... I like to reiterate that most of the 90+ people killed on American soil, are dead due to RIGHT WING terrorists! A home grown TERRORISM brought to you by CONSERVATIVE AMERICANS who presumably are acting on their own fear. (The lone outliers are San Berenadino, 16 dead, and Boston, 3 dead.) You can see that they are acting on fear because they have no good logical rational reason for their irrational violent acts of terror, as if there ever is any good reason. It reminds me of the Oklahoma City bombing. 200 dead and the perps are two conservative malcontents. Conservative ignorance is huge terroristic threat.
* I hold the 24/7 news cycle (particularly FOX News) responsible. You'd think with that much time to fill, producers would actually write pieces that explain some of the issues we're all facing, thus putting the 'fear' into perspective.
* My enemy is the christian fundamentalist GOTP home grown terrorist.
* Christian Conservatives. Rationalizing hate since 1776! YAY! No. You are afraid. If had real courage then you would face your fear instead of relying on a clown to face your fear. i.e. if you elect Trump your fear will still devour you... and your children.
* And who, pray tell, has taken 'your' country from you that you feel like you need to take it back from someone in the first place. This country, as it stands now is 66% white, most of its military is white, most of our POLS are white, most of the business enterprise is own by whites, more white has the majority of capital and own homes. The only ones that is taking something from you is those white big mouths that say someone 'else' is taking something from you, when in fact it is they who is trying to get you to do their bidding.. You truly need to look at the ones doing the talking. If someone says someone is doing something to you, then keep a watch over your shoulder. If that same person(s) keep telling you something, then perhaps you should start looking at THAT person. Obviously they are trying to distract you. One other thing, what the hell is a Christian Conservative?
...................................................................................................................................................................
GOP Fearmongering Is Taking American Politics to a Dark and Disturbing Place
Our message to the Republican Party should be simple: "We are not afraid."
By Thom Hartmann, January 2, 2016
"Fear," a great Jedi master named Yoda once said, "leads to anger," which leads to hate, which leads to suffering, which, of course, leads to the Dark Side.
And while Yoda's warning was directed at the long-ago problems of a galaxy, far, far away, we'd do well to take it in stride right now in the United States in 2015.
That's because fear has reached an absolute fever pitch in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino attacks, and, as the recent Republican debates have shown, it's taking our politics into a dark and very disturbing place.
When the candidates weren't coming up with fun and unique ways to start World War III, they were debating whether or not Muslim human beings deserve rights like other human beings, and talking about ISIS like it's an army of fascist zombies that owns its very own Death Star.
The conversation was apocalyptic, bizarre and terrifying.
In other words, it went down exactly the way Republicans wanted it to go down. They've always used fear to win elections.
Whether it's fear of same-sex couples getting married, fear of the government taking away the people's guns or fear of Black men, they've always understood that fear works to motivate their white base.
Fear works because it appeals to our basic animal instinct to stay safe, and it makes the simplest, inane and most downright evil solutions sound smart.
This is great for Republicans because they don't have any real solutions, but it's awful for our democracy and keeps us from having an honest conversation about the things that are really hurting our country.
Terrorism is a problem; no one denies that. But Republicans and their enablers in the media are blowing it way out of proportion.
There's no reason Americans should be as scared about it as they are, and according to recent polls, they're more worried about terrorist attacks now than they have been at any time since 9/11.
This makes sense in the wake of a non-stop media and Republican scare campaign, but it's still ridiculous in the face of, you know, facts.
The simple truth of the matter is that terrorist attacks in the United States - especially those committed by Islamic fundamentalist extremists - are very, very rare.
Since 9/11, a grand total of 93 people have been killed in terrorist attacks on American soil, and of those 93 people, the majority of them were killed by white conservative terrorists.
Could the real reason everyone is terrified of ISIS and not abortion clinic bombers be that the people who sympathize with ISIS are more often than not brown of skin and "foreign-looking?"
It seems pretty likely.
But anyways, neither Islamic fundamentalist terrorism nor right-wing terrorism is worth freaking out about. Again, just 93 people have been killed in terrorist attacks on US soil in the past 14 years.
By comparison, in just one year (2013) 600,000 Americans died of heart disease, 580,000 died of cancer and 150,000 died of respiratory diseases. And in that same year, 130,000 people died in some kind of accident, 128,000 died of strokes and 75,000 died of diabetes.
Oh yeah, and 57,000 people died from the flu, 47,000 died from nephrosis and 40,000 died from suicide.
Amazing, right?
You're more likely to die from the flu than you are from a terrorist attack. And yet there's no special CNN debate devoted to talking about we can better immunize Americans against the flu. Could that be because freaking out terrorism means more support for war, which means more military adventures abroad, which means more money in the pockets of defense contractors?
Again, it seems pretty likely.
The US faces many serious threats right now. For example, tens of millions of people are still without health care despite Obamacare; the middle class is rapidly vanishing; and global warming is rapidly spiraling out of control.
And while Islamic fundamentalist terrorism is a problem, it's a manageable one, and I guarantee you that if we'd minded our own damn business, we wouldn't have to worry about it much longer.
If we had a mature political system with responsible parties, everyone would understand this. But we don't have a mature political system.
We have a political system where one party - the Republican Party - is totally and completely committed to scaring the crap out of people to get elected so they can have access to money and power for their own purposes.
And that is something worth freaking out about, because if history tells us anything, it's that when people are scared, they'll do pretty much anything to feel safe. Talk about a path to the Dark Side ...
Our message to the Republican Party - and their symbiotic fellow travelers in ISIS - should be simple: "We are not afraid."
And once that's said, let's get about the business of rolling back Reaganism and Clintonism and rebuilding the US middle class while being good neighbors and citizens of the world.
We've done it before, and we can do it again.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* The land of the free and the home of the brave has become the land of the watched and the home of the terrified. Despicable politicians exploiting the irrational fears of the gullible for purposes that have nothing to do with the stated issues.
* The GOP festival of fear and ignorance has worked wonderfully for American's dark side of consciousness. Hartmann does a good job here... I like to reiterate that most of the 90+ people killed on American soil, are dead due to RIGHT WING terrorists! A home grown TERRORISM brought to you by CONSERVATIVE AMERICANS who presumably are acting on their own fear. (The lone outliers are San Berenadino, 16 dead, and Boston, 3 dead.) You can see that they are acting on fear because they have no good logical rational reason for their irrational violent acts of terror, as if there ever is any good reason. It reminds me of the Oklahoma City bombing. 200 dead and the perps are two conservative malcontents. Conservative ignorance is huge terroristic threat.
* I hold the 24/7 news cycle (particularly FOX News) responsible. You'd think with that much time to fill, producers would actually write pieces that explain some of the issues we're all facing, thus putting the 'fear' into perspective.
* My enemy is the christian fundamentalist GOTP home grown terrorist.
* Christian Conservatives. Rationalizing hate since 1776! YAY! No. You are afraid. If had real courage then you would face your fear instead of relying on a clown to face your fear. i.e. if you elect Trump your fear will still devour you... and your children.
* And who, pray tell, has taken 'your' country from you that you feel like you need to take it back from someone in the first place. This country, as it stands now is 66% white, most of its military is white, most of our POLS are white, most of the business enterprise is own by whites, more white has the majority of capital and own homes. The only ones that is taking something from you is those white big mouths that say someone 'else' is taking something from you, when in fact it is they who is trying to get you to do their bidding.. You truly need to look at the ones doing the talking. If someone says someone is doing something to you, then keep a watch over your shoulder. If that same person(s) keep telling you something, then perhaps you should start looking at THAT person. Obviously they are trying to distract you. One other thing, what the hell is a Christian Conservative?
...................................................................................................................................................................
GOP Fearmongering Is Taking American Politics to a Dark and Disturbing Place
Our message to the Republican Party should be simple: "We are not afraid."
By Thom Hartmann, January 2, 2016
"Fear," a great Jedi master named Yoda once said, "leads to anger," which leads to hate, which leads to suffering, which, of course, leads to the Dark Side.
And while Yoda's warning was directed at the long-ago problems of a galaxy, far, far away, we'd do well to take it in stride right now in the United States in 2015.
That's because fear has reached an absolute fever pitch in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino attacks, and, as the recent Republican debates have shown, it's taking our politics into a dark and very disturbing place.
When the candidates weren't coming up with fun and unique ways to start World War III, they were debating whether or not Muslim human beings deserve rights like other human beings, and talking about ISIS like it's an army of fascist zombies that owns its very own Death Star.
The conversation was apocalyptic, bizarre and terrifying.
In other words, it went down exactly the way Republicans wanted it to go down. They've always used fear to win elections.
Whether it's fear of same-sex couples getting married, fear of the government taking away the people's guns or fear of Black men, they've always understood that fear works to motivate their white base.
Fear works because it appeals to our basic animal instinct to stay safe, and it makes the simplest, inane and most downright evil solutions sound smart.
This is great for Republicans because they don't have any real solutions, but it's awful for our democracy and keeps us from having an honest conversation about the things that are really hurting our country.
Terrorism is a problem; no one denies that. But Republicans and their enablers in the media are blowing it way out of proportion.
There's no reason Americans should be as scared about it as they are, and according to recent polls, they're more worried about terrorist attacks now than they have been at any time since 9/11.
This makes sense in the wake of a non-stop media and Republican scare campaign, but it's still ridiculous in the face of, you know, facts.
The simple truth of the matter is that terrorist attacks in the United States - especially those committed by Islamic fundamentalist extremists - are very, very rare.
Since 9/11, a grand total of 93 people have been killed in terrorist attacks on American soil, and of those 93 people, the majority of them were killed by white conservative terrorists.
Could the real reason everyone is terrified of ISIS and not abortion clinic bombers be that the people who sympathize with ISIS are more often than not brown of skin and "foreign-looking?"
It seems pretty likely.
But anyways, neither Islamic fundamentalist terrorism nor right-wing terrorism is worth freaking out about. Again, just 93 people have been killed in terrorist attacks on US soil in the past 14 years.
By comparison, in just one year (2013) 600,000 Americans died of heart disease, 580,000 died of cancer and 150,000 died of respiratory diseases. And in that same year, 130,000 people died in some kind of accident, 128,000 died of strokes and 75,000 died of diabetes.
Oh yeah, and 57,000 people died from the flu, 47,000 died from nephrosis and 40,000 died from suicide.
Amazing, right?
You're more likely to die from the flu than you are from a terrorist attack. And yet there's no special CNN debate devoted to talking about we can better immunize Americans against the flu. Could that be because freaking out terrorism means more support for war, which means more military adventures abroad, which means more money in the pockets of defense contractors?
Again, it seems pretty likely.
The US faces many serious threats right now. For example, tens of millions of people are still without health care despite Obamacare; the middle class is rapidly vanishing; and global warming is rapidly spiraling out of control.
And while Islamic fundamentalist terrorism is a problem, it's a manageable one, and I guarantee you that if we'd minded our own damn business, we wouldn't have to worry about it much longer.
If we had a mature political system with responsible parties, everyone would understand this. But we don't have a mature political system.
We have a political system where one party - the Republican Party - is totally and completely committed to scaring the crap out of people to get elected so they can have access to money and power for their own purposes.
And that is something worth freaking out about, because if history tells us anything, it's that when people are scared, they'll do pretty much anything to feel safe. Talk about a path to the Dark Side ...
Our message to the Republican Party - and their symbiotic fellow travelers in ISIS - should be simple: "We are not afraid."
And once that's said, let's get about the business of rolling back Reaganism and Clintonism and rebuilding the US middle class while being good neighbors and citizens of the world.
We've done it before, and we can do it again.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Friday, January 1, 2016
This should resonate with Latino voters.
..................................................................................
The Koch brothers "own" the Nevada utility regulator, and they're using that to keep individuals from gaining from small, privately-owned solar installations.
...................................................................................................................................................................
How The Grinch Brothers Stole The Sun – So They Could Sell It Back To You
By John Lundin, December 23, 2915
The Grinch Brothers – a.k.a. Charles and David Koch – have effectively stolen the sun. Why? So they can sell it back to you.
On Tuesday, Republican-controlled utility regulators (make that Koch-controlled utility regulators) of Senator Harry Reid‘s home state of Nevada dealt a lethal blow to rooftop solar power – the latest skirmish of a nationwide green energy battle that has pitted the Senate Democratic leader against his favorite target, the Koch brothers.
The move by Nevada’s utility regulator, which voted to slash the economic incentives for homeowners to install solar panels, was most immediately a showdown between billionaires Warren Buffett, owner of the state’s largest power company, and Elon Musk, whose SolarCity is the nation’s largest installer of panels that create electricity from the sun. But it also served as a proxy fight in a national struggle about states’ green energy programs, in which free-market groups backed by industrialists Charles and David Koch have fought to roll back incentives that they argue distort the marketplace and force some customers to subsidize other people’s power choices.
The Kochs’ advocacy groups didn’t directly enter the fight in Nevada, although they have campaigned in states such as neighboring Arizona to cut back programs that allow solar-owning residents to sell their excess power back to the electric grid. And Reid has singled out the Kochs’ opposition to solar incentives as part of his litany of complaints about the billionaire brothers, whom he has accused of “trying to buy the country” to promote their pro-fossil-fuel, anti-regulation agenda.
“The Koch brothers are worth more than 135 million Americans combined,” Reid told the Las Vegas Sun in August. “Why are they interested in stopping rooftop solar? It hurts their bottom line.”
Reid had no immediate comment on Tuesday’s action by the Nevada Public Utilities Commission, but in the past he has been highly critical of the Koch brothers, with none other than U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, accusing Reid of branding them ‘The Grinch Brothers.’
“I’m beginning to think [the Koch brothers] are a character almost out of Dr. Seuss in the majority leader’s mind, they are the grinch who stole Christmas in his telling,” Cruz said last year.
The three-member Nevada utility panel, responding to a law signed last spring by Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, voted to slash the payments that Buffett-owned NV Energy must pay to homeowners whose rooftop solar panels feed electricity into the grid, and to hike the fees for homeowners to connect their panels to the wider power system. Companies like SolarCity and rival solar-leasing firm Sunrun have said the decision will most likely prompt them to stop operating in the state, which is the nation’s fifth largest in solar power capacity.
Even more galling to solar advocates, the commission made the decision retroactive — meaning the payments will stop and the fees will rise even for homeowners who had installed their panels under the previous program.
The American Energy Alliance, a Koch-funded group that opposes these kinds of “net metering” programs, said Tuesday’s move “makes positive changes to protect all ratepayers.”
“Folks who have rooftop solar tend to be wealthier homeowners, so you have a situation where the poor and middle class are paying for the wealthy to have solar power,” AEA spokesman Chris Warren said.
Solar companies like SolarCity and Sunrun have blossomed in recent years by installing panels on homeowners’ roofs at no cost, and then charging a monthly leasing fee that is typically lower than residents’ monthly utility bill. But those energy cost savings will disappear after the state commission decided to cut the payment to homeowners by 75 percent, from the retail power price to the wholesale level. NV Energy can also charge rooftop solar owners a fee for allowing them to sell power to the grid.
Sunrun quickly blasted the Public Utility Commission, saying it “ignored months of public input and over 30,000 public comments and voted in favor of solar fees.”
The company, which has filed a lawsuit against Sandoval to obtain records about his interactions with NV Energy, said its industry group The Alliance for Solar Choice planned to file a lawsuit challenging Tuesday’s PUC action.
The Nevada utility commission’s decision does not affect large-scale solar power plants that supply electricity to utilities, like the $1 billion Crescent Dunes solar project partly financed by President Barack Obama’s stimulus program, and NV Energy is a major purchaser from them.
Earlier this month, Congress agreed as part of the omnibus budget package to extend a federal tax credit for solar power to 2022, an incentive the industry has said was crucial to keeping it on a path that would make it economically viable without subsidies.
That federal victory for solar power comes as a rising number of states try to adapt their energy policies to accommodate the rising pressure from homeowners and greens – as well as libertarian groups like Georgia’s Green Tea movement – to foster more growth of rooftop solar.
Another fight is playing out in Florida where a group of tea-party, environmental and solar advocates are seeking a ballot measure for 2016 that would prevent the state from regulating small solar installation. Utilities there are pushing a rival ballot initiative that would keep in place the current system that requires homeowners to sell power to the utility.
The cost to install rooftop solar installations has dropped by half in the past five years, and the rooftop companies had put panels on nearly 800,000 homes and business across the country by mid-2015.
But the success of leasing business mode has prompted utilities to push back against the net metering policies, which threaten to eat away at their business growth while increasing their costs.
By the end of 2015, total solar power capacity in the United States is expected to be near 28,000 megawatts, or enough to supply some 5.6 million homes. Still, even with the fast-paced growth, solar power provides less than 2 percent of the electricity consumed in the United States.
If the Grinch Brothers have their way, future growth of solar power in the United States will depend on their ability to steal the sun and sell it back to consumers – to sell it back to you.
...................................................................................................................................................................
How The Grinch Brothers Stole The Sun – So They Could Sell It Back To You
By John Lundin, December 23, 2915
The Grinch Brothers – a.k.a. Charles and David Koch – have effectively stolen the sun. Why? So they can sell it back to you.
On Tuesday, Republican-controlled utility regulators (make that Koch-controlled utility regulators) of Senator Harry Reid‘s home state of Nevada dealt a lethal blow to rooftop solar power – the latest skirmish of a nationwide green energy battle that has pitted the Senate Democratic leader against his favorite target, the Koch brothers.
The move by Nevada’s utility regulator, which voted to slash the economic incentives for homeowners to install solar panels, was most immediately a showdown between billionaires Warren Buffett, owner of the state’s largest power company, and Elon Musk, whose SolarCity is the nation’s largest installer of panels that create electricity from the sun. But it also served as a proxy fight in a national struggle about states’ green energy programs, in which free-market groups backed by industrialists Charles and David Koch have fought to roll back incentives that they argue distort the marketplace and force some customers to subsidize other people’s power choices.
The Kochs’ advocacy groups didn’t directly enter the fight in Nevada, although they have campaigned in states such as neighboring Arizona to cut back programs that allow solar-owning residents to sell their excess power back to the electric grid. And Reid has singled out the Kochs’ opposition to solar incentives as part of his litany of complaints about the billionaire brothers, whom he has accused of “trying to buy the country” to promote their pro-fossil-fuel, anti-regulation agenda.
“The Koch brothers are worth more than 135 million Americans combined,” Reid told the Las Vegas Sun in August. “Why are they interested in stopping rooftop solar? It hurts their bottom line.”
Reid had no immediate comment on Tuesday’s action by the Nevada Public Utilities Commission, but in the past he has been highly critical of the Koch brothers, with none other than U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, accusing Reid of branding them ‘The Grinch Brothers.’
“I’m beginning to think [the Koch brothers] are a character almost out of Dr. Seuss in the majority leader’s mind, they are the grinch who stole Christmas in his telling,” Cruz said last year.
The three-member Nevada utility panel, responding to a law signed last spring by Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, voted to slash the payments that Buffett-owned NV Energy must pay to homeowners whose rooftop solar panels feed electricity into the grid, and to hike the fees for homeowners to connect their panels to the wider power system. Companies like SolarCity and rival solar-leasing firm Sunrun have said the decision will most likely prompt them to stop operating in the state, which is the nation’s fifth largest in solar power capacity.
Even more galling to solar advocates, the commission made the decision retroactive — meaning the payments will stop and the fees will rise even for homeowners who had installed their panels under the previous program.
The American Energy Alliance, a Koch-funded group that opposes these kinds of “net metering” programs, said Tuesday’s move “makes positive changes to protect all ratepayers.”
“Folks who have rooftop solar tend to be wealthier homeowners, so you have a situation where the poor and middle class are paying for the wealthy to have solar power,” AEA spokesman Chris Warren said.
Solar companies like SolarCity and Sunrun have blossomed in recent years by installing panels on homeowners’ roofs at no cost, and then charging a monthly leasing fee that is typically lower than residents’ monthly utility bill. But those energy cost savings will disappear after the state commission decided to cut the payment to homeowners by 75 percent, from the retail power price to the wholesale level. NV Energy can also charge rooftop solar owners a fee for allowing them to sell power to the grid.
Sunrun quickly blasted the Public Utility Commission, saying it “ignored months of public input and over 30,000 public comments and voted in favor of solar fees.”
The company, which has filed a lawsuit against Sandoval to obtain records about his interactions with NV Energy, said its industry group The Alliance for Solar Choice planned to file a lawsuit challenging Tuesday’s PUC action.
The Nevada utility commission’s decision does not affect large-scale solar power plants that supply electricity to utilities, like the $1 billion Crescent Dunes solar project partly financed by President Barack Obama’s stimulus program, and NV Energy is a major purchaser from them.
Earlier this month, Congress agreed as part of the omnibus budget package to extend a federal tax credit for solar power to 2022, an incentive the industry has said was crucial to keeping it on a path that would make it economically viable without subsidies.
That federal victory for solar power comes as a rising number of states try to adapt their energy policies to accommodate the rising pressure from homeowners and greens – as well as libertarian groups like Georgia’s Green Tea movement – to foster more growth of rooftop solar.
Another fight is playing out in Florida where a group of tea-party, environmental and solar advocates are seeking a ballot measure for 2016 that would prevent the state from regulating small solar installation. Utilities there are pushing a rival ballot initiative that would keep in place the current system that requires homeowners to sell power to the utility.
The cost to install rooftop solar installations has dropped by half in the past five years, and the rooftop companies had put panels on nearly 800,000 homes and business across the country by mid-2015.
But the success of leasing business mode has prompted utilities to push back against the net metering policies, which threaten to eat away at their business growth while increasing their costs.
By the end of 2015, total solar power capacity in the United States is expected to be near 28,000 megawatts, or enough to supply some 5.6 million homes. Still, even with the fast-paced growth, solar power provides less than 2 percent of the electricity consumed in the United States.
If the Grinch Brothers have their way, future growth of solar power in the United States will depend on their ability to steal the sun and sell it back to consumers – to sell it back to you.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"... it is possible that many on the Christian right do not believe in freedom of religion and instead want America to be a Christian nation (by which they mean their particular brand of Christianity) that is intolerant of the beliefs of others ..." I would say that is more than "possible".
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* The problem is the "Christian" right is Wrong. And they are not even Crhsitian. Most of the them are Dominionionists not Christian, They are instead a group of control freaks who mistake control for religion.
* If any type of invisible god Thingy exists let him/her speak now or forever hold their peace.
* We are. That's why are are working to stop the State from inflicting it's atheist world view into the faith of our children and our churches.
* Where is the state imposing it's atheist view ? The state cannot impose ANY religious view period!! They aren't imposing an atheist view on anybody.
* So why are trying to force your beliefs on others? The Ten Commandments on government grounds? Altering the Pledge of Alligence to add the words "Under God" (done to annoy those 'Godless' communists.) You complain about a 'War on Christianity," but you have no trouble with a war on other religions.
* These christians think some Jewish dude became undead and flew off 2,000 years ago. You can't expect them to be able to reason because they don't even understand dead and gravity.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Keeping Church and State Separate
By John W. Traphagan, January 1, 2016
On January 1, 1802, President Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, who had requested clarification about the meaning of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Jefferson described the Establishment Clause of First Amendment by writing, "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
A wall of separation between church and state. This is a very strong statement, very clear in meaning. First of all, it means that the government cannot make laws that favor one religion over any other, because it cannot make laws related to the establishment of a religion or the free expression of religious beliefs. Therefore, individuals can pray in school, but public schools cannot require people to pray. The government cannot endorse any particular religion -- meaning there can be no copies of the Ten Commandments in front of schools, nor nativity scenes in government buildings, nor Buddha statues in front of government offices.
Religious leaders and their followers should relish in this wall of separation, rather than trying to knock it down. Why? Because it is there not only to keep religion out of government, but to keep government out of religion. The wall of separation goes both ways; the Establishment Clause protects not only the government from meddling by religious organizations, but protects religious organizations from interference with the practice of their beliefs by government as long as those beliefs do not require actions, like human sacrifice, that break laws not related to religious practice.
Clearly from the perspective of Jefferson, as was the case with many of his peers, the fledgling U.S. was not intended to be a country with any particular religion -- and certainly not a Christian country. The objective was to create an environment in which people were free to believe what they want without the government getting in the way; the best way to do that is to keep church and state apart.
Jefferson was committed to this separation because he had little faith in the capacity of a government run or even influenced by religious leaders to protect individual rights and ensure liberty for all. In a letter to Horatio Spafford in March of 1814, Jefferson wrote, "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. Hi is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."
Nothing has changed as far as the truth of Jefferson's sentiments and the need to preserve the wall of separation between church and state as of 2016. Religious symbols, icons and phrases -- not just Christian, but any religion -- should be kept out of government buildings and organized prayer should be kept out of schools. This protects our freedoms, including the freedom of those who believe in ideas presented in documents like the Ten Commandments or the Lotus Sutra.
Those on the Christian right who would break down this wall of separation are doing a disservice to themselves, because the loss of the separation between church and state weakens the capacity of the government to protect the rights of anyone to practice their religious beliefs freely. Of course, it is possible that many on the Christian right do not believe in freedom of religion and instead want America to be a Christian nation (by which they mean their particular brand of Christianity) that is intolerant of the beliefs of others, whether Buddhist, Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, atheist or anything else.
If that is the case, then they do not support freedom of religion and, thus, do not support the Constitution and the principles upon which the United States was founded. That is their right as citizens of a free country. And the First Amendment, including the Establishment Clause, is the basis upon which that right is protected by the government. Such protection is the primary job of the government in a free society; it is not to support any particular religion.
Members of the Christian right should be among the strongest supporters of the Establishment Clause, because it allows them to believe what they want, even if what they want is anathema to freedom of religion.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* The problem is the "Christian" right is Wrong. And they are not even Crhsitian. Most of the them are Dominionionists not Christian, They are instead a group of control freaks who mistake control for religion.
* If any type of invisible god Thingy exists let him/her speak now or forever hold their peace.
* We are. That's why are are working to stop the State from inflicting it's atheist world view into the faith of our children and our churches.
* Where is the state imposing it's atheist view ? The state cannot impose ANY religious view period!! They aren't imposing an atheist view on anybody.
* So why are trying to force your beliefs on others? The Ten Commandments on government grounds? Altering the Pledge of Alligence to add the words "Under God" (done to annoy those 'Godless' communists.) You complain about a 'War on Christianity," but you have no trouble with a war on other religions.
* These christians think some Jewish dude became undead and flew off 2,000 years ago. You can't expect them to be able to reason because they don't even understand dead and gravity.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Keeping Church and State Separate
By John W. Traphagan, January 1, 2016
On January 1, 1802, President Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, who had requested clarification about the meaning of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Jefferson described the Establishment Clause of First Amendment by writing, "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
A wall of separation between church and state. This is a very strong statement, very clear in meaning. First of all, it means that the government cannot make laws that favor one religion over any other, because it cannot make laws related to the establishment of a religion or the free expression of religious beliefs. Therefore, individuals can pray in school, but public schools cannot require people to pray. The government cannot endorse any particular religion -- meaning there can be no copies of the Ten Commandments in front of schools, nor nativity scenes in government buildings, nor Buddha statues in front of government offices.
Religious leaders and their followers should relish in this wall of separation, rather than trying to knock it down. Why? Because it is there not only to keep religion out of government, but to keep government out of religion. The wall of separation goes both ways; the Establishment Clause protects not only the government from meddling by religious organizations, but protects religious organizations from interference with the practice of their beliefs by government as long as those beliefs do not require actions, like human sacrifice, that break laws not related to religious practice.
Clearly from the perspective of Jefferson, as was the case with many of his peers, the fledgling U.S. was not intended to be a country with any particular religion -- and certainly not a Christian country. The objective was to create an environment in which people were free to believe what they want without the government getting in the way; the best way to do that is to keep church and state apart.
Jefferson was committed to this separation because he had little faith in the capacity of a government run or even influenced by religious leaders to protect individual rights and ensure liberty for all. In a letter to Horatio Spafford in March of 1814, Jefferson wrote, "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. Hi is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."
Nothing has changed as far as the truth of Jefferson's sentiments and the need to preserve the wall of separation between church and state as of 2016. Religious symbols, icons and phrases -- not just Christian, but any religion -- should be kept out of government buildings and organized prayer should be kept out of schools. This protects our freedoms, including the freedom of those who believe in ideas presented in documents like the Ten Commandments or the Lotus Sutra.
Those on the Christian right who would break down this wall of separation are doing a disservice to themselves, because the loss of the separation between church and state weakens the capacity of the government to protect the rights of anyone to practice their religious beliefs freely. Of course, it is possible that many on the Christian right do not believe in freedom of religion and instead want America to be a Christian nation (by which they mean their particular brand of Christianity) that is intolerant of the beliefs of others, whether Buddhist, Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, atheist or anything else.
If that is the case, then they do not support freedom of religion and, thus, do not support the Constitution and the principles upon which the United States was founded. That is their right as citizens of a free country. And the First Amendment, including the Establishment Clause, is the basis upon which that right is protected by the government. Such protection is the primary job of the government in a free society; it is not to support any particular religion.
Members of the Christian right should be among the strongest supporters of the Establishment Clause, because it allows them to believe what they want, even if what they want is anathema to freedom of religion.
...................................................................................................................................................................
The skywriters over the Rose Parade are winners!
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COMMENTS:
* Anybody but a toupee for president. Trump has no class. There is a reason why he got rejected from the Mayflower crowd country clubs in the 1980's. He's junk and innately stupid. Trump at best is a carnival barker of a human being who is marginally clever.
* Man, those skywriters got it right.
* That's one of the best Happy New Years message if I ever knew of any!
* Calling trump disgusting is an insult to the word disgusting.
* The more messages that accurately depict Donald Trump the better. He is by far one of the most disgusting individuals to ever run for president.
* I would like to buy those skywriters some beers. Cheers
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Skywriters Stole the Show at the Rose Parade With This Message for Donald Trump
By Marie Solis, January 1, 2016
Most of us must resort to shouting our political beliefs at the television screen during presidential debates, or posting rants to our Facebook timelines. But on Friday at the parade, one group's message for Donald Trump was sky high.
Against the stark blue California sky, skywriters wrote, "America is great! Trump is disgusting," "Anyone but Trump" and "Trump is a fascist dictator." CNN reported that the identity of these gutsy pilots remains unknown, but a national aerial advertising firm called Air Sign took credit for the scheme on Twitter. They thanked users for sharing photos and encouraged them to visit the website AnybodyButTrump.us.
Not everyone is sure yet of what's going on, but the skywriters have become heroes without capes for some parade goers.
Because few things bring people together like a common enemy.
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Skywriters target Trump in aerial Rose Parade protest
By Diana Crandall, January 1, 2016
Five planes flew over the annual Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, on Friday writing messages in the sky that included "America is great! Trump is disgusting. Anybody but Trump, US," as onlookers craned their necks for a view.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the airborne protest, targeting Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, which coincided with the end of the New Year's Day event that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to Pasadena, north of Los Angeles.
A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The billionaire businessman is seeking his party's nomination for the November presidential election.
Security on the ground for the parade had been tight, with some 700,000 spectators expected to throng the 5-1/2-mile (9-km) route of the 127th Tournament of Roses Parade, which is followed by the 102nd Rose Bowl college football game.
Spurred by last month's deadly mass shooting in nearby San Bernardino, more than two dozen federal agencies joined forces with police for the largest security operation in the history of the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl.
Many of those in the crowd looked skyward as the aircraft left their short-lived statements against a deep blue backdrop.
The planes circled for almost an hour after the parade of flower-adorned floats and marching bands finished, writing variations on a theme that included messages such as "Trump is delusional," and "Trump is a fascist dictator."
Many parade-watchers turned their cellphones to the sky to try to record and share images of the event on social media. It was not immediately clear if any of the television cameras that covered the procession live caught the protest.
Parade officials watching nearby said they did not know who was responsible for the flyover, and messages to other officials seeking details were not immediately returned.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Anybody but a toupee for president. Trump has no class. There is a reason why he got rejected from the Mayflower crowd country clubs in the 1980's. He's junk and innately stupid. Trump at best is a carnival barker of a human being who is marginally clever.
* Man, those skywriters got it right.
* That's one of the best Happy New Years message if I ever knew of any!
* Calling trump disgusting is an insult to the word disgusting.
* The more messages that accurately depict Donald Trump the better. He is by far one of the most disgusting individuals to ever run for president.
* I would like to buy those skywriters some beers. Cheers
...................................................................................................................................................................
Skywriters Stole the Show at the Rose Parade With This Message for Donald Trump
By Marie Solis, January 1, 2016
Most of us must resort to shouting our political beliefs at the television screen during presidential debates, or posting rants to our Facebook timelines. But on Friday at the parade, one group's message for Donald Trump was sky high.
Against the stark blue California sky, skywriters wrote, "America is great! Trump is disgusting," "Anyone but Trump" and "Trump is a fascist dictator." CNN reported that the identity of these gutsy pilots remains unknown, but a national aerial advertising firm called Air Sign took credit for the scheme on Twitter. They thanked users for sharing photos and encouraged them to visit the website AnybodyButTrump.us.
Not everyone is sure yet of what's going on, but the skywriters have become heroes without capes for some parade goers.
Because few things bring people together like a common enemy.
There's a true American patriot in the sky over the #RoseParade today! #AnybodyButTrump pic.twitter.com/pATF6xLjwM
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXp7xhkUEAEz9gm.jpg:large
One of the best 'floats' at Rose Parade! #anybodybuttrump #roseparade pic.twitter.com/Io1ZKu8j5b
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXp2JJGVAAE7Epo.jpg:large
Faith in America is restored. This is being written in the sky above the Rose Bowl Parade #AnybodyButTrump pic.twitter.com/QgL0SoRWK5
Incredible site this morning. #skywriting #Pasadena #anybodybuttrump pic.twitter.com/IvXlaivYgp...................................................................................................................................................................
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXp_Uu_UAAAVNio.jpg:large
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Skywriters target Trump in aerial Rose Parade protest
By Diana Crandall, January 1, 2016
Five planes flew over the annual Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, on Friday writing messages in the sky that included "America is great! Trump is disgusting. Anybody but Trump, US," as onlookers craned their necks for a view.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the airborne protest, targeting Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, which coincided with the end of the New Year's Day event that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to Pasadena, north of Los Angeles.
A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The billionaire businessman is seeking his party's nomination for the November presidential election.
Security on the ground for the parade had been tight, with some 700,000 spectators expected to throng the 5-1/2-mile (9-km) route of the 127th Tournament of Roses Parade, which is followed by the 102nd Rose Bowl college football game.
Spurred by last month's deadly mass shooting in nearby San Bernardino, more than two dozen federal agencies joined forces with police for the largest security operation in the history of the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl.
Many of those in the crowd looked skyward as the aircraft left their short-lived statements against a deep blue backdrop.
The planes circled for almost an hour after the parade of flower-adorned floats and marching bands finished, writing variations on a theme that included messages such as "Trump is delusional," and "Trump is a fascist dictator."
Many parade-watchers turned their cellphones to the sky to try to record and share images of the event on social media. It was not immediately clear if any of the television cameras that covered the procession live caught the protest.
Parade officials watching nearby said they did not know who was responsible for the flyover, and messages to other officials seeking details were not immediately returned.
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