Friday, May 29, 2015
Sure seems to be the situation!
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Thursday, May 28, 2015
Aw, too bad, Rick: "The applause was merely polite."
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Rick Santorum Reinvents Himself, and the Right Shies Away
By Trip Gabriel, May 28, 2015
As Rick Santorum prepares to officially enter the 2016 race on Wednesday night, a favorite parlor game of Republican insiders is explaining his plummet from the heights of 2012, when he won 11 state caucuses and primaries, to the indifference of voters today, as reflected in polls.
Among the explanations: Mr. Santorum’s success last time was mainly a fluke. This time, there are many more capable contenders. Voters want a fresh face, not a blast from the past.
But seldom does one hear what may be an equally likely explanation: Mr. Santorum’s reinvention from a cultural warrior to a working-class hero is not catching on.
Last year, Mr. Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, published “Blue Collar Conservatives,’’ a campaign manifesto arguing that Republicans should not cede the issue of middle-class income stagnation to Democrats. He wrote of laid-off factory workers who toil at “part-time jobs at big-box stores.’’
In campaign appearances, Mr. Santorum can seem either brave or crazy for ignoring red-meat social issues in favor of economic policies that go against his party’s usual views: raising the minimum wage, support for the Export-Import Bank.
Mr. Santorum, the grandson of a coal miner from western Pennsylvania, seems to come by his populism honestly, which also includes opposition to immigration policies encouraging competition for low-wage jobs. But there is little evidence that his economic message is winning him supporters.
At a joint appearance with former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas last week in Cedar Falls, Iowa, speaking to about 100 social conservatives who had elbowed their way past scores of gay rights protesters, Mr. Huckabee pumped up the crowd by warning that “religious liberty” was in dire jeopardy from “nine unelected people in black robes.’’ The crowd loved it.
Mr. Santorum, by contrast, spent his time onstage criticizing the Republican Party for championing business owners rather than the people who work for them.
“It’s hard for us to listen to,’’ he scolded, “but we have seen the wealthy do much better over the last six years,’’
Conservatives, he said, needed to address the issue or “we will be in trouble.’’
The applause was merely polite.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Rick Santorum Reinvents Himself, and the Right Shies Away
By Trip Gabriel, May 28, 2015
As Rick Santorum prepares to officially enter the 2016 race on Wednesday night, a favorite parlor game of Republican insiders is explaining his plummet from the heights of 2012, when he won 11 state caucuses and primaries, to the indifference of voters today, as reflected in polls.
Among the explanations: Mr. Santorum’s success last time was mainly a fluke. This time, there are many more capable contenders. Voters want a fresh face, not a blast from the past.
But seldom does one hear what may be an equally likely explanation: Mr. Santorum’s reinvention from a cultural warrior to a working-class hero is not catching on.
Last year, Mr. Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, published “Blue Collar Conservatives,’’ a campaign manifesto arguing that Republicans should not cede the issue of middle-class income stagnation to Democrats. He wrote of laid-off factory workers who toil at “part-time jobs at big-box stores.’’
In campaign appearances, Mr. Santorum can seem either brave or crazy for ignoring red-meat social issues in favor of economic policies that go against his party’s usual views: raising the minimum wage, support for the Export-Import Bank.
Mr. Santorum, the grandson of a coal miner from western Pennsylvania, seems to come by his populism honestly, which also includes opposition to immigration policies encouraging competition for low-wage jobs. But there is little evidence that his economic message is winning him supporters.
At a joint appearance with former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas last week in Cedar Falls, Iowa, speaking to about 100 social conservatives who had elbowed their way past scores of gay rights protesters, Mr. Huckabee pumped up the crowd by warning that “religious liberty” was in dire jeopardy from “nine unelected people in black robes.’’ The crowd loved it.
Mr. Santorum, by contrast, spent his time onstage criticizing the Republican Party for championing business owners rather than the people who work for them.
“It’s hard for us to listen to,’’ he scolded, “but we have seen the wealthy do much better over the last six years,’’
Conservatives, he said, needed to address the issue or “we will be in trouble.’’
The applause was merely polite.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"... Bernie Sanders's platform is ... pretty sane."
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The crazy thing about Bernie Sanders's plan to save America
By Jonathan Allen, May 27, 2015
The crazy thing about Bernie Sanders's platform is that it's pretty sane. The Vermont senator has always been something of an iconoclast, partly because he's identified himself as a socialist Democrat and won House and Senate races as an independent.
But the political pendulum has swung toward the Vermonter's view of the world, and while he's one heck of a long shot to even make waves in the Democratic presidential primary, everything he talked about in his official announcement is well within the foul lines of American politics.
"If you're born poor today, you're more likely to stay poor," Republican Jeb Bush said last month. "We need to deal with this."
Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have talked about it.
And Hillary Clinton's staking a good portion of her campaign on closing those gaps.
Aside from the merits of fairness, there's a good political reason to talk about changing the distribution of wealth and income in the US (though Sanders is much more likely to talk about wealth than other candidates), as this Gallup survey shows.
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The percentage of Americans who believe wealth should be more evenly distributed is growing. Gallup
Okay, so don't expect Republican candidates to attack the Koch brothers as they vie for vital financial backing. But Clinton has made campaign finance reform one of the four pillars of her campaign. It is, at the very least, turf she feels safe taking in a general election.
While some Republican candidates, including Jeb Bush, have struggled at times to enunciate clear views on dealing with climate change, a majority of the rank and file believe that global warming will be a serious threat in the future, according to a New York Times/Stanford University poll in January.
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3729472/Screen%20Shot%202015-05-26%20at%207.11.32%20PM.png)
The New York Times
54 percent of Republicans say global warming will be a very serious or somewhat serious threat in the future.
Again, don't expect Republicans to jump at the idea of how Sanders would pay for it: a financial transactions tax. That comes straight out of the playbook of John Maynard Keynes. And this is the place where Sanders's spending and taxing plans put him furthest afield of the presidential candidates. But Europe has adopted the approach, and both the tax and the infrastructure spending have gained traction among Democrats. Larry Summers and Joseph Stiglitz, both of whom advise Hillary Clinton on economics, have at times supported the idea of a financial transactions tax — Stiglitz recently and Summers long ago.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland — nobody's idea of a radical — introduced a version of the tax this year as a way of reducing risk on Wall Street. Sure, he's trying to show he's liberal enough to win the Democratic Senate primary in Maryland, but he also voted for the Wall Street bailout in 2008.
At $200 billion a year, Sanders is looking to roughly double the size of the federal investment in infrastructure over a five-year period. That's a serious increase that would make up for what has been a sharp decline in spending on highways and water projects over the past several years. Federal spending on transportation and water infrastructure peaked at $122 billion in 2002 in terms of 2014 dollars, according to the Congressional Budget Office. By 2014, that number was down to $96 billion.
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3729506/Screen%20Shot%202015-05-26%20at%207.36.02%20PM.png)
Congressional Budget Office
All in all, it's a pretty standard liberal Democratic platform. It goes further on taxing, spending, and government intervention in the marketplace than most politicians, or even most Democrats, would embrace on the stump. But it's just not that far out
...................................................................................................................................................................
The crazy thing about Bernie Sanders's plan to save America
By Jonathan Allen, May 27, 2015
The crazy thing about Bernie Sanders's platform is that it's pretty sane. The Vermont senator has always been something of an iconoclast, partly because he's identified himself as a socialist Democrat and won House and Senate races as an independent.
But the political pendulum has swung toward the Vermonter's view of the world, and while he's one heck of a long shot to even make waves in the Democratic presidential primary, everything he talked about in his official announcement is well within the foul lines of American politics.
- "The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time, it is the great economic issue of our time, and it is the great political issue of our time. And we will address it," Sanders said.
"If you're born poor today, you're more likely to stay poor," Republican Jeb Bush said last month. "We need to deal with this."
Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have talked about it.
And Hillary Clinton's staking a good portion of her campaign on closing those gaps.
Aside from the merits of fairness, there's a good political reason to talk about changing the distribution of wealth and income in the US (though Sanders is much more likely to talk about wealth than other candidates), as this Gallup survey shows.
The percentage of Americans who believe wealth should be more evenly distributed is growing. Gallup
- "As a result of the disastrous Supreme Court decision on Citizens United, the American political system has been totally corrupted and the foundations of American democracy are being undermined," Sanders said, according to his prepared remarks. "According to media reports the Koch brothers alone, one family, will spend more money in this election cycle than either the Democratic or Republican parties. This is not democracy. This is oligarchy."
Okay, so don't expect Republican candidates to attack the Koch brothers as they vie for vital financial backing. But Clinton has made campaign finance reform one of the four pillars of her campaign. It is, at the very least, turf she feels safe taking in a general election.
- "The scientific community has spoken in a virtually unanimous voice. Climate change is real. It is caused by human activity, and it is already causing devastating problems in the United States and around the world," Sanders said.
While some Republican candidates, including Jeb Bush, have struggled at times to enunciate clear views on dealing with climate change, a majority of the rank and file believe that global warming will be a serious threat in the future, according to a New York Times/Stanford University poll in January.
The New York Times
54 percent of Republicans say global warming will be a very serious or somewhat serious threat in the future.
- "I’ve introduced legislation which would invest $1 trillion over five years to modernize our country’s physical infrastructure," Sanders said. "This legislation would create and maintain at least 13 million good-paying jobs while making our country more productive, efficient and safe. And I promise you as president I will lead that legislation into law."
Again, don't expect Republicans to jump at the idea of how Sanders would pay for it: a financial transactions tax. That comes straight out of the playbook of John Maynard Keynes. And this is the place where Sanders's spending and taxing plans put him furthest afield of the presidential candidates. But Europe has adopted the approach, and both the tax and the infrastructure spending have gained traction among Democrats. Larry Summers and Joseph Stiglitz, both of whom advise Hillary Clinton on economics, have at times supported the idea of a financial transactions tax — Stiglitz recently and Summers long ago.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland — nobody's idea of a radical — introduced a version of the tax this year as a way of reducing risk on Wall Street. Sure, he's trying to show he's liberal enough to win the Democratic Senate primary in Maryland, but he also voted for the Wall Street bailout in 2008.
At $200 billion a year, Sanders is looking to roughly double the size of the federal investment in infrastructure over a five-year period. That's a serious increase that would make up for what has been a sharp decline in spending on highways and water projects over the past several years. Federal spending on transportation and water infrastructure peaked at $122 billion in 2002 in terms of 2014 dollars, according to the Congressional Budget Office. By 2014, that number was down to $96 billion.
Congressional Budget Office
- Sanders wants to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour. His political challenge is one of degree, not of direction. Polls have consistently shown a majority of Americans back an increase to $10.10 an hour but are less supportive of the $15 level. A Pew survey in January 2014 found that 73 percent of Americans, including 53 percent of Republicans, favored a boost to $10.10 an hour. Polls taken more recently have had similar results.
All in all, it's a pretty standard liberal Democratic platform. It goes further on taxing, spending, and government intervention in the marketplace than most politicians, or even most Democrats, would embrace on the stump. But it's just not that far out
...................................................................................................................................................................
"Attention Christians: You are not being persecuted. Allow me to repeat this because I want it to sink in. You are not being persecuted."
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COMMENTS:
* If ever there was a devil, surely it is religion,,,
* In other words your religion does not usurp my civil rights. It's time the religious bigots and their false political leaders stop living in their fantasies and catch up! The people on the extreme right are a disease that this nation needs to purge if we are to embrace a better future. It's the FALSE Christians that need to be stopped.
* It's a real hoot hearing Christians claiming that they're being persecuted by gays. Christians have executed thousands of people for disagreeing with them. How many people have gays burned at the stake for not supporting gay marriage?
* "if I discriminate against you, it is religious freedom. When you return the favor, it is persecution" - Betty Bowers
* The so-called Christians would be more credible if they actually cared about what the Bible says. Instead they just use it as a weapon to beat other people with their bigotry. [snipped] So if you're religious and you're outraged because being gay is as bad as eating lobster then you really, REALLY need to get a life and start living the life of a Christian. [snipped]
* Other people being able to marry, even if they don't conform to your religion, is not persecution. Having to treat others fairly in a public business, even if they don't conform to your religion, is not persecution.
* Every person has the right to their own religious beliefs but no one has the right to impose their religious beliefs on anyone else or even expect any one else to believe as you do. You have the right to not participate if you feel your religious beliefs don't agree with others but don't expect others not to participate because of your religious beliefs. That's just plain wrong and self centered!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* You are "preaching to the choir", Michael. The people you are directing this piece to will just, in their infinite irrationality, use this as an example of how you are persecuting them.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Searching for Freedom From Acts of Religious Freedom
By Michael Rohrer, May 28, 2015
It's time I made a statement that is extremely difficult for me to make: I can't care what the Bible says about homosexuality. I can't live with that fear anymore. It's debilitating. I wanted to say I don't care, but I couldn't...not yet. The truth is: I'm trying to convince myself that I don't care and saying I can't is the first step. It's taken me years to even get to a place where I can say that, let alone type it so that it appears in print.
Religion (that most rigid set of beliefs and practices) can be enslaving. Using the words of the Bible as a guide in life can be an uplifting experience for some. But for others like me, who suffered through those burgeoning homosexual feelings in his formative and teenage years in a sterile, God-is-omnipresent sanctuary, those biblical words can leave a mark of fear on the heart and soul that remains even after years of distance. My churchgoing experience was one filled with dread as I listened to the fire and brimstone messages being preached from the pulpit while I sat there feeling my interest in the bulge in a man's pants growing stronger than my interest in the breasts hidden beneath a woman's blouse.
I was raised a Christian, but the politics of some of today's high profile Christians toward LGBTQ people makes me question their legitimacy as true Christians. I can't empathize with them because I'm part of the demographic they're trying to hold at bay with the heel of their boots, lambasting with their verbal whips, and shouting negatively about from any media outlet rooftop that will let them. Many Christians seem to be proclaiming the intolerance of LGBTQ people. They feel they're being persecuted by us. My thoughts boil with sarcasm and venom like tar beginning to bubble in a caldron the more I read these catering-to-the-lowest-common-denominator statements about persecution. I have to keep my eyes from getting stuck in the back of my head from the perpetual eye roll they induce.
Attention Christians: You are not being persecuted. Allow me to repeat this because I want it to sink in. You are not being persecuted. Please excuse me while I get a Botox injection to smooth out the crease between my eyes from the absolute confusion the thought of LGBTQ people persecuting Christians causes my brain. I don't know how you arrived at that conclusion, but I'm reminded of the fabulous yet eccentric Little Edie Beale of Grey Gardens fame, speaking of her creative outfits saying, "I have to think these things up." I think you're doing just that: thinking things up. You're not being persecuted. What you are being is challenged. We LGBTQ people have to raise our voices so we can be heard over the Bible thumping and scripture spouting. Not every person in this free country of America believes in God or believes in God the same way as the next person. Get off your superior high horse.
Defending oneself is not persecution. Challenging another's beliefs is not persecution. Fighting for the rights one believes he deserves is not persecution. It's one thing to believe the words of the Bible and to live your life by those archaic laws, but to decide that those words should be the law of the land is ridiculous. A Christian's personal beliefs and practices are just that: personal. They should not be thrust upon our country as a whole, especially when one uses those beliefs to discriminate against an entire segment of the population. To me, the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts are nothing more than a disguise for discrimination against LGBTQ people. Our ability as human beings to diminish the worth, feelings, thoughts, and experiences of others lives astounds me.
For many of us, our religion -- and the beliefs and practices associated with it -- is imposed on us by our families. Once I became an adult I made the choice to leave those practices behind even as the beliefs remained, a scar on my psyche. Oh yes, I'm scarred. My life is constantly thwarted by fears of burning in hell for eternity just for being born. And now with political platforms using religious beliefs as a focal point, my waking hours are marred by nightmarish themes.
Here's a question: If the religion a man chooses to practice has no bearing on my life why should who I sleep with have any bearing on his? I wash my hands, brush my teeth, and take a shit just like everybody else -- gay or straight. I'm alive, a man who is gay. I am one person but I'm not alone in my feelings or views on this subject. I may take it more personally than others, but the oppression I feel is also within reach for many others, and the brazenness of Christians to cry persecution is laughable. I get angry at myself for allowing their words to affect me so negatively. You'd think I hadn't grown at all. I have. But the constant barrage of new bills being drawn up in an attempt to pass discrimination into law because of the words of the Bible continues to open a wound that I'm learning was merely scabbed over, never fully healed.
Stop with this bullshit already. Practice your religion however you see fit. I don't care. I'm going to live my life however I see fit. Thankfully, LGBTQ people have gotten tired of being kicked around and because of it our voices have gotten louder. You have the freedom to keep trying to stop progress and I have the freedom to keep trying to be the change I want to see in the world.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* If ever there was a devil, surely it is religion,,,
* In other words your religion does not usurp my civil rights. It's time the religious bigots and their false political leaders stop living in their fantasies and catch up! The people on the extreme right are a disease that this nation needs to purge if we are to embrace a better future. It's the FALSE Christians that need to be stopped.
* It's a real hoot hearing Christians claiming that they're being persecuted by gays. Christians have executed thousands of people for disagreeing with them. How many people have gays burned at the stake for not supporting gay marriage?
* "if I discriminate against you, it is religious freedom. When you return the favor, it is persecution" - Betty Bowers
* The so-called Christians would be more credible if they actually cared about what the Bible says. Instead they just use it as a weapon to beat other people with their bigotry. [snipped] So if you're religious and you're outraged because being gay is as bad as eating lobster then you really, REALLY need to get a life and start living the life of a Christian. [snipped]
* Other people being able to marry, even if they don't conform to your religion, is not persecution. Having to treat others fairly in a public business, even if they don't conform to your religion, is not persecution.
* Every person has the right to their own religious beliefs but no one has the right to impose their religious beliefs on anyone else or even expect any one else to believe as you do. You have the right to not participate if you feel your religious beliefs don't agree with others but don't expect others not to participate because of your religious beliefs. That's just plain wrong and self centered!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* You are "preaching to the choir", Michael. The people you are directing this piece to will just, in their infinite irrationality, use this as an example of how you are persecuting them.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Searching for Freedom From Acts of Religious Freedom
By Michael Rohrer, May 28, 2015
It's time I made a statement that is extremely difficult for me to make: I can't care what the Bible says about homosexuality. I can't live with that fear anymore. It's debilitating. I wanted to say I don't care, but I couldn't...not yet. The truth is: I'm trying to convince myself that I don't care and saying I can't is the first step. It's taken me years to even get to a place where I can say that, let alone type it so that it appears in print.
Religion (that most rigid set of beliefs and practices) can be enslaving. Using the words of the Bible as a guide in life can be an uplifting experience for some. But for others like me, who suffered through those burgeoning homosexual feelings in his formative and teenage years in a sterile, God-is-omnipresent sanctuary, those biblical words can leave a mark of fear on the heart and soul that remains even after years of distance. My churchgoing experience was one filled with dread as I listened to the fire and brimstone messages being preached from the pulpit while I sat there feeling my interest in the bulge in a man's pants growing stronger than my interest in the breasts hidden beneath a woman's blouse.
I was raised a Christian, but the politics of some of today's high profile Christians toward LGBTQ people makes me question their legitimacy as true Christians. I can't empathize with them because I'm part of the demographic they're trying to hold at bay with the heel of their boots, lambasting with their verbal whips, and shouting negatively about from any media outlet rooftop that will let them. Many Christians seem to be proclaiming the intolerance of LGBTQ people. They feel they're being persecuted by us. My thoughts boil with sarcasm and venom like tar beginning to bubble in a caldron the more I read these catering-to-the-lowest-common-denominator statements about persecution. I have to keep my eyes from getting stuck in the back of my head from the perpetual eye roll they induce.
Attention Christians: You are not being persecuted. Allow me to repeat this because I want it to sink in. You are not being persecuted. Please excuse me while I get a Botox injection to smooth out the crease between my eyes from the absolute confusion the thought of LGBTQ people persecuting Christians causes my brain. I don't know how you arrived at that conclusion, but I'm reminded of the fabulous yet eccentric Little Edie Beale of Grey Gardens fame, speaking of her creative outfits saying, "I have to think these things up." I think you're doing just that: thinking things up. You're not being persecuted. What you are being is challenged. We LGBTQ people have to raise our voices so we can be heard over the Bible thumping and scripture spouting. Not every person in this free country of America believes in God or believes in God the same way as the next person. Get off your superior high horse.
Defending oneself is not persecution. Challenging another's beliefs is not persecution. Fighting for the rights one believes he deserves is not persecution. It's one thing to believe the words of the Bible and to live your life by those archaic laws, but to decide that those words should be the law of the land is ridiculous. A Christian's personal beliefs and practices are just that: personal. They should not be thrust upon our country as a whole, especially when one uses those beliefs to discriminate against an entire segment of the population. To me, the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts are nothing more than a disguise for discrimination against LGBTQ people. Our ability as human beings to diminish the worth, feelings, thoughts, and experiences of others lives astounds me.
For many of us, our religion -- and the beliefs and practices associated with it -- is imposed on us by our families. Once I became an adult I made the choice to leave those practices behind even as the beliefs remained, a scar on my psyche. Oh yes, I'm scarred. My life is constantly thwarted by fears of burning in hell for eternity just for being born. And now with political platforms using religious beliefs as a focal point, my waking hours are marred by nightmarish themes.
Here's a question: If the religion a man chooses to practice has no bearing on my life why should who I sleep with have any bearing on his? I wash my hands, brush my teeth, and take a shit just like everybody else -- gay or straight. I'm alive, a man who is gay. I am one person but I'm not alone in my feelings or views on this subject. I may take it more personally than others, but the oppression I feel is also within reach for many others, and the brazenness of Christians to cry persecution is laughable. I get angry at myself for allowing their words to affect me so negatively. You'd think I hadn't grown at all. I have. But the constant barrage of new bills being drawn up in an attempt to pass discrimination into law because of the words of the Bible continues to open a wound that I'm learning was merely scabbed over, never fully healed.
Stop with this bullshit already. Practice your religion however you see fit. I don't care. I'm going to live my life however I see fit. Thankfully, LGBTQ people have gotten tired of being kicked around and because of it our voices have gotten louder. You have the freedom to keep trying to stop progress and I have the freedom to keep trying to be the change I want to see in the world.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Yep, Santorum has left no doubt that he's a fool!
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COMMENTS:
* Unfortunately I can respect the author of the article only had so much space and had to clip the list at 10. There are so many other acts of lunacy by Santorum.
* Ya! he is a GENIUS! These people have their own problems, obviously. He must have Gay tendencies, and be drawn to porn,,, or, why would they be so afraid of it? Why care what other people do? I don't get it.
* The Bible calls these sins and, if nothing, Santorum is strongly religious. He's what you get if you don't separate church and state. When Kennedy was elected his opponents derided him because he was Catholic, like Santorum, but Kennedy understood that to lead the country you need to consider what's best for the people not their everlasting soul. You can be an American and not religious and a President MUST represent everyone.
* Hey Santorum, ever notice that all the religious people being beheaded in other countries are beheaded by OTHER RELIGIOUS PEOPLE?
* Rick, you are washed up. You had a longer run than you really deserved. Go home and relax. There is no constituency for your brand of nonsense and hysteria.
* It is better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open ones mouth and leave no doubt.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Ten Outrageous Ideas Rick Santorum Actually Believes
By Scott Keyes, May 27, 2015
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum will announce Wednesday that he will launch another bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He will make his formal entry into the race at an event at a manufacturing company in his hometown, Butler, PA.
Now that he’s running for president again, many analysts and voters may recall Santorum’s controversial assertions during his 2011 campaign. His frequent comparisons of same-sex relationships to inanimate objects like trees, basketballs and paper towels became a major punchline of the campaign cycle.
But here are ten equally outrageous comments he’s made that you may not remember:
Putting women in combat is a bad idea because of “emotions that are involved.” Women’s “emotions” may render them unworthy soldiers and thus not fit for the battlefield, according to the former Pennsylvania senator. “People naturally may do things that may not be in the interests of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved,” Santorum said after the Pentagon eased restrictions on women in combat in 2012. He has also made dire warnings about what would happen to the military after Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed and gays were allowed to openly serve.
American culture is being corrupted by “the NBA” and “rock concerts.” According to Santorum, our culture and manners and decency have been collectively ruined by the NBA, among other culprits. These remarks came during a 2008 speech at Ave Maria University: “The corruption of culture, the corruption of manners, the corruption of decency is now on display whether it’s the NBA or whether it’s a rock concert or whether it’s on a movie set.” Of course, just like his anti-welfare rant against “blah” people, there’s certainly no racial undertone to decrying the NBA as chipping away at American culture and decent manners.
His top issue in 2012 was opposing “all forms of pornography.” During his 2012 presidential bid, Santorum vowed to oppose “all forms of pornography” if elected president. In fact, pornography was the top issue on his campaign’s website. He warned that “America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography,” which “causes profound brain changes in both children and adults, resulting in widespread negative consequences.”
Obamacare is (a) like apartheid, (b) a plot to kill the opposition’s voters, and (c) the “final death knell” of America. Santorum’s anti-Obamacare arguments regularly delve into the absurd. Following Nelson Mandela’s death, Santorum memorialized the former South African leader by noting that, like apartheid, “we have a great injustice going on right now in this country […] and Obamacare is front and center in that.” More than that, Obamacare is actually a Trojan Horse to “get rid of” voters who oppose the government, he later argued. Worst of all, Obamacare will, according to Santorum in his 2012 campaign, be the “final death knell” of America.
If you don’t have an ID, you’re trying to rig the election. More than one in ten Americans don’t have a government-issued photo identification, like a driver’s license or a passport. And, according to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice, minorities and low-income citizens are more likely than others not to have a government-issued photo ID. But to Santorum, each one of these millions of individuals aren’t disenfranchised voters; they’re out to commit fraud. “The only reason you don’t have a voter ID is you want to continue to perpetrate fraud,” he told ThinkProgress during his 2012 presidential bid.
Even if it survives Obamacare, “our country will fall” because of same-sex marriage. The government recognizing gay people’s love will be the downfall of America, according to Santorum. “The family is the bedrock of our society, unless we protect it with the institution of marriage, our country will fall,” he declared in 2011.
He believes consensual sex between gay people should be illegal. Until 2003, states were still permitted to outlaw sodomy. Though those statutes were struck down in a landmark Supreme Court case that year, as recently as 2011, Santorum was still wishing for the good old days when states could tell gay people what they can and cannot do in the bedroom. He told radio host Bradlee Dean, “[I] said this is wrong. We can’t do this, we can’t have a constitutional right to consensual sexual activity, no matter what it is.”
In Obama’s America, religious people are on “the path” to being beheaded. During a Texas town hall in 2012, Santorum predicted that America was on the road toward beheading religious people because of their faith. Discussing anti-religious sentiment during the French Revolution, Santorum argued that “we’re a long way from that, but if we do and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.”
After Jerry Sandusky sexual assault revelations, he defended Penn State. Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky is currently in prison serving a 30-60 year sentence for molesting young children. But Santorum, an alumni of Penn State, rushed to the university’s defense after an investigation found that officials had covered up evidence of Sandusky’s misdeeds. “A lot of the conclusions in the Freeh report aren’t matched by the evidence that they presented,” he declared during a radio appearance.
Health insurance companies should discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. There’s a belief among some conservatives that insurance companies should be permitted to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions, though they leave open the question of whether or not insurers ought to do that. Not Santorum. According to the former Pennsylvania senator, people with pre-existing conditions “should pay more.” After all, they’re “going to be very expensive to the insurance company and, you know, that cost is passed along to us.”
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Unfortunately I can respect the author of the article only had so much space and had to clip the list at 10. There are so many other acts of lunacy by Santorum.
* Ya! he is a GENIUS! These people have their own problems, obviously. He must have Gay tendencies, and be drawn to porn,,, or, why would they be so afraid of it? Why care what other people do? I don't get it.
* The Bible calls these sins and, if nothing, Santorum is strongly religious. He's what you get if you don't separate church and state. When Kennedy was elected his opponents derided him because he was Catholic, like Santorum, but Kennedy understood that to lead the country you need to consider what's best for the people not their everlasting soul. You can be an American and not religious and a President MUST represent everyone.
* Hey Santorum, ever notice that all the religious people being beheaded in other countries are beheaded by OTHER RELIGIOUS PEOPLE?
* Rick, you are washed up. You had a longer run than you really deserved. Go home and relax. There is no constituency for your brand of nonsense and hysteria.
* It is better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open ones mouth and leave no doubt.
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Ten Outrageous Ideas Rick Santorum Actually Believes
By Scott Keyes, May 27, 2015
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum will announce Wednesday that he will launch another bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He will make his formal entry into the race at an event at a manufacturing company in his hometown, Butler, PA.
Now that he’s running for president again, many analysts and voters may recall Santorum’s controversial assertions during his 2011 campaign. His frequent comparisons of same-sex relationships to inanimate objects like trees, basketballs and paper towels became a major punchline of the campaign cycle.
But here are ten equally outrageous comments he’s made that you may not remember:
Putting women in combat is a bad idea because of “emotions that are involved.” Women’s “emotions” may render them unworthy soldiers and thus not fit for the battlefield, according to the former Pennsylvania senator. “People naturally may do things that may not be in the interests of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved,” Santorum said after the Pentagon eased restrictions on women in combat in 2012. He has also made dire warnings about what would happen to the military after Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed and gays were allowed to openly serve.
American culture is being corrupted by “the NBA” and “rock concerts.” According to Santorum, our culture and manners and decency have been collectively ruined by the NBA, among other culprits. These remarks came during a 2008 speech at Ave Maria University: “The corruption of culture, the corruption of manners, the corruption of decency is now on display whether it’s the NBA or whether it’s a rock concert or whether it’s on a movie set.” Of course, just like his anti-welfare rant against “blah” people, there’s certainly no racial undertone to decrying the NBA as chipping away at American culture and decent manners.
His top issue in 2012 was opposing “all forms of pornography.” During his 2012 presidential bid, Santorum vowed to oppose “all forms of pornography” if elected president. In fact, pornography was the top issue on his campaign’s website. He warned that “America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography,” which “causes profound brain changes in both children and adults, resulting in widespread negative consequences.”
Obamacare is (a) like apartheid, (b) a plot to kill the opposition’s voters, and (c) the “final death knell” of America. Santorum’s anti-Obamacare arguments regularly delve into the absurd. Following Nelson Mandela’s death, Santorum memorialized the former South African leader by noting that, like apartheid, “we have a great injustice going on right now in this country […] and Obamacare is front and center in that.” More than that, Obamacare is actually a Trojan Horse to “get rid of” voters who oppose the government, he later argued. Worst of all, Obamacare will, according to Santorum in his 2012 campaign, be the “final death knell” of America.
If you don’t have an ID, you’re trying to rig the election. More than one in ten Americans don’t have a government-issued photo identification, like a driver’s license or a passport. And, according to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice, minorities and low-income citizens are more likely than others not to have a government-issued photo ID. But to Santorum, each one of these millions of individuals aren’t disenfranchised voters; they’re out to commit fraud. “The only reason you don’t have a voter ID is you want to continue to perpetrate fraud,” he told ThinkProgress during his 2012 presidential bid.
Even if it survives Obamacare, “our country will fall” because of same-sex marriage. The government recognizing gay people’s love will be the downfall of America, according to Santorum. “The family is the bedrock of our society, unless we protect it with the institution of marriage, our country will fall,” he declared in 2011.
He believes consensual sex between gay people should be illegal. Until 2003, states were still permitted to outlaw sodomy. Though those statutes were struck down in a landmark Supreme Court case that year, as recently as 2011, Santorum was still wishing for the good old days when states could tell gay people what they can and cannot do in the bedroom. He told radio host Bradlee Dean, “[I] said this is wrong. We can’t do this, we can’t have a constitutional right to consensual sexual activity, no matter what it is.”
In Obama’s America, religious people are on “the path” to being beheaded. During a Texas town hall in 2012, Santorum predicted that America was on the road toward beheading religious people because of their faith. Discussing anti-religious sentiment during the French Revolution, Santorum argued that “we’re a long way from that, but if we do and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.”
After Jerry Sandusky sexual assault revelations, he defended Penn State. Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky is currently in prison serving a 30-60 year sentence for molesting young children. But Santorum, an alumni of Penn State, rushed to the university’s defense after an investigation found that officials had covered up evidence of Sandusky’s misdeeds. “A lot of the conclusions in the Freeh report aren’t matched by the evidence that they presented,” he declared during a radio appearance.
Health insurance companies should discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. There’s a belief among some conservatives that insurance companies should be permitted to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions, though they leave open the question of whether or not insurers ought to do that. Not Santorum. According to the former Pennsylvania senator, people with pre-existing conditions “should pay more.” After all, they’re “going to be very expensive to the insurance company and, you know, that cost is passed along to us.”
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"The recent gaffes on Fox News by Republican candidates are ... because even a softball question can trip up a candidate not ready for prime time." We know of course that the GOP is not ready for prime time.
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COMMENTS:
* Their Keystone cops candidates just can't help shooting themselves in the foot. It's in their DNA.
* GOP Clown Car show is getting bigger and bigger... Fun to watch.
* Can't wait to see the GOP spin on this article: "The liberal media is using mind control on Fox News to make them ask mean questions that make our candidates look stupid!"
* What was even funnier is that rubio got to watch bush stumble around for five days and still stepped on the same rake on chris wallace's show
* "It's the media's fault!" -- Every Republican Who Has Ever Said Anything Stupid, Ever
* Republicans hate people who report facts thats why they love fox news
* Right now, Fox is the only thing keeping the GOP together. As it is, I fully expect the GOP to schism into sane and insane wings. It's going to be interesting to see which one Fox backs.
* In the end, who cares? FOX news is just infortainment for the old and the stupid. Nobody with a life outside cable news cares about it.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Fox News Eats Its Own
The GOP’s worst enemy is turning out to be the friendliest network.
By Bill Scher, May 27, 2015
The Republican National Committee triumphantly seized control of the debates last year, saying it would not allow a repeat of 2012, when “the liberal media interrogated our candidates on issues that were often not a priority to most Americans. … We need more conservatives … in the moderator’s chair.”
But what was a play to keep their candidates safe inside a conservative cocoon now looks like a trap. The first Republican presidential debate will air on Fox News and will be moderated by Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace—who happen to be the same three anchors that have provoked three Republican candidates into embarrassing gaffes this month. Turns out Fox News’ anchors can make Republican candidates look just as bad as MSNBC’s.
The RNC sought to install more “conservatives in the moderator’s chair” because conservatives still are nursing grudges against some of the 2012 primary debate moderators. When ABC’s George Stephanopoulos pressed Mitt Romney on whether “states have the right to ban contraception,” conservatives blamed the “liberal media” for asking an irrelevant question. When CNN’s John King opened a debate by asking Newt Gingrich about allegations leveled by his ex-wife, Gingrich brought the crowd to its feet by chastising King and lambasting “the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans.”
At least in those instances, Republicans could try the “blame the media” strategy to limit the damage. This year, when Republicans shoot themselves in the foot on the debate stage, they won’t have that option.
The recent gaffes on Fox News by Republican candidates are not because Fox News journalists are suddenly out to get Republicans. It’s because even a softball question can trip up a candidate not ready for prime time. Megyn Kelly’s interview of Jeb Bush was the journalistic equivalent of a warm hug. Her simple Iraq question—“Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?”—was only a couple of notches tougher than Katie Couric’s “What newspapers and magazines did you regularly read?”
After Jeb’s initial answer, which skipped past the hindsight premise, Kelly conversationally and neutrally asked for a clarification, “You don't think it was a mistake?” When Jeb was done, she breezily moved on to a new line of questioning well-suited for Fox: “Do you feel that America's place in the world has diminished under President Obama?”
But Fox News teased the Iraq clip before the full interview aired, sparking a media firestorm. Rivals Chris Christie and Ted Cruz, both fervent hawks, jumped in front of the microphone to proclaim they would not have invaded. Influential conservative radio talker Laura Ingraham was incredulous: “You have to have [a nominee] who says, ‘Look, I’m a Republican but I’m not an idiot … I learn from the past.’”
Trying to clean up his mess a couple of days later, Bush ran to what should have been safe ground, Fox News’ Sean Hannity. The host functioned less as a journalist than as a friend helping a friend in need. He first suggested “the media” interpreted Bush wrong and so “I wanted to see if I could clarify that.” After Bush failed to actually clarify, Hannity threw him a second lifeline, “So in other words, with 20/20 hindsight, you would make a different decision.” Bush whiffed the softball, saying, “I don’t know what that decision would have been.”
Unlike the Kelly and Hannity chats, Chris Wallace’s recent interview with Marco Rubio was truly aggressive. He wouldn’t let up over Rubio’s abandonment of the Senate immigration bill for which he voted: “You bailed on comprehensive immigration reform. … Aren't leaders supposed to shape public opinion rather than just follow it? … Shouldn't you have campaigned for this?” He also busted Rubio for a “dramatic shift” in his foreign policy rhetoric, backing off his 2012 support for Iran negotiations and forgoing earlier assurances he was “not a saber-rattling person.”
And those barbs were just the warm-up for the three-minute raking over Iraq. As Wallace bore into Rubio’s varying responses, the unprepared Senate freshman dug himself into a hole by pleading semantic differences regarding questions about whether Iraq was a mistake and whether he’d have invaded knowing what we know now. Relentless, Wallace asked Rubio about seven times “Was it a mistake?” And he refused to let Rubio answer it with caveats, cutting him off with “I'm not asking you that.”
If Wallace were not working for Rupert Murdoch, the loaded questions, opinionated assertions and repeated interruptions would earn Wallace a lifetime membership in the Liberal Media Elite Club.
You can expect Wallace to be similarly unforgiving at the inaugural debate. In fact it was four Augusts ago when Wallace was the foil for Gingrich’s first public haranguing of a debate moderator. (He did not care for what he called a “gotcha question”: “How do you respond to people who say that your campaign has been a mess so far?”) Gingrich was not alone. Wallace dredged up Mitt Romney’s record of layoffs and Herman Cain’s litany of amateurish remarks. Candidates who expect to get a free ride from Wallace will quickly become debate roadkill.
Steeling for Wallace is one thing. The trickier challenge Republicans may face is the unassuming Bret Baier. Consider how he tripped up Scott Walker earlier this month.
Back in March, Walker bluntly renounced his past support for giving undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship in a Fox News interview with Wallace: “My view has changed. I'm flat out saying it.”
Baier picked up the thread in as magnanimous a fashion as possible, telling Walker: “You’ve admitted that you’ve changed your position on immigration. People understand that in the context of President Obama’s executive action, and why you might do that."
Following a question about Walker’s more recent statements about restricting legal immigration, Baier returned to the policy shift, with a little more english: “If you’re willing to flip-flop, for [lack] of a better word, on such an important issue like this, how can voters be sure that you’re not going to change your position on some other big issue?” But Baier’s tone was still friendly, and Walker glibly responded, “There’s not a flip out there.” His past comments were made when he was in executive branch positions, and in Walker’s dictionary, “A flip would be someone who voted on something and did something different, and these are not votes.”
Despite Walker redefining “flip-flop” to render out of bounds any utterance made by politicians outside of the legislative branch, Baier let it lie and moved on to the next topic. But other observers picked up on it, including conservatives like National Review editor Eliana Johnson, who sensed that “He doesn’t even look quite serious as he’s saying it,” and Daily Caller writer Matt Lewis, who said “This is almost a Clinton-esque ability to spin.”
If Baier lulled Walker into letting down his guard and believing he could get away with undercooked talking points while inside the friendly confines of Fox, that may have been Baier’s plan. In 2011, after Baier got under Mitt Romney’s skin by asking about flip-flops, POLITICO profiled Baier’s interview style: “A Republican consultant … called Baier ‘a Boy Scout with a very sharp knife … He lulls [interviewees] into a false sense of security … He’s the most gentle of all the anchors on cable, but he’s tougher. People let their guard down.’”
But it’s not just Baier who makes Republicans too comfortable for their own good. The entire Fox News operation can feel like a Republican clubhouse. Instead of preparing for a high-stakes interview, candidates act like they’re coming over for a drink. In turn, they don’t prepare tight answers for predictable questions. They offer weak spin, thinking (often correctly) the Fox News umpires won’t directly call them on it and the average Fox News viewer will be forgiving toward a home team player.
The problem is that sometimes a Fox News anchor can surprise (the New York Times Magazine published a profile centered on such “Megyn moments”). Even if the anchor doesn’t, any embarrassing video clip can go viral and go beyond the Fox News audience. And considering that Republican primary voters aren’t sold on any presidential possibility—no one cleared 15 percent in the latest Fox News poll—perhaps the candidates should assume that even the reddest Tea Partier wants to see them put through their paces.
It’s worth recalling that the subtle Baier ensnared the entire Republican field four years ago. At an August 2011 debate, another panelist asked a candidate if there was “any ratio of [spending] cuts to taxes that you would accept” in a bipartisan budget compromise. Baier is the one who sharpened the hypothetical and put it to everyone: “Can you raise your hand if you feel so strongly about not raising taxes, you'd walk away on the 10-to-1 deal?”
Everyone raised their hand. And why not? In Baier’s Fox-friendly premise, it was proof that “you feel so strongly about not raising taxes.” But outside the building, the spectacle solidified the image of a party incapable of compromise.
That’s what the 10 Republicans who make the cut and are allowed on the debate stage really need to guard against. It’s easy to tell when a Chris Wallace fastball is aimed at your head. But the candidates need to be careful not to swing too quickly when what looks like a softball is lobbed over the plate.
One thing is for sure. If the RNC and the presidential candidates thought beginning its debate season on Fox News would be like spring training, the recent spate of gaffes committed on Fox News should be a wake-up call that everyone needs to get into shape a lot faster.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Their Keystone cops candidates just can't help shooting themselves in the foot. It's in their DNA.
* GOP Clown Car show is getting bigger and bigger... Fun to watch.
* Can't wait to see the GOP spin on this article: "The liberal media is using mind control on Fox News to make them ask mean questions that make our candidates look stupid!"
* What was even funnier is that rubio got to watch bush stumble around for five days and still stepped on the same rake on chris wallace's show
* "It's the media's fault!" -- Every Republican Who Has Ever Said Anything Stupid, Ever
* Republicans hate people who report facts thats why they love fox news
* Right now, Fox is the only thing keeping the GOP together. As it is, I fully expect the GOP to schism into sane and insane wings. It's going to be interesting to see which one Fox backs.
* In the end, who cares? FOX news is just infortainment for the old and the stupid. Nobody with a life outside cable news cares about it.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Fox News Eats Its Own
The GOP’s worst enemy is turning out to be the friendliest network.
By Bill Scher, May 27, 2015
The Republican National Committee triumphantly seized control of the debates last year, saying it would not allow a repeat of 2012, when “the liberal media interrogated our candidates on issues that were often not a priority to most Americans. … We need more conservatives … in the moderator’s chair.”
But what was a play to keep their candidates safe inside a conservative cocoon now looks like a trap. The first Republican presidential debate will air on Fox News and will be moderated by Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace—who happen to be the same three anchors that have provoked three Republican candidates into embarrassing gaffes this month. Turns out Fox News’ anchors can make Republican candidates look just as bad as MSNBC’s.
The RNC sought to install more “conservatives in the moderator’s chair” because conservatives still are nursing grudges against some of the 2012 primary debate moderators. When ABC’s George Stephanopoulos pressed Mitt Romney on whether “states have the right to ban contraception,” conservatives blamed the “liberal media” for asking an irrelevant question. When CNN’s John King opened a debate by asking Newt Gingrich about allegations leveled by his ex-wife, Gingrich brought the crowd to its feet by chastising King and lambasting “the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans.”
At least in those instances, Republicans could try the “blame the media” strategy to limit the damage. This year, when Republicans shoot themselves in the foot on the debate stage, they won’t have that option.
The recent gaffes on Fox News by Republican candidates are not because Fox News journalists are suddenly out to get Republicans. It’s because even a softball question can trip up a candidate not ready for prime time. Megyn Kelly’s interview of Jeb Bush was the journalistic equivalent of a warm hug. Her simple Iraq question—“Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?”—was only a couple of notches tougher than Katie Couric’s “What newspapers and magazines did you regularly read?”
After Jeb’s initial answer, which skipped past the hindsight premise, Kelly conversationally and neutrally asked for a clarification, “You don't think it was a mistake?” When Jeb was done, she breezily moved on to a new line of questioning well-suited for Fox: “Do you feel that America's place in the world has diminished under President Obama?”
But Fox News teased the Iraq clip before the full interview aired, sparking a media firestorm. Rivals Chris Christie and Ted Cruz, both fervent hawks, jumped in front of the microphone to proclaim they would not have invaded. Influential conservative radio talker Laura Ingraham was incredulous: “You have to have [a nominee] who says, ‘Look, I’m a Republican but I’m not an idiot … I learn from the past.’”
Trying to clean up his mess a couple of days later, Bush ran to what should have been safe ground, Fox News’ Sean Hannity. The host functioned less as a journalist than as a friend helping a friend in need. He first suggested “the media” interpreted Bush wrong and so “I wanted to see if I could clarify that.” After Bush failed to actually clarify, Hannity threw him a second lifeline, “So in other words, with 20/20 hindsight, you would make a different decision.” Bush whiffed the softball, saying, “I don’t know what that decision would have been.”
Unlike the Kelly and Hannity chats, Chris Wallace’s recent interview with Marco Rubio was truly aggressive. He wouldn’t let up over Rubio’s abandonment of the Senate immigration bill for which he voted: “You bailed on comprehensive immigration reform. … Aren't leaders supposed to shape public opinion rather than just follow it? … Shouldn't you have campaigned for this?” He also busted Rubio for a “dramatic shift” in his foreign policy rhetoric, backing off his 2012 support for Iran negotiations and forgoing earlier assurances he was “not a saber-rattling person.”
And those barbs were just the warm-up for the three-minute raking over Iraq. As Wallace bore into Rubio’s varying responses, the unprepared Senate freshman dug himself into a hole by pleading semantic differences regarding questions about whether Iraq was a mistake and whether he’d have invaded knowing what we know now. Relentless, Wallace asked Rubio about seven times “Was it a mistake?” And he refused to let Rubio answer it with caveats, cutting him off with “I'm not asking you that.”
If Wallace were not working for Rupert Murdoch, the loaded questions, opinionated assertions and repeated interruptions would earn Wallace a lifetime membership in the Liberal Media Elite Club.
You can expect Wallace to be similarly unforgiving at the inaugural debate. In fact it was four Augusts ago when Wallace was the foil for Gingrich’s first public haranguing of a debate moderator. (He did not care for what he called a “gotcha question”: “How do you respond to people who say that your campaign has been a mess so far?”) Gingrich was not alone. Wallace dredged up Mitt Romney’s record of layoffs and Herman Cain’s litany of amateurish remarks. Candidates who expect to get a free ride from Wallace will quickly become debate roadkill.
Steeling for Wallace is one thing. The trickier challenge Republicans may face is the unassuming Bret Baier. Consider how he tripped up Scott Walker earlier this month.
Back in March, Walker bluntly renounced his past support for giving undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship in a Fox News interview with Wallace: “My view has changed. I'm flat out saying it.”
Baier picked up the thread in as magnanimous a fashion as possible, telling Walker: “You’ve admitted that you’ve changed your position on immigration. People understand that in the context of President Obama’s executive action, and why you might do that."
Following a question about Walker’s more recent statements about restricting legal immigration, Baier returned to the policy shift, with a little more english: “If you’re willing to flip-flop, for [lack] of a better word, on such an important issue like this, how can voters be sure that you’re not going to change your position on some other big issue?” But Baier’s tone was still friendly, and Walker glibly responded, “There’s not a flip out there.” His past comments were made when he was in executive branch positions, and in Walker’s dictionary, “A flip would be someone who voted on something and did something different, and these are not votes.”
Despite Walker redefining “flip-flop” to render out of bounds any utterance made by politicians outside of the legislative branch, Baier let it lie and moved on to the next topic. But other observers picked up on it, including conservatives like National Review editor Eliana Johnson, who sensed that “He doesn’t even look quite serious as he’s saying it,” and Daily Caller writer Matt Lewis, who said “This is almost a Clinton-esque ability to spin.”
If Baier lulled Walker into letting down his guard and believing he could get away with undercooked talking points while inside the friendly confines of Fox, that may have been Baier’s plan. In 2011, after Baier got under Mitt Romney’s skin by asking about flip-flops, POLITICO profiled Baier’s interview style: “A Republican consultant … called Baier ‘a Boy Scout with a very sharp knife … He lulls [interviewees] into a false sense of security … He’s the most gentle of all the anchors on cable, but he’s tougher. People let their guard down.’”
But it’s not just Baier who makes Republicans too comfortable for their own good. The entire Fox News operation can feel like a Republican clubhouse. Instead of preparing for a high-stakes interview, candidates act like they’re coming over for a drink. In turn, they don’t prepare tight answers for predictable questions. They offer weak spin, thinking (often correctly) the Fox News umpires won’t directly call them on it and the average Fox News viewer will be forgiving toward a home team player.
The problem is that sometimes a Fox News anchor can surprise (the New York Times Magazine published a profile centered on such “Megyn moments”). Even if the anchor doesn’t, any embarrassing video clip can go viral and go beyond the Fox News audience. And considering that Republican primary voters aren’t sold on any presidential possibility—no one cleared 15 percent in the latest Fox News poll—perhaps the candidates should assume that even the reddest Tea Partier wants to see them put through their paces.
It’s worth recalling that the subtle Baier ensnared the entire Republican field four years ago. At an August 2011 debate, another panelist asked a candidate if there was “any ratio of [spending] cuts to taxes that you would accept” in a bipartisan budget compromise. Baier is the one who sharpened the hypothetical and put it to everyone: “Can you raise your hand if you feel so strongly about not raising taxes, you'd walk away on the 10-to-1 deal?”
Everyone raised their hand. And why not? In Baier’s Fox-friendly premise, it was proof that “you feel so strongly about not raising taxes.” But outside the building, the spectacle solidified the image of a party incapable of compromise.
That’s what the 10 Republicans who make the cut and are allowed on the debate stage really need to guard against. It’s easy to tell when a Chris Wallace fastball is aimed at your head. But the candidates need to be careful not to swing too quickly when what looks like a softball is lobbed over the plate.
One thing is for sure. If the RNC and the presidential candidates thought beginning its debate season on Fox News would be like spring training, the recent spate of gaffes committed on Fox News should be a wake-up call that everyone needs to get into shape a lot faster.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"... the GOP’s shift to the far-right has fundamentally remade the policy landscape and changed the nature of the political rules in ways nothing – no scandal, no crisis, no war – has in many decades."
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COMMENTS:
* Remember those Bush tax cuts for the wealthy? They were supposed to get the rich to create more jobs. Billions of dollars. No jobs. See where those right wing tax cuts went? Directly into the bank accounts of the 1%. They don't care about you. They only care about the oligarch.
* as i have posted before. not that long ago the gop was SO HAPPY that the tea party took hold and joined in the republican party. now that the ultra conservatives have taken control of more and more segments and areas of the party the republicans are struggling to deal with them. they cannot pass legislation without their consent, they struggle with candidates on the national scene. i wish i was a little bee, i would love to know how the koch boys embrace these far right people. they say they like them but they are losing control. and everyone knows the koch boys are in it for the CONTROL part.
* i am a democrat and have been for almost 40 years. but in many things in life i am very conservative. very. but the big difference between myself and the people WHO SAY THEY ARE CONSERVATIVE,is that i value ALL PEOPLE. i have had the privilege to serve and work with a wide variety of ethnic and religious people. i have seen the hard working, caring people from all over the map. AND THEY WERE ALL GOOD PEOPLE. that is the big difference between a democrat and a republican. the democrats are caring and sharing people. THE REPUBLICANS ARE NOT!!
* the big difference between a democrat and a republican. the democrats are caring and sharing people. THE REPUBLICANS ARE NOT!!
* Change virtually always comes from progressives and conservatives virtually always fight any change tooth and nail. Saying that democrats have become more extreme is really a point of non distinction, it isn't the democrats necessarily moving to the left, but rather society in general is tugging the party to the left. The disappointment for republicans is, though progressives lose some skirmishes, they always win in the long run because society has a natural disposition to progress.
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One party has become more extreme (and one hasn’t)
By Steve Benen, May 27, 2015
Arguably no single development in American politics has mattered more in recent generations than the radicalization of the Republican Party. As anyone who’s read Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein knows, the GOP’s shift to the far-right has fundamentally remade the policy landscape and changed the nature of the political rules in ways nothing – no scandal, no crisis, no war – has in many decades.
At least, that’s what all available evidence tells us. Peter Wehner, the White House director of “strategic initiatives” in the Bush/Cheney era, not only disagrees with the thesis, but actually suggests the evidence has it backwards – it’s Democrats, he claims, who’ve become more extreme. From his New York Times piece today:
I’m afraid Wehner hasn’t fully thought this through. Democrats adopted a position, implemented it, and are now weighing changes after scrutinizing the results of their own policy. Plenty of Republicans agree with the Democratic conclusions, and support the same reforms. That’s proof of a party that’s become more extreme? Not by any definition I’m familiar with.
Well, maybe Wehner’s piece just got off to a rough start. How about his second piece of evidence? The piece soon after complains that while Bill Clinton reformed welfare, President Obama created the Affordable Care Act.
Perhaps Wehner hasn’t fully thought this through, either.
Presidents of both parties have been talking for a century about bringing health security to American families, and Obama succeeded where others failed. If the president and congressional Democrats imposed a socialized system – Medicare for All, for example – Wehner might have a more credible case to make, but “Obamacare” is a more conservative model, largely dependent on private insurers, based in part on a blueprint drafted by the Heritage Foundation.
As for welfare reform, Obama has left the ’90s-era policy largely intact.
Again, this doesn’t sound like the actions of a party that’s gone over the left-wing cliff.
From there, Wehner’s oddly written piece descends into a litany of praise for Bill Clinton, who apparently did a series of things conservatives liked, right up until Wehner’s former boss created a mess that Democrats had to clean up. At one point, Wehner dabbles in outright falsehoods: “Mr. Clinton cut spending and produced a surplus. Under Mr. Obama, spending and the deficit reached record levels.”
In reality, Clinton may have left Bush/Cheney with a surplus, but Bush/Cheney then left Obama with a $1.4 trillion deficit, which Obama has already trimmed by $1 trillion (and counting).
If the broader point is that Obama has helped move the country to the left a bit, I’ll gladly concede the point – just as I’d say Reagan helped move to the country to the right a bit a generation ago. But Wehner’s thesis is about extremism and radicalization, and to bolster the thesis, he manages to point to exactly zero examples of Democrats becoming extreme and/or radical when compared to the American mainstream.
(Wehner mentions gay rights 4 times in a 14-paragraph piece, neglecting to mention that, by definition, there’s nothing less extreme than agreeing with the American majority. Indeed, Obama may be the most ambitious supporter of gay rights of any president in history, but his leadership on the issue has kept pace with the nation’s own evolution. Obama is well to Clinton’s left on the issue, but 2015 America is also well to the left of 1995 America on the issue.)
We’re left, in other words, with the challenge of reconciling Wehner’s impressions and quantifiable evidence, such as these DW-NOMINATE scores, which clearly help prove the opposite of the Republican’s intended conclusion.
I often wonder how GOP insiders deal with the objective evidence highlighting the radicalization of Republican politics, but Wehner’s strange thesis suggests they’re not dealing with it at all. Rather, they’re content to pretend that Democrats – the mainstream party open to compromise, embracing Mitt Romney’s health care plan, John McCain’s climate plan, George W. Bush’s immigration plan – are the real extremists.
There has to be a more persuasive Republican case than Wehner’s. If anyone has seen one, let me know in comments.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Remember those Bush tax cuts for the wealthy? They were supposed to get the rich to create more jobs. Billions of dollars. No jobs. See where those right wing tax cuts went? Directly into the bank accounts of the 1%. They don't care about you. They only care about the oligarch.
* as i have posted before. not that long ago the gop was SO HAPPY that the tea party took hold and joined in the republican party. now that the ultra conservatives have taken control of more and more segments and areas of the party the republicans are struggling to deal with them. they cannot pass legislation without their consent, they struggle with candidates on the national scene. i wish i was a little bee, i would love to know how the koch boys embrace these far right people. they say they like them but they are losing control. and everyone knows the koch boys are in it for the CONTROL part.
* i am a democrat and have been for almost 40 years. but in many things in life i am very conservative. very. but the big difference between myself and the people WHO SAY THEY ARE CONSERVATIVE,is that i value ALL PEOPLE. i have had the privilege to serve and work with a wide variety of ethnic and religious people. i have seen the hard working, caring people from all over the map. AND THEY WERE ALL GOOD PEOPLE. that is the big difference between a democrat and a republican. the democrats are caring and sharing people. THE REPUBLICANS ARE NOT!!
* the big difference between a democrat and a republican. the democrats are caring and sharing people. THE REPUBLICANS ARE NOT!!
All of the statistics show that you are wrong. Republicans/Conservatives give much more of their own money to charities than Democrats/Liberals. As usual, you are misinformed
* if just giving money to charities is your metric, then we can agree TO DISAGREE. being the party of the super rich makes the comparison easy. but i was talking about the actual day to day things that we do. passing legislation to raise the minimum wage, passing a bill for pay equity for women, passing an infrastructure repair bill, a reciprocal tariff bill, these things if passed by the republicans would help our country tremendously as far as jobs, and would not cost the government 1 cent. many of the gop candidates in 2016 ran on the platform of jobs, jobs, jobs. the republicans are in complete and utter control of both housed of congress. WHERE ARE THOSE JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, THAT THE GOP SAID, IF ELECTED, THEY WOULD HELP CREATE.* Change virtually always comes from progressives and conservatives virtually always fight any change tooth and nail. Saying that democrats have become more extreme is really a point of non distinction, it isn't the democrats necessarily moving to the left, but rather society in general is tugging the party to the left. The disappointment for republicans is, though progressives lose some skirmishes, they always win in the long run because society has a natural disposition to progress.
...................................................................................................................................................................
One party has become more extreme (and one hasn’t)
By Steve Benen, May 27, 2015
Arguably no single development in American politics has mattered more in recent generations than the radicalization of the Republican Party. As anyone who’s read Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein knows, the GOP’s shift to the far-right has fundamentally remade the policy landscape and changed the nature of the political rules in ways nothing – no scandal, no crisis, no war – has in many decades.
At least, that’s what all available evidence tells us. Peter Wehner, the White House director of “strategic initiatives” in the Bush/Cheney era, not only disagrees with the thesis, but actually suggests the evidence has it backwards – it’s Democrats, he claims, who’ve become more extreme. From his New York Times piece today:
Among liberals, it’s almost universally assumed that of the two major parties, it’s the Republicans who have become more extreme over the years. That’s a self-flattering but false narrative.Intrigued, I dug into the piece, eager to see Wehner’s proof. He noted, for example, that while many Democrats embraced a conservative approach to criminal-justice reform 20 years ago, most Dems are now widely concerned about the societal costs and effects of mass incarceration and police abuses.
This is not to say the Republican Party hasn’t become a more conservative party. It has. But in the last two decades the Democratic Party has moved substantially further to the left than the Republican Party has shifted to the right. On most major issues the Republican Party hasn’t moved very much from where it was during the Gingrich era in the mid-1990s.
I’m afraid Wehner hasn’t fully thought this through. Democrats adopted a position, implemented it, and are now weighing changes after scrutinizing the results of their own policy. Plenty of Republicans agree with the Democratic conclusions, and support the same reforms. That’s proof of a party that’s become more extreme? Not by any definition I’m familiar with.
Well, maybe Wehner’s piece just got off to a rough start. How about his second piece of evidence? The piece soon after complains that while Bill Clinton reformed welfare, President Obama created the Affordable Care Act.
Perhaps Wehner hasn’t fully thought this through, either.
Presidents of both parties have been talking for a century about bringing health security to American families, and Obama succeeded where others failed. If the president and congressional Democrats imposed a socialized system – Medicare for All, for example – Wehner might have a more credible case to make, but “Obamacare” is a more conservative model, largely dependent on private insurers, based in part on a blueprint drafted by the Heritage Foundation.
As for welfare reform, Obama has left the ’90s-era policy largely intact.
Again, this doesn’t sound like the actions of a party that’s gone over the left-wing cliff.
From there, Wehner’s oddly written piece descends into a litany of praise for Bill Clinton, who apparently did a series of things conservatives liked, right up until Wehner’s former boss created a mess that Democrats had to clean up. At one point, Wehner dabbles in outright falsehoods: “Mr. Clinton cut spending and produced a surplus. Under Mr. Obama, spending and the deficit reached record levels.”
In reality, Clinton may have left Bush/Cheney with a surplus, but Bush/Cheney then left Obama with a $1.4 trillion deficit, which Obama has already trimmed by $1 trillion (and counting).
If the broader point is that Obama has helped move the country to the left a bit, I’ll gladly concede the point – just as I’d say Reagan helped move to the country to the right a bit a generation ago. But Wehner’s thesis is about extremism and radicalization, and to bolster the thesis, he manages to point to exactly zero examples of Democrats becoming extreme and/or radical when compared to the American mainstream.
(Wehner mentions gay rights 4 times in a 14-paragraph piece, neglecting to mention that, by definition, there’s nothing less extreme than agreeing with the American majority. Indeed, Obama may be the most ambitious supporter of gay rights of any president in history, but his leadership on the issue has kept pace with the nation’s own evolution. Obama is well to Clinton’s left on the issue, but 2015 America is also well to the left of 1995 America on the issue.)
We’re left, in other words, with the challenge of reconciling Wehner’s impressions and quantifiable evidence, such as these DW-NOMINATE scores, which clearly help prove the opposite of the Republican’s intended conclusion.
I often wonder how GOP insiders deal with the objective evidence highlighting the radicalization of Republican politics, but Wehner’s strange thesis suggests they’re not dealing with it at all. Rather, they’re content to pretend that Democrats – the mainstream party open to compromise, embracing Mitt Romney’s health care plan, John McCain’s climate plan, George W. Bush’s immigration plan – are the real extremists.
There has to be a more persuasive Republican case than Wehner’s. If anyone has seen one, let me know in comments.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
"... the Gardner solution tells poor women, 'If you want birth control, go buy it. If you can’t afford it, good luck.'"
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* The GOP believes it can bamboozle the public; WRONG! The GOP cannot be trusted to devise any leadership on ANYTHING because they lack morality and/or the interest in the well-being of our citizenry. Not a day goes by without some Republican spouting more outrageous remarks against anything that would be remotely beneficial to the country. They deserve to be unseated during the next elections!
* He got elected! What do we democrats have to do to get those to come out and vote? I dont know. If what these repugs have done to us and our children daughters, and grandaughters isn't enough? then what is? I guess we get the government we deserve?
* These guys don't see themselves as smarter than doctors and pharmacists, just more devious in attaining their end of making contraception less accessible, less affordable, and even more susceptible to misuse and abuse. In their quest for "morality" they are completely without moral compass.
* They do not have a moral compass, how else do you explain giving tax breaks to the rich, increasing defense, but cutting education and the willingness to let kids go to bed hungry.
* Politician's yet again see themselves as smarter that doctors and pharmacists. News flash: not all oral contraceptives are the same. They have different strengths, time/day release dosages, ingredients, etc. Far from "one type fits all". Side effects are common. Drugs are prescription for a reason. Without a co-pay they're very expensive. WTF is the Republican preoccupation with sex?
* Same wolf, different sheepskin! Does the GOTP really believe that they aren't waging a war on women - especially lower income women?!? Shame on them! IF they went after Viagra/Cialis or any other male enhancement drug they might be able to say "no war on women" - but they don't! This is all about ensuring that women are breeders period!!
...................................................................................................................................................................
Senate Republicans return to controversial contraception posture
By Steve Benen, May 26, 2015
Last fall, Cory Gardner’s Republican Senate campaign in Colorado found itself in a tough spot. The far-right candidate had spent much of his career trying to ban common forms of birth control – which made him look like an extremist – and Gardner continued to support a federal “personhood” policy, which he’d been caught lying about repeatedly.
In early September 2014, the Republican tried to fix his problem with a sort of Hail Mary pass: Gardner, despite years of service as a right-wing culture warrior, told Coloradans that he’s actually a progressive champion of contraception access. To prove it, the conservative congressman vowed to introduce legislation to make birth control available over the counter without a prescription.
It was a brazen move, which was largely successful: Gardner won the race. As the Denver Post reported late last week, the GOP lawmaker followed through on the promise he made last fall.
But in practice, it’s not quite so simple.
Note, for example, that the whole point of the Obama administration’s policy is to make contraception accessible and affordable: if birth control is available without a co-pay through Americans’ health care plan, consumers don’t have to worry about cost. And since pills can cost several hundred dollars a year, simply adopting an OTC model would leave millions of low-income Americans behind.
In other words, the Gardner solution tells poor women, “If you want birth control, go buy it. If you can’t afford it, good luck.”
For that matter, just as a matter of basic human biology, an IUD can’t just be sold over the counter at a local drug store.
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a non-profit organization of women’s health doctors, generally supports making contraception available over the counter, but the group nevertheless announced its opposition to the Gardner/Ayotte bill late last week.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* The GOP believes it can bamboozle the public; WRONG! The GOP cannot be trusted to devise any leadership on ANYTHING because they lack morality and/or the interest in the well-being of our citizenry. Not a day goes by without some Republican spouting more outrageous remarks against anything that would be remotely beneficial to the country. They deserve to be unseated during the next elections!
* He got elected! What do we democrats have to do to get those to come out and vote? I dont know. If what these repugs have done to us and our children daughters, and grandaughters isn't enough? then what is? I guess we get the government we deserve?
* These guys don't see themselves as smarter than doctors and pharmacists, just more devious in attaining their end of making contraception less accessible, less affordable, and even more susceptible to misuse and abuse. In their quest for "morality" they are completely without moral compass.
* They do not have a moral compass, how else do you explain giving tax breaks to the rich, increasing defense, but cutting education and the willingness to let kids go to bed hungry.
* Politician's yet again see themselves as smarter that doctors and pharmacists. News flash: not all oral contraceptives are the same. They have different strengths, time/day release dosages, ingredients, etc. Far from "one type fits all". Side effects are common. Drugs are prescription for a reason. Without a co-pay they're very expensive. WTF is the Republican preoccupation with sex?
* Same wolf, different sheepskin! Does the GOTP really believe that they aren't waging a war on women - especially lower income women?!? Shame on them! IF they went after Viagra/Cialis or any other male enhancement drug they might be able to say "no war on women" - but they don't! This is all about ensuring that women are breeders period!!
...................................................................................................................................................................
Senate Republicans return to controversial contraception posture
By Steve Benen, May 26, 2015
Last fall, Cory Gardner’s Republican Senate campaign in Colorado found itself in a tough spot. The far-right candidate had spent much of his career trying to ban common forms of birth control – which made him look like an extremist – and Gardner continued to support a federal “personhood” policy, which he’d been caught lying about repeatedly.
In early September 2014, the Republican tried to fix his problem with a sort of Hail Mary pass: Gardner, despite years of service as a right-wing culture warrior, told Coloradans that he’s actually a progressive champion of contraception access. To prove it, the conservative congressman vowed to introduce legislation to make birth control available over the counter without a prescription.
It was a brazen move, which was largely successful: Gardner won the race. As the Denver Post reported late last week, the GOP lawmaker followed through on the promise he made last fall.
The legislation encourages drug manufacturers of “routine-use contraceptives” to file an application with the Food and Drug Administration to sell their products over the counter.As longtime readers may recall from last fall, this may seem like a reasonable resolution to an ugly mess. If anti-contraception employers don’t want to cover birth control as part of employees’ health plan, and religiously affiliated employers have moral objections to insurers’ paperwork, this over-the-counter approach makes the purchases more direct: if the FDA approves contraceptive medications for over-the-counter sales, it wouldn’t matter what employers, insurers, or even physicians like or dislike.
Gardner is sponsoring the Allowing Greater Access to Safe and Effective Contraception Act with Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H. Their bill also would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s restriction on the use of health, medical and flexible savings accounts to purchase over-the-counter drugs without a prescription.
But in practice, it’s not quite so simple.
Note, for example, that the whole point of the Obama administration’s policy is to make contraception accessible and affordable: if birth control is available without a co-pay through Americans’ health care plan, consumers don’t have to worry about cost. And since pills can cost several hundred dollars a year, simply adopting an OTC model would leave millions of low-income Americans behind.
In other words, the Gardner solution tells poor women, “If you want birth control, go buy it. If you can’t afford it, good luck.”
For that matter, just as a matter of basic human biology, an IUD can’t just be sold over the counter at a local drug store.
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a non-profit organization of women’s health doctors, generally supports making contraception available over the counter, but the group nevertheless announced its opposition to the Gardner/Ayotte bill late last week.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"If they get a Republican president next year, they’ll govern — oh boy, will they ever govern. Most Americans won’t like what it produces, but it’ll be 'governing' with a vengeance."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* After the 2014 election, conservatives were dreaming of rainbows and unicorns, forgetting about the 60 votes needed in the Senate. Last time we had a Republican White House and Congress we invaded two countries, passed tax cuts for the rich and watched a budget surplus turn into a trillion dollar annual deficit.
* To paraphrase the genius who led during the last reign in which republicans held the presidency and Congress, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me, you can't fool me again". Wish that were true for the voting public, but proof that we are willing to be fooled again is evident from the 2014 election results. Let's hope the fools stay home in 2016.
* ... The Republican base does not want to get things done because it would show that government works and that's totally against their philosopy. The more chaos the better for their end game - make the government as unworkable as possible.
* The GOP is a total Joke! No platform. No working programs. No jobs bills (Keystone, yeah, right!). No addressing the real problems in this country. No help for the poor and middle class. GOP supporters! Is tis the best you can do? GOP supporters! These are a bunch of clowns. Are you not embarrassed?
* If they do by some miracle end up with the presidency and both houses, we're screwed. I doubt the USA would ever recover.
...................................................................................................................................................................
So how’s that “showing the GOP can govern” thing going?
By Paul Waldman, May 25, 2015
Congress left town this weekend for their Memorial Day recess, with their final mini-drama the failure to reauthorize the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records that began as part of the Patriot Act. The House passed a bill called the USA Freedom Act (not showing a lot of creativity there) which would keep the records in the phone companies’ hands but allow extensive searching by the government, but the bill failed to pass the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tried to get an extension of the Patriot Act for two months, then he tried to get an extension for a week, then four days, then two days, but he couldn’t break through opposition from his fellow Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who saw the opportunity to give his presidential campaign some much-needed publicity with a dramatic stand against government spying. So now McConnell will try a last-ditch attempt to pass a renewal of the program this coming Sunday, the day it expires.
Remember when Republicans were going to “show they can govern”? That’s what everyone said they’d have to do when they took control of both houses of Congress last November. The day after Election Day 2014, McConnell and Speaker of the House John Boehner wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in which they promised a new beginning for Congress, one in which legislation of vital importance would bloom like a glorious field of sunflowers. “The skeptics say nothing will be accomplished in the next two years,” they wrote. “As elected servants of the people, we will make it our job to prove the skeptics wrong.” At long last, Congress would Get Things Done.
Alas, things are not quite getting done. There have been a few pieces of meaningful legislation passed this year, perhaps most notably the end of the absurdity that was the Medicare “doc fix,” but Congress seems no less likely to devolve into infighting and gridlock than it did when Democrats held one house. Forget about forging “grand bargains” and taking on complex challenges like tax reform — Congressional Republicans can barely manage to keep the existing programs that are popular with their base running. With a June 1 deadline approaching, the NSA has already begun preparations to wind down the bulk collection program, despite Republican insistence that its end will leave America terribly vulnerable to terrorists.
My theory all along has been that Republicans don’t actually need to “show they can govern” or “get things done”; they just need to avoid doing too much harm to their eventual presidential nominee. If you’re a Republican member of Congress, the next year and a half may contain a substantive issue to consider here or there, but it’s really about waiting for January 2017, when they hope to get a Republican president and keep both houses of Congress. At that point, it would be a legislative smorgasbord, with no conservative need going unmet. Tax cuts for the wealthy, regulatory rollbacks, restrictions on abortion rights, slashing programs for the poor, undoing Obamacare, renaming California as “Reaganfornia” — you name it, they’ll be able to do it.
And while in the meantime Congress can’t do much to help a Republican president get elected, they can harm that effort by seeming too irresponsible, too obstructionist, too downright crazy to be given the ability to pass whatever legislation they want. So their optimal strategy is to stay as quiet as possible: Just keep things going and don’t stage any dramatic confrontations that threaten to shut down the government or make the country default on its debt. The less Congress is in the headlines, the better it is for the eventual GOP nominee.
So far, the strategy seems to be working fairly well. The Republican presidential candidates have been busy talking about whether they would have invaded Iraq in 2003 and which will be most super-duper-tough on ISIS, but they haven’t had to answer for what their comrades in Congress are doing — which is fine with them.
I don’t know whether McConnell will be able to maneuver his colleagues into passing the bulk collection bill on Sunday when the Senate returns for a last-ditch attempt to keep the program from expiring (and it isn’t as though they couldn’t revive it even if it expired temporarily). But either way, this is a reminder that all that high-minded talk about how Republicans in Congress needed to show they could govern was vastly overblown. If they get a Republican president next year, they’ll govern — oh boy, will they ever govern. Most Americans won’t like what it produces, but it’ll be “governing” with a vengeance. Between now and then, though, they can continue to stumble around without doing themselves all that much political harm.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* After the 2014 election, conservatives were dreaming of rainbows and unicorns, forgetting about the 60 votes needed in the Senate. Last time we had a Republican White House and Congress we invaded two countries, passed tax cuts for the rich and watched a budget surplus turn into a trillion dollar annual deficit.
* To paraphrase the genius who led during the last reign in which republicans held the presidency and Congress, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me, you can't fool me again". Wish that were true for the voting public, but proof that we are willing to be fooled again is evident from the 2014 election results. Let's hope the fools stay home in 2016.
* ... The Republican base does not want to get things done because it would show that government works and that's totally against their philosopy. The more chaos the better for their end game - make the government as unworkable as possible.
* The GOP is a total Joke! No platform. No working programs. No jobs bills (Keystone, yeah, right!). No addressing the real problems in this country. No help for the poor and middle class. GOP supporters! Is tis the best you can do? GOP supporters! These are a bunch of clowns. Are you not embarrassed?
* If they do by some miracle end up with the presidency and both houses, we're screwed. I doubt the USA would ever recover.
...................................................................................................................................................................
So how’s that “showing the GOP can govern” thing going?
By Paul Waldman, May 25, 2015
Congress left town this weekend for their Memorial Day recess, with their final mini-drama the failure to reauthorize the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records that began as part of the Patriot Act. The House passed a bill called the USA Freedom Act (not showing a lot of creativity there) which would keep the records in the phone companies’ hands but allow extensive searching by the government, but the bill failed to pass the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tried to get an extension of the Patriot Act for two months, then he tried to get an extension for a week, then four days, then two days, but he couldn’t break through opposition from his fellow Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who saw the opportunity to give his presidential campaign some much-needed publicity with a dramatic stand against government spying. So now McConnell will try a last-ditch attempt to pass a renewal of the program this coming Sunday, the day it expires.
Remember when Republicans were going to “show they can govern”? That’s what everyone said they’d have to do when they took control of both houses of Congress last November. The day after Election Day 2014, McConnell and Speaker of the House John Boehner wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in which they promised a new beginning for Congress, one in which legislation of vital importance would bloom like a glorious field of sunflowers. “The skeptics say nothing will be accomplished in the next two years,” they wrote. “As elected servants of the people, we will make it our job to prove the skeptics wrong.” At long last, Congress would Get Things Done.
Alas, things are not quite getting done. There have been a few pieces of meaningful legislation passed this year, perhaps most notably the end of the absurdity that was the Medicare “doc fix,” but Congress seems no less likely to devolve into infighting and gridlock than it did when Democrats held one house. Forget about forging “grand bargains” and taking on complex challenges like tax reform — Congressional Republicans can barely manage to keep the existing programs that are popular with their base running. With a June 1 deadline approaching, the NSA has already begun preparations to wind down the bulk collection program, despite Republican insistence that its end will leave America terribly vulnerable to terrorists.
My theory all along has been that Republicans don’t actually need to “show they can govern” or “get things done”; they just need to avoid doing too much harm to their eventual presidential nominee. If you’re a Republican member of Congress, the next year and a half may contain a substantive issue to consider here or there, but it’s really about waiting for January 2017, when they hope to get a Republican president and keep both houses of Congress. At that point, it would be a legislative smorgasbord, with no conservative need going unmet. Tax cuts for the wealthy, regulatory rollbacks, restrictions on abortion rights, slashing programs for the poor, undoing Obamacare, renaming California as “Reaganfornia” — you name it, they’ll be able to do it.
And while in the meantime Congress can’t do much to help a Republican president get elected, they can harm that effort by seeming too irresponsible, too obstructionist, too downright crazy to be given the ability to pass whatever legislation they want. So their optimal strategy is to stay as quiet as possible: Just keep things going and don’t stage any dramatic confrontations that threaten to shut down the government or make the country default on its debt. The less Congress is in the headlines, the better it is for the eventual GOP nominee.
So far, the strategy seems to be working fairly well. The Republican presidential candidates have been busy talking about whether they would have invaded Iraq in 2003 and which will be most super-duper-tough on ISIS, but they haven’t had to answer for what their comrades in Congress are doing — which is fine with them.
I don’t know whether McConnell will be able to maneuver his colleagues into passing the bulk collection bill on Sunday when the Senate returns for a last-ditch attempt to keep the program from expiring (and it isn’t as though they couldn’t revive it even if it expired temporarily). But either way, this is a reminder that all that high-minded talk about how Republicans in Congress needed to show they could govern was vastly overblown. If they get a Republican president next year, they’ll govern — oh boy, will they ever govern. Most Americans won’t like what it produces, but it’ll be “governing” with a vengeance. Between now and then, though, they can continue to stumble around without doing themselves all that much political harm.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"The GOP has been so ineffective at times that it has seemed that the Democrats won the midterms."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Well of course....last time they "took over" we had a shutdown and my company lost its contract with many police agencies and courtrooms to help handle and modernize their data in regards to criminals. Many of us actually keeping the government running would have to get a new job...unless of course you think infrastructure you use on a daily basis is all magic?
* We did not elect more Republicans. We elected more career politicians willing to do what ever it takes to keep their job rather than bring about the change they promised. Rather than offend anyone they choose to do nothing. Political correctness should mean doing what politically would benefit the most people. Instead it is all about not offending someone.
* Conservatism is a nut job
* Conservative is a no deposit, no return bottle, empty, useless and worthless.
* Conservatism, RIP. And it can't come soon enough. Liberalism, progressivism, and the Democratic Party have done far more for the well being of the nation than conservatism ever has.
...................................................................................................................................................................
GOP Won't Have Majority Long If It Doesn't Change Course
By IBD Editorials, May 22, 2015
Politics: Voters gave Republicans both chambers of Congress in the last election, but the Republicans haven't given the voters what they wanted in return. They'd better wake up.
A> Pew Research Center poll taken this month found that only 23% of the public and 37% of Republicans say the GOP leaders are keeping their campaign promises.
These numbers are down from 2011, when a third of the public felt that way and 54% of Republicans said the same. In the midterm elections of that previous fall, the GOP was handed the majority in the House for the first time since losing it in 2006. Democrats kept the Senate for four more years.
Both years are well below the approval numbers of 1995. That year, after taking majority control of Congress for the first time in four decades, 59% of voters and fully 89% of Republicans said GOP leaders were keeping their promises.
The ongoing frustration with congressional Republicans goes beyond broken promises, though. More than half of their constituents (55%) disapprove of the GOP leaders' job performance, up from 44% in February.
That mark, coming only weeks after the new Congress began work, should have been taken by the leadership as a two-by-four upside the head. But clearly they did nothing to change course.
The Pew numbers are not a surprise. November's election results had hardly been counted when Republicans started backing off their promise to repeal ObamaCare, a GOP promise and priority. By April, Senate leaders had moved "to protect the law for the next two years."
The GOP also has upset supporters by refusing to stop President Obama's habit of exercising monarchlike authority through executive orders. Other failures include an eagerness to compromise with Democrats the voters had just rejected at the polls; a refusal to defund the FCC's "net neutrality" rule; a concession to Loretta Lynch's attorney general appointment; and ceding treaty power to the president on Iran and climate issues.
The GOP has been so ineffective at times that it has seemed that the Democrats won the midterms.
The Pew poll found that Republicans and Republican leaners are also disappointed in the way the GOP has handled government spending, with 59% saying the party is "not doing a good job" there.
The same percentage say Republicans are not doing a good job on illegal immigration, while 57% feel the same about the GOP's handling of same-sex marriage.
Meanwhile, Republicans are unhappy with the way their representatives have gone easy on Obama: 75% say they should challenge the president more often. Even 37% of independents say Republicans should be more confrontational.
Yes, with Republicans in charge, the Senate is once again a working chamber after so many years as an obstructionist tool under the "leadership" of Democrat Harry Reid. But that doesn't excuse the fact that they are failing miserably in doing what voters hired them to do last fall.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Well of course....last time they "took over" we had a shutdown and my company lost its contract with many police agencies and courtrooms to help handle and modernize their data in regards to criminals. Many of us actually keeping the government running would have to get a new job...unless of course you think infrastructure you use on a daily basis is all magic?
* We did not elect more Republicans. We elected more career politicians willing to do what ever it takes to keep their job rather than bring about the change they promised. Rather than offend anyone they choose to do nothing. Political correctness should mean doing what politically would benefit the most people. Instead it is all about not offending someone.
* Conservatism is a nut job
* Conservative is a no deposit, no return bottle, empty, useless and worthless.
* Conservatism, RIP. And it can't come soon enough. Liberalism, progressivism, and the Democratic Party have done far more for the well being of the nation than conservatism ever has.
...................................................................................................................................................................
GOP Won't Have Majority Long If It Doesn't Change Course
By IBD Editorials, May 22, 2015
Politics: Voters gave Republicans both chambers of Congress in the last election, but the Republicans haven't given the voters what they wanted in return. They'd better wake up.
A> Pew Research Center poll taken this month found that only 23% of the public and 37% of Republicans say the GOP leaders are keeping their campaign promises.
These numbers are down from 2011, when a third of the public felt that way and 54% of Republicans said the same. In the midterm elections of that previous fall, the GOP was handed the majority in the House for the first time since losing it in 2006. Democrats kept the Senate for four more years.
Both years are well below the approval numbers of 1995. That year, after taking majority control of Congress for the first time in four decades, 59% of voters and fully 89% of Republicans said GOP leaders were keeping their promises.
The ongoing frustration with congressional Republicans goes beyond broken promises, though. More than half of their constituents (55%) disapprove of the GOP leaders' job performance, up from 44% in February.
That mark, coming only weeks after the new Congress began work, should have been taken by the leadership as a two-by-four upside the head. But clearly they did nothing to change course.
The Pew numbers are not a surprise. November's election results had hardly been counted when Republicans started backing off their promise to repeal ObamaCare, a GOP promise and priority. By April, Senate leaders had moved "to protect the law for the next two years."
The GOP also has upset supporters by refusing to stop President Obama's habit of exercising monarchlike authority through executive orders. Other failures include an eagerness to compromise with Democrats the voters had just rejected at the polls; a refusal to defund the FCC's "net neutrality" rule; a concession to Loretta Lynch's attorney general appointment; and ceding treaty power to the president on Iran and climate issues.
The GOP has been so ineffective at times that it has seemed that the Democrats won the midterms.
The Pew poll found that Republicans and Republican leaners are also disappointed in the way the GOP has handled government spending, with 59% saying the party is "not doing a good job" there.
The same percentage say Republicans are not doing a good job on illegal immigration, while 57% feel the same about the GOP's handling of same-sex marriage.
Meanwhile, Republicans are unhappy with the way their representatives have gone easy on Obama: 75% say they should challenge the president more often. Even 37% of independents say Republicans should be more confrontational.
Yes, with Republicans in charge, the Senate is once again a working chamber after so many years as an obstructionist tool under the "leadership" of Democrat Harry Reid. But that doesn't excuse the fact that they are failing miserably in doing what voters hired them to do last fall.
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"Federal courts are already swamped with litigation and criminal cases ..." so it's better to have "... various disputes handled by the more than 800 bankruptcy judges and magistrates."
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COMMENTS:
* “Roberts, in a 20-page dissent, criticized his colleagues for chipping away at the system of checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution and establishing a precedent Congress may use to take other powers from the judiciary.” Hopefully they take away the power of a judge to rewrite the attorneys’ arguments for them, like Roberts did in the Obama Care mandate suit. Or expand the case to take on issues other than those argued like he did in Citizens United. Roberts is hardly the one to be commenting on one branch of the government abusing their power, he is just as power crazy as Obama.
* The “pragmatic” part involving not enough judges to handle the cases is in part to the GOP withholding federal judgeship appointments to spite the President. Who are they spiting? US.
* It is almost a joke to for Roberts to say we are protecting against biases for judical appointees…almost every Supreme Court has ruled on the bases of particular biases from political input..
...................................................................................................................................................................
Sotomayor And Roberts Clash As Supreme Court Expands Power Of Bankruptcy Courts
By Daniel Fisher, May 26, 2015
An otherwise arcane bankruptcy case handed the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court a bitter defeat at the hands of the court’s second-most junior judge over an issue he considers “sacred,” while the ghost of Anna Nicole Smith no doubt smiled approvingly overhead.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in Wellness International v. Sharif, wrote the 6-3 opinion holding that parties in bankruptcy proceedings can consent to allowing a bankruptcy judge decide their cases. This is a big deal for Chief Justice Roberts, who zealously protects the independence of the federal judiciary and wrote the majority opinion in Stern v. Marshall, a 2011 decision rejecting hundreds of millions of dollars in damages a bankruptcy court had awarded Vickie Lynn Marshall, aka Anna Nicole Smith, against her former stepson, Pierce Marshall, over claims he’d interfered with her inheritance from her billionaire husband J. Howard Marshall II.
Stern v. Marshall stripped bankruptcy courts of some of the power Congress had attempted to give them to decide lawsuits and other claims that aren’t strictly part of the process of determining how to split up the assets in a bankruptcy estate. Such side matters must be decided by full-fledged federal judges operating under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, who have protections against political meddling including life tenure and guaranteed salaries, the court ruled in Stern. Bankruptcy judges, in contrast, are authorized by Congress and lack life tenure and salary guarantees.
In Wellness International, however, the majority opened a rather large loophole. If the parties agree to settle their disputes in bankruptcy court, the court ruled, they can waive their right to present their case in front of a so-called Article III judge. Bankruptcies frequently involve outside parties, such as when the trustee in charge of a bankruptcy estate sues to recover money he believes was fraudulently conveyed out of the reach of creditors.
“Adjudication by consent is nothing new,” Sotomayor wrote. As long as Article III judges ultimately oversee the process, litigants can exercise their “personal right” to settle disputes in other courts.
Roberts, in a 20-page dissent, criticized his colleagues for chipping away at the system of checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution and establishing a precedent Congress may use to take other powers from the judiciary.
“The impact of today’s decision may seem limited, but the Court’s acceptance of an Article III violation is not likely to go unnoticed,” Roberts wrote. “The next time Congress takes judicial power from Article III courts, the encroachment may not be so modest—and we will no longer hold the high ground of principle.”
The chief justice’s strong feelings were obvious at oral arguments in January, when he described the power to decide “cases and controversies” under Article III as “our constitutional birthright.”
“To be sitting there in the Supreme Court when the chief justice says `this is our birthright,’ that’s a big thing,” said Ross Martin, a partner with Ropes & Gray and head of the firm’s bankruptcy practice.
Wellness International involved a would-be distributor of nutritional supplements who sued over a failed contract and then found himself liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees after failing to comply with discovery requirements. Sharif filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, but Wellness International asked the bankruptcy court to declare that a trust he said he oversaw for his mother actually belonged to him. Sharif initially asked the bankruptcy court to decide this matter in his favor, then switched strategies after Stern came down.
The Supreme Court’s decision reversed a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision finding that parties couldn’t consent to such a wavier [sic] because it threatened the “institutional integrity” of the judicial branch. While bankruptcy judges lack some of the protections given Article III judges, Sotomayor wrote, they are hired, fired, overseen and only hear cases referred to them by their life-tenured colleagues.
Largely for practical reasons, the majority ruled, the more numerous bankruptcy judges and magistrates should be able to decide cases related to bankruptcies in order to relieve the pressure on federal district courts. It remanded the case to decide whether Sharif had in fact consented to have the question of his trust decided in bankruptcy court.
Roberts would have none of it. He was joined in dissent by Justice Antonin Scalia as well as Clarence Thomas, who wrote his own dissent.
The friction on the court reflects different views of the importance of strictly insulating the judiciary branch from any hint of political interference. Federal courts are already swamped with litigation and criminal cases and with only 677 district judges and 179 appeals judges, they would be overwhelmed by trying to hear the various disputes handled by the more than 800 bankruptcy judges and magistrates.
This issue also comes up with administrative law, where federal agencies operating under the control of the executive branch have the power to issue and prosecute civil charges using administrative law judges. Critics say that stacks the deck in favor of the government. While defendants can still appeal any decision to an Article III court, the important process of presenting witnesses and evidence occurs before a judge who is theoretically beholden to the executive branch.
Losers in bankruptcy court also can appeal to an Article III court, but most of the process remains in the hands of a bankruptcy judge. Today’s decision raises a tricky tactical question, said Martin of Ropes & Gray: When do you tell a bankruptcy judge you don’t want her to decide your part of the case?
“Is the first thing you tell the judge: `I don’t want you hearing my case?’” Martin told me. The answer is probably yes, he said, but “you absolutely say it in the most polite way possible.”
The implications of such side litigation can be severe. Anadarko Petroleum lost several billion dollars in market value in December 2013 after a bankruptcy court ruled it could be liable for as much as $13 billion in environmental costs tied to its former Tronox unit, which was in bankruptcy. (Anadarko settled with the Environmental Protection Administration earlier this year for $5 billion plus interest.)
Roberts complained the majority took an overly pragmatic approach to a fundamental constitutional question. “Perhaps the majority’s acquiescence in this diminution of constitu-tional authority will escape notice,” he wrote. “Far more likely, how- ever, it will amount to the kind of `blueprint for extensive expansion of the legislative power’ that we have resisted in the past.”
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COMMENTS:
* “Roberts, in a 20-page dissent, criticized his colleagues for chipping away at the system of checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution and establishing a precedent Congress may use to take other powers from the judiciary.” Hopefully they take away the power of a judge to rewrite the attorneys’ arguments for them, like Roberts did in the Obama Care mandate suit. Or expand the case to take on issues other than those argued like he did in Citizens United. Roberts is hardly the one to be commenting on one branch of the government abusing their power, he is just as power crazy as Obama.
* The “pragmatic” part involving not enough judges to handle the cases is in part to the GOP withholding federal judgeship appointments to spite the President. Who are they spiting? US.
* It is almost a joke to for Roberts to say we are protecting against biases for judical appointees…almost every Supreme Court has ruled on the bases of particular biases from political input..
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Sotomayor And Roberts Clash As Supreme Court Expands Power Of Bankruptcy Courts
By Daniel Fisher, May 26, 2015
An otherwise arcane bankruptcy case handed the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court a bitter defeat at the hands of the court’s second-most junior judge over an issue he considers “sacred,” while the ghost of Anna Nicole Smith no doubt smiled approvingly overhead.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in Wellness International v. Sharif, wrote the 6-3 opinion holding that parties in bankruptcy proceedings can consent to allowing a bankruptcy judge decide their cases. This is a big deal for Chief Justice Roberts, who zealously protects the independence of the federal judiciary and wrote the majority opinion in Stern v. Marshall, a 2011 decision rejecting hundreds of millions of dollars in damages a bankruptcy court had awarded Vickie Lynn Marshall, aka Anna Nicole Smith, against her former stepson, Pierce Marshall, over claims he’d interfered with her inheritance from her billionaire husband J. Howard Marshall II.
Stern v. Marshall stripped bankruptcy courts of some of the power Congress had attempted to give them to decide lawsuits and other claims that aren’t strictly part of the process of determining how to split up the assets in a bankruptcy estate. Such side matters must be decided by full-fledged federal judges operating under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, who have protections against political meddling including life tenure and guaranteed salaries, the court ruled in Stern. Bankruptcy judges, in contrast, are authorized by Congress and lack life tenure and salary guarantees.
In Wellness International, however, the majority opened a rather large loophole. If the parties agree to settle their disputes in bankruptcy court, the court ruled, they can waive their right to present their case in front of a so-called Article III judge. Bankruptcies frequently involve outside parties, such as when the trustee in charge of a bankruptcy estate sues to recover money he believes was fraudulently conveyed out of the reach of creditors.
“Adjudication by consent is nothing new,” Sotomayor wrote. As long as Article III judges ultimately oversee the process, litigants can exercise their “personal right” to settle disputes in other courts.
Roberts, in a 20-page dissent, criticized his colleagues for chipping away at the system of checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution and establishing a precedent Congress may use to take other powers from the judiciary.
“The impact of today’s decision may seem limited, but the Court’s acceptance of an Article III violation is not likely to go unnoticed,” Roberts wrote. “The next time Congress takes judicial power from Article III courts, the encroachment may not be so modest—and we will no longer hold the high ground of principle.”
The chief justice’s strong feelings were obvious at oral arguments in January, when he described the power to decide “cases and controversies” under Article III as “our constitutional birthright.”
“To be sitting there in the Supreme Court when the chief justice says `this is our birthright,’ that’s a big thing,” said Ross Martin, a partner with Ropes & Gray and head of the firm’s bankruptcy practice.
Wellness International involved a would-be distributor of nutritional supplements who sued over a failed contract and then found himself liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees after failing to comply with discovery requirements. Sharif filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, but Wellness International asked the bankruptcy court to declare that a trust he said he oversaw for his mother actually belonged to him. Sharif initially asked the bankruptcy court to decide this matter in his favor, then switched strategies after Stern came down.
The Supreme Court’s decision reversed a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision finding that parties couldn’t consent to such a wavier [sic] because it threatened the “institutional integrity” of the judicial branch. While bankruptcy judges lack some of the protections given Article III judges, Sotomayor wrote, they are hired, fired, overseen and only hear cases referred to them by their life-tenured colleagues.
Largely for practical reasons, the majority ruled, the more numerous bankruptcy judges and magistrates should be able to decide cases related to bankruptcies in order to relieve the pressure on federal district courts. It remanded the case to decide whether Sharif had in fact consented to have the question of his trust decided in bankruptcy court.
Roberts would have none of it. He was joined in dissent by Justice Antonin Scalia as well as Clarence Thomas, who wrote his own dissent.
The friction on the court reflects different views of the importance of strictly insulating the judiciary branch from any hint of political interference. Federal courts are already swamped with litigation and criminal cases and with only 677 district judges and 179 appeals judges, they would be overwhelmed by trying to hear the various disputes handled by the more than 800 bankruptcy judges and magistrates.
This issue also comes up with administrative law, where federal agencies operating under the control of the executive branch have the power to issue and prosecute civil charges using administrative law judges. Critics say that stacks the deck in favor of the government. While defendants can still appeal any decision to an Article III court, the important process of presenting witnesses and evidence occurs before a judge who is theoretically beholden to the executive branch.
Losers in bankruptcy court also can appeal to an Article III court, but most of the process remains in the hands of a bankruptcy judge. Today’s decision raises a tricky tactical question, said Martin of Ropes & Gray: When do you tell a bankruptcy judge you don’t want her to decide your part of the case?
“Is the first thing you tell the judge: `I don’t want you hearing my case?’” Martin told me. The answer is probably yes, he said, but “you absolutely say it in the most polite way possible.”
The implications of such side litigation can be severe. Anadarko Petroleum lost several billion dollars in market value in December 2013 after a bankruptcy court ruled it could be liable for as much as $13 billion in environmental costs tied to its former Tronox unit, which was in bankruptcy. (Anadarko settled with the Environmental Protection Administration earlier this year for $5 billion plus interest.)
Roberts complained the majority took an overly pragmatic approach to a fundamental constitutional question. “Perhaps the majority’s acquiescence in this diminution of constitu-tional authority will escape notice,” he wrote. “Far more likely, how- ever, it will amount to the kind of `blueprint for extensive expansion of the legislative power’ that we have resisted in the past.”
Once Congress knows it can assign federal claims to judges outside Article III with the parties’ consent, nothing would limit its exercise of that power to bankruptcy. Congress may consider it advantageous to allow claims to be heard before judges subject to greater legislative control in any number of areas of federal concern. As for the requirement of con-sent, Congress can find ways to “encourage” consent, say by requiring it as a condition of federal benefits. That has worked to expand Congress’s power before.[snipped]
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"I do not want my secular government restricting the rights of anyone on the basis of religious dogma."
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COMMENTS:
* I think that there are various levels on which that question can be addressed. But I'll just go with a few that immediately come to mind. One is fairness. As a heterosexual male, I don't see how I would have any more right to happiness in life. and a loving relationship with someone than others who don't share my sexual orientation. Another is that in most instances, homophobia is religion (especially theism)-based. As an atheist, I find the bible to be little more than a collection of absurd myths and baseless definitions of morality , and that of course includes its attitude towards gays.
* I just wish that those we defend would return the favor..... these "religious rights" laws that are popping up everywhere are touted as being anti-gay and solely being looked at from the view point of gay rights and how they allow discrimination against them.... well they can also allow discrimination against us non-theists, yet nobody voices our viewpoint. as of 2014 only 1.6 % of Americans identify as gay... yet between 16 and 20% of Americans identify as having no religious affiliation.... agnostic or atheist... and growing !! when are we going to be heard and defended??
* I hope so too, but we are going to have to do a much better job of mobilizing to defend ourselves if we expect much help from those who are religious. As long as we refuse to actively participate in our own defense, it is tough to expect others to have our backs.
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If You're Not Gay, Why Do You Care About Gay Rights?
By Jack Vance, May 23, 2015
I receive more questions from readers than I'll ever have time to answer, but I like to try answer those that seem to come up again and again. One that I've received fairly often is the question contained in the title of this post. It usually comes up after I've shared some pro-LGBT news or criticized anti-LGBT bigotry here or on social media. Fortunately, this is an easy one to answer.
I am not motivated solely by my own self-interest, and so I am able to care about the welfare of persons other than myself. I care about LGBT rights because I support equality and oppose religiously-motivated bigotry in all its forms. I support same-sex marriage because it is a necessary step toward equality. Same-sex couples deserve the same rights under the law as opposite-sex couples. I see it as both a church-state issue and a matter of civil rights. I do not want my secular government restricting the rights of anyone on the basis of religious dogma.
Not long ago, I had an interesting interaction with a straight White Christian man who asked me this question. Adopting the principle of charity, I assumed he was a decent guy who might be confused on the subject of LGBT rights but was generally inclined to support equality in other contexts. I said something like, "I support equal rights for LGBT persons for the same reason you support equal rights for Black people." I was promptly informed that I was wrong because he supported no such thing. No equality for Blacks, women, immigrants, atheists, and so on. I made an incorrect assumption about the degree to which he valued equal rights for others and was mistaken. Lesson learned.
For most of us, at least for most of the atheists I have encountered, I think it is fair to say that we are capable of and willing to care about people other than ourselves. One does not have to be a woman to care about maintaining reproductive rights for women, and one does not have to be Black to care about the racial disparities in criminal sentencing. And clearly, one does not have to be LGBT to support full equality for LGBT persons.
And speaking of same-sex marriage and equal rights, congratulations to Ireland for getting it right well before the United States does! I'm hoping we will come to our senses and join you soon, but I fear that may still be some time off. I think we still need to persuade the Christian majority that controls too much of our country to do the right thing.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* I think that there are various levels on which that question can be addressed. But I'll just go with a few that immediately come to mind. One is fairness. As a heterosexual male, I don't see how I would have any more right to happiness in life. and a loving relationship with someone than others who don't share my sexual orientation. Another is that in most instances, homophobia is religion (especially theism)-based. As an atheist, I find the bible to be little more than a collection of absurd myths and baseless definitions of morality , and that of course includes its attitude towards gays.
* I just wish that those we defend would return the favor..... these "religious rights" laws that are popping up everywhere are touted as being anti-gay and solely being looked at from the view point of gay rights and how they allow discrimination against them.... well they can also allow discrimination against us non-theists, yet nobody voices our viewpoint. as of 2014 only 1.6 % of Americans identify as gay... yet between 16 and 20% of Americans identify as having no religious affiliation.... agnostic or atheist... and growing !! when are we going to be heard and defended??
* I hope so too, but we are going to have to do a much better job of mobilizing to defend ourselves if we expect much help from those who are religious. As long as we refuse to actively participate in our own defense, it is tough to expect others to have our backs.
...................................................................................................................................................................
If You're Not Gay, Why Do You Care About Gay Rights?
By Jack Vance, May 23, 2015
I receive more questions from readers than I'll ever have time to answer, but I like to try answer those that seem to come up again and again. One that I've received fairly often is the question contained in the title of this post. It usually comes up after I've shared some pro-LGBT news or criticized anti-LGBT bigotry here or on social media. Fortunately, this is an easy one to answer.
I am not motivated solely by my own self-interest, and so I am able to care about the welfare of persons other than myself. I care about LGBT rights because I support equality and oppose religiously-motivated bigotry in all its forms. I support same-sex marriage because it is a necessary step toward equality. Same-sex couples deserve the same rights under the law as opposite-sex couples. I see it as both a church-state issue and a matter of civil rights. I do not want my secular government restricting the rights of anyone on the basis of religious dogma.
Not long ago, I had an interesting interaction with a straight White Christian man who asked me this question. Adopting the principle of charity, I assumed he was a decent guy who might be confused on the subject of LGBT rights but was generally inclined to support equality in other contexts. I said something like, "I support equal rights for LGBT persons for the same reason you support equal rights for Black people." I was promptly informed that I was wrong because he supported no such thing. No equality for Blacks, women, immigrants, atheists, and so on. I made an incorrect assumption about the degree to which he valued equal rights for others and was mistaken. Lesson learned.
For most of us, at least for most of the atheists I have encountered, I think it is fair to say that we are capable of and willing to care about people other than ourselves. One does not have to be a woman to care about maintaining reproductive rights for women, and one does not have to be Black to care about the racial disparities in criminal sentencing. And clearly, one does not have to be LGBT to support full equality for LGBT persons.
And speaking of same-sex marriage and equal rights, congratulations to Ireland for getting it right well before the United States does! I'm hoping we will come to our senses and join you soon, but I fear that may still be some time off. I think we still need to persuade the Christian majority that controls too much of our country to do the right thing.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Monday, May 25, 2015
"The notion that a tax on consumption will help the poor and hurt the rich is contrary to just about everything that is known about rich/poor spending and income habits, not just our model."
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COMMENTS:
* LOL. When the Fox shill Huckabee gets slammed by his own right-wing nuts, he can forget about being President. This man has the most whacked out ideas, even farther out then Cruz, Perry, Jindal, Paul and the rest of the GOP nuts.
* Huckabee would be a better head of the Taliban than president of the U. S. His warped religious views are more in line with their authoritarian, no tolerance philosophy. I am surprised that he has not recommended stoning of gays as a platform item.
* Another GOP wannabe caught in a lie about taxes and the wealthy? Perish the thought!
* He's just getting money (donations)..... after he fails his attempt to become President, he'll use what's left of that money to bankroll another book or something similar. Extreme ideology usually produces awful results.
* Huckabee, Forina, several of the others, they are all just doing this to sell books. The only one of the "Not a chance in Hell" category that is seriously trying to run is Jindal, and he is
delusional.* The last sentence of the article clarifies everything about Huck, he's desperately trying to sell more books. Huck the Hick needs to go back to Arkansas and find a gospel church to spew his ignorance in.
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Mike Huckabee and His Tax Plan Get Slammed on Fox
By Rob Garver, May 26, 2015
A few months after he left his gig as a Fox News television host to pursue the Republican nomination for president in 2016, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was back on Fox News Sunday, and to put it mildly, things did not go well.
While Fox has a reputation for being friendly, sometimes overly so, toward the GOP, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace is usually an equal opportunity interrogator, and he didn’t hesitate to ask his former colleague to explain some of his more controversial claims.
Huckabee, for instance, is an advocate of the “FairTax” plan, which would eliminate the income tax and replace it with a consumption tax of about 30 percent while remaining revenue-neutral. Tax experts have repeatedly exposed the FairTax plan as highly regressive – meaning that lower-income individuals would pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the wealthy.
It was a point Wallace asked Huckabee to address, quoting an analysis by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center which found that “the average rate of the lowest income group would exceed 33 percent, while the average for the top group would fall to less than 16 percent.”
“They have it exactly wrong,” Huckabee said. “In fact, it’s the bottom third of the economy who benefit the most from the FairTax, and the people at the top third who benefit the least Everybody benefits some. That tax study is one that has been discredited by the people who spent over $20 million, very thoughtful economic study developing the FairTax. It’s not just some political idea….“
Wallace interrupted, “Doesn’t it just stand to reason that if I make $5,000, I’m going to spend a higher percentage of my income just for necessities, and if I make $1 million, I’m not going to spend as much of a percentage of my income?”
Huckabee launched into an explanation of what FairTax advocates call a “prebate.” Under the proposal, the government would send a check every month to every taxpayer equivalent to what someone living at the poverty level would pay in taxes for “necessities.” He claimed that the prebates mean low-income earners do better under the system than they do currently.
“The FairTax empowers the consumer,” Huckabee said. “That’s power to the people.”
As it turns out, though, the folks at the Tax Policy Center don’t take kindly to having their analyses described as “discredited” on national television.
Asked to respond to Huckabee, William Gale, co-director of the Center, delivered a withering email takedown of Huckabee’s claims and the FairTax proposal in general.
“He has the distributional benefits backwards,” wrote Gale, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former senior economist for President George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. “The notion that a tax on consumption will help the poor and hurt the rich is contrary to just about everything that is known about rich/poor spending and income habits, not just our model.”
In a swipe at the FairTax program, he added: “The ‘people who spent over $20 million on this' did not understand for a decade how the tax actually worked, and it took two papers by me as well as other work – for example, the Bush tax reform panel – to convince these people that they had vastly misstated the tax base because they made 20-25 percent of government disappear.”
Len Burman, the director of the Tax Policy Center, joined the fray as well. Also by email, he said that the idea that the poor would do better under the FairTax plan is simply wrong.
“This issue doesn't involve complicated economic analysis,” wrote Burman, who among other things served as a deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis in the Clinton Treasury Department. “It's simple math, and the FairTax advocates have repeatedly and willfully flubbed the math.”
“The distributional effects are pretty straightforward,” he wrote. “High-income people spend only a fraction of their income, so they effectively benefit from a giant tax exemption compared with an income tax.”
In the Fox interview, Wallace eventually let Huckabee wriggle away from the tax issue, but moved on to some other interesting claims the former governor has recently made – including a suggestion that presidents and lawmakers don’t necessarily need to abide by the rulings of the Supreme Court.
Huckabee claimed that the United States has fallen victim to what he called “judicial supremacy,” in which the Supreme Court has set itself above the other branches of the government.
“The Supreme Court isn’t the Supreme branch, and for God’s sake, it isn’t the Supreme Being,” he said. Wallace, who had not suggested that the Supreme Court was in any way God-like, had no answer for that one, and Huckabee was off, dropping straw man arguments as he went.
“It’s a matter of balance of power,” he said. “If the Supreme Court could just make a ruling and everybody has to bow down and fall on their faces and worship that law – it isn’t a law because it hasn’t been yet passed.”
Umm…
“What if the Supreme Court ruled that they were going to make the decision as to who is going to be the next president and save the taxpayers and the voters from all the expense and trouble of voting and they’ll just pick a president? Well we would say that they can’t do that. Why can’t they do it? They can’t do it because it’s not in the law,” Huckabee continued.
But wait, nobody said….
“We are sworn to uphold the Constitution and the law and it has to be agreed on by three branches of government. One can’t overrule the other two,” He said “That’s all I’m saying. We learned that in 9th grade civics, but I’m convinced a lot of Ivy League law schools must have forgotten that simple, basic civics lesson along the way.”
Okay, enough.
That’s just not true. A bill passed by Congress and signed into law by the president can be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. That’s pretty much the definition of one branch overruling the other two.
Sometimes it’s a little difficult to tell if Huckabee is actually mounting a presidential campaign or just an extended book tour for his latest tome, God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy. On Sunday, it felt a lot like the latter.
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COMMENTS:
* LOL. When the Fox shill Huckabee gets slammed by his own right-wing nuts, he can forget about being President. This man has the most whacked out ideas, even farther out then Cruz, Perry, Jindal, Paul and the rest of the GOP nuts.
* Huckabee would be a better head of the Taliban than president of the U. S. His warped religious views are more in line with their authoritarian, no tolerance philosophy. I am surprised that he has not recommended stoning of gays as a platform item.
* Another GOP wannabe caught in a lie about taxes and the wealthy? Perish the thought!
* He's just getting money (donations)..... after he fails his attempt to become President, he'll use what's left of that money to bankroll another book or something similar. Extreme ideology usually produces awful results.
* Huckabee, Forina, several of the others, they are all just doing this to sell books. The only one of the "Not a chance in Hell" category that is seriously trying to run is Jindal, and he is
delusional.* The last sentence of the article clarifies everything about Huck, he's desperately trying to sell more books. Huck the Hick needs to go back to Arkansas and find a gospel church to spew his ignorance in.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Mike Huckabee and His Tax Plan Get Slammed on Fox
By Rob Garver, May 26, 2015
A few months after he left his gig as a Fox News television host to pursue the Republican nomination for president in 2016, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was back on Fox News Sunday, and to put it mildly, things did not go well.
While Fox has a reputation for being friendly, sometimes overly so, toward the GOP, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace is usually an equal opportunity interrogator, and he didn’t hesitate to ask his former colleague to explain some of his more controversial claims.
Huckabee, for instance, is an advocate of the “FairTax” plan, which would eliminate the income tax and replace it with a consumption tax of about 30 percent while remaining revenue-neutral. Tax experts have repeatedly exposed the FairTax plan as highly regressive – meaning that lower-income individuals would pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the wealthy.
It was a point Wallace asked Huckabee to address, quoting an analysis by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center which found that “the average rate of the lowest income group would exceed 33 percent, while the average for the top group would fall to less than 16 percent.”
“They have it exactly wrong,” Huckabee said. “In fact, it’s the bottom third of the economy who benefit the most from the FairTax, and the people at the top third who benefit the least Everybody benefits some. That tax study is one that has been discredited by the people who spent over $20 million, very thoughtful economic study developing the FairTax. It’s not just some political idea….“
Wallace interrupted, “Doesn’t it just stand to reason that if I make $5,000, I’m going to spend a higher percentage of my income just for necessities, and if I make $1 million, I’m not going to spend as much of a percentage of my income?”
Huckabee launched into an explanation of what FairTax advocates call a “prebate.” Under the proposal, the government would send a check every month to every taxpayer equivalent to what someone living at the poverty level would pay in taxes for “necessities.” He claimed that the prebates mean low-income earners do better under the system than they do currently.
“The FairTax empowers the consumer,” Huckabee said. “That’s power to the people.”
As it turns out, though, the folks at the Tax Policy Center don’t take kindly to having their analyses described as “discredited” on national television.
Asked to respond to Huckabee, William Gale, co-director of the Center, delivered a withering email takedown of Huckabee’s claims and the FairTax proposal in general.
“He has the distributional benefits backwards,” wrote Gale, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former senior economist for President George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. “The notion that a tax on consumption will help the poor and hurt the rich is contrary to just about everything that is known about rich/poor spending and income habits, not just our model.”
In a swipe at the FairTax program, he added: “The ‘people who spent over $20 million on this' did not understand for a decade how the tax actually worked, and it took two papers by me as well as other work – for example, the Bush tax reform panel – to convince these people that they had vastly misstated the tax base because they made 20-25 percent of government disappear.”
Len Burman, the director of the Tax Policy Center, joined the fray as well. Also by email, he said that the idea that the poor would do better under the FairTax plan is simply wrong.
“This issue doesn't involve complicated economic analysis,” wrote Burman, who among other things served as a deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis in the Clinton Treasury Department. “It's simple math, and the FairTax advocates have repeatedly and willfully flubbed the math.”
“The distributional effects are pretty straightforward,” he wrote. “High-income people spend only a fraction of their income, so they effectively benefit from a giant tax exemption compared with an income tax.”
In the Fox interview, Wallace eventually let Huckabee wriggle away from the tax issue, but moved on to some other interesting claims the former governor has recently made – including a suggestion that presidents and lawmakers don’t necessarily need to abide by the rulings of the Supreme Court.
Huckabee claimed that the United States has fallen victim to what he called “judicial supremacy,” in which the Supreme Court has set itself above the other branches of the government.
“The Supreme Court isn’t the Supreme branch, and for God’s sake, it isn’t the Supreme Being,” he said. Wallace, who had not suggested that the Supreme Court was in any way God-like, had no answer for that one, and Huckabee was off, dropping straw man arguments as he went.
“It’s a matter of balance of power,” he said. “If the Supreme Court could just make a ruling and everybody has to bow down and fall on their faces and worship that law – it isn’t a law because it hasn’t been yet passed.”
Umm…
“What if the Supreme Court ruled that they were going to make the decision as to who is going to be the next president and save the taxpayers and the voters from all the expense and trouble of voting and they’ll just pick a president? Well we would say that they can’t do that. Why can’t they do it? They can’t do it because it’s not in the law,” Huckabee continued.
But wait, nobody said….
“We are sworn to uphold the Constitution and the law and it has to be agreed on by three branches of government. One can’t overrule the other two,” He said “That’s all I’m saying. We learned that in 9th grade civics, but I’m convinced a lot of Ivy League law schools must have forgotten that simple, basic civics lesson along the way.”
Okay, enough.
That’s just not true. A bill passed by Congress and signed into law by the president can be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. That’s pretty much the definition of one branch overruling the other two.
Sometimes it’s a little difficult to tell if Huckabee is actually mounting a presidential campaign or just an extended book tour for his latest tome, God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy. On Sunday, it felt a lot like the latter.
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