...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Great, so they've grown a pair. When they can tell that destructive idiot Grover Norquist to buzz off then they will definitely have grown some brains and spines.
* Certainly Cruz's fall from grace should be forgiven. After all, he has been preoccupied monitoring the Jade Helm 15 invasion of his home state by the Americans. Luckily, through his vigilance alone, not a single Texan has yet been sent to a WalMart extermination camp. He is a true American hero. Braving chemtrails and fluoride to keep Texas out of the hands of America.
* Perhaps it's too much to hope for, but if Texas voters will learn (as Sen. Cornyn may have) what Cruz really is, and how bad he is, not only for the nation, but for Texas, maybe--just maybe--we can replace him with a real Senator, one that will actually try to do something, not just obstruct and distract.
* ... the Senate is expected to do their backstabbing with a bit of decorum.
* Tough luck repubs. You allowed Cruz and all the T party people to drag this country down. Now , live with it.
* Hold the cheering. Trouble is they want to do most of what Ted Cruz wants. Repeal the ACA? Check. Vote down Iran Agreement? Check. More abortion restriction? Check. Slash the social safety net? Check. Cut taxes? Check. Religious liberty bill? Check. The list goes on. Really there is not much daylight between any of the GOP. So all we are really discussing is tactics not policy. They are all Ted Cruz's in their policy heart. They just play the game differently.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Ted Cruz bullied Republicans for years. Now they’re standing up to him.
By Dana Milbank, July 28, 2015
Who’s afraid of big, bad Ted Cruz?
Not Lamar Alexander. The Tennessee Republican went on the Senate floor to accuse his fellow Republican of proposing actions that would “render ourselves lawless” and cause “chaos.” Alexander reminded the Texan that the Senate “requires restraint and goodwill.”
Not John Cornyn. The senior senator from Texas said that Cruz’s prescription would be a “terrible mistake” and that if his fellow Texas Republican were making a valid point, “you would find other voices joining that of the junior senator, but I hear no one.”
And certainly not Orrin Hatch. The Utah Republican and Senate president pro tempore said on the Senate floor, in remarks prompted by Cruz, that “squabbling and sanctimony” won’t be tolerated.
“The Senate floor has too often become a forum for partisan messaging,” the veteran legislator inveighed. “It has been misused as a tool to advance personal ambitions, a venue to promote political campaigns and even a vehicle to enhance fundraising efforts” — all of which Cruz has done. “Most egregiously, Mr. President, the Senate floor has even become a place where senators have singled out colleagues by name to attack them in personal terms.”
Finally, Senate Republicans are standing up to the bully who terrorized them the past two and a half years — and they’re finding out he isn’t so tough, after all. After Cruz on the Senate floor Friday called his fellow Republican, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), a liar, his GOP colleagues have moved swiftly to shut down his antics. They voted in large numbers to renew the Export-Import Bank (McConnell’s scheduling of the vote, opposed by Cruz, is what prompted Cruz to accuse McConnell of lying) and they thwarted Cruz and his sidekick, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), on poison-pill amendments to the highway bill that would have jettisoned Senate rules in order to defund Planned Parenthood, scuttle the Iran nuclear deal and repeal Obamacare.
In a particular humiliation of Cruz, he was unable to get a “sufficient second” for a vote on his Iran amendment Sunday, persuading just three senators — well short of the 20 percent he needed. Such seconds are routinely granted as a courtesy, and longtime Congress watchers couldn’t recall a similar rebuke by senators of a colleague.
Off the floor, other GOP senators — Mike Rounds (S.D.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Susan Collins (Maine), Thom Tillis (N.C.) and John McCain (Ariz.) — piled on with their own criticism of Cruz.
McConnell called a meeting of all GOP senators Monday night at which each senator was given an intercepted copy of an e-mail from Lee’s office encouraging outside conservative groups to pressure rank-and-file senators to oppose Republican Senate leaders. Lee apologized, blaming a staffer, and surrendered without a fight in his quest for an Obamacare-repeal amendment to the highway bill.
This could be a turning point for Republicans, if they come to the conclusion that Cruz and his ilk are paper tigers. Cruz has found scant support on the presidential primary trail; polling under 6 percent, he’s in a tie for seventh place and is registering less than a third the support Donald Trump has and less than half that of Jeb Bush.
In a broader sense, Republican senators seem to be growing in confidence that they can defy what remains of the tea party and affiliated conservative groups such as Heritage Action and Club for Growth. Not a single Republican senator was defeated in a primary last year, and none but McCain so far faces a real challenge next year.
Any celebration should be restrained, because the House remains in the grips of Cruz-like conservatives. House Republican leaders said Tuesday they would leave early for their August recess rather than take up the highway bill after it clears the Senate.
But McConnell seemed uncharacteristically cheerful as he opened the Senate on Tuesday morning. He smiled at a page. He smiled at Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). He shared a smile and a chuckle with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).
“The Senate continues to move closer and closer to passage of a bipartisan multi-year highway bill,” McConnell said, already beginning his thank-yous even though the bill was scheduled for a final vote Wednesday.
Minutes later, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a reliable conservative, went to the floor to move up the vote on the bill. “I’m going to make an appeal for whoever is trying to string this thing out to shorten the time so we can have the vote,” he said, in an obvious reference to Cruz. “Now, whether the individuals have placed themselves in the corner where that’s not going to happen, I don’t know.”
The bully has indeed been cornered, and from here he doesn’t look so menacing.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
"... his parliamentary gambit is opposed by most Senate Republicans." Lee, you might make sure you're not on shaky ground before trying this again.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* To think that Lee wants to use the nuclear option to advance a bill that would get immediately vetoed by the President. Mike Lee is Ted Cruz without the brains or the political gifts. What a putz.
* And Obama would get the credit for saving healthcare for millions.
* So, frightened of a veto, they'll do nothing? Now, that's leadership. (That's sarcasm.) We Democrats haven't had nearly as many nasty things to say about Repubicongress as Trump has. It's like a circular firing squad in the Republican party now.
* I call bullxxx. They're playing both sides here - trying to appease the fanatical fringe while also trying to not get blamed for millions of Americans losing healthcare coverage.
* So the goal is to put it on the president's desk and they expect him to sign it? More wasted time, votes, and taxpayer dollars--this coming from the same group complaining they may have to give up a few days of their FIVE WEEK vacation.
* It's hard to fathom why anybody in the GOP thinks these perpetual, fruitless efforts to repeal Obamacare are a good idea. It makes the party look increasingly stupid, which is a hard thing to accomplish.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Lee backs down from Obamacare amendment, after staffer e-mails outside groups
By Kelsey Snell and Paul Kane, July 27, 2015
Conservative Sen. Mike Lee abandoned plans late Monday night to demand a controversial vote on repealing Obamacare following a meeting in which he apologized to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for the actions of a Lee staffer.
Lee gave up his plan to seek an amendment to the must-pass highway bill with a simple-majority vote — a tactic known as the “nuclear option” — after serious backlash from Republican colleagues, including McConnell.
Republicans were angered by an e-mail sent by a Lee staffer to outside groups, including the conservative Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, encouraging them to “score” the amendment vote. That would have forced Lee’s colleagues to support his Obamacare gambit or risk criticism from the right.
Lee’s actions prompted McConnell to call an hour-long closed-door meeting Monday night to bring the party together on a central strategy after weeks of infighting. Lee at first proposed pulling the amendment in favor of getting a later vote during budget reconciliation.
Lee Communications Director Conn Carroll said the senator spoke to McConnell ahead of the Monday night meeting and apologized for the e-mail from his staffer and said that the staffer was reprimanded.
Republicans halted a similar procedural move from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), when he tried on Sunday to stop the Iran nuclear deal until that country recognizes Israel and frees American hostages.
The Cruz and Lee efforts highlighted tension within Senate GOP ranks over when they should pick fights with the Obama administration and when they should hold their fire and move bipartisan legislation. Only a small handful of Republicans rose on Sunday to support Cruz.
Lee and McConnell have had a bumpy relationship from the start, and the move to ditch the rules is just their latest conflict. Lee joined a group of conservative senators in a push to ban earmarks in 2010, just weeks after he was elected, putting him at odds with McConnell’s pro-earmark position from day one.
They have since repaired their relationship and Lee now serves as an appointed member of McConnell’s leadership team. Lee’s spokesman, Conn Carroll, said the senator plans to keep his position in leadership and that the dust-up over rules is nothing more than a political disagreement.
Democrats famously used the so-called nuclear option in 2013 to break a blockade of presidential nominees by allowing them to be confirmed with simple-majority votes, leading to angry protests from Republicans who said they were ditching Senate traditions in the name of partisan politics.
But Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters ahead of the Cruz vote that there was no reason for Republicans to use the Democrats’ 2013 move as a justification for employing a similar tactic now.
“I think if we’re going to change the rules we’d better have debate and we’d better have votes and we’d better have consultation,” McCain. “We can’t just turn around and change the rules of the Senate.”
On Monday night, Lee was going to offer the Obamacare repeal amendment that failed through normal procedure on Sunday. He intended to argue that his proposal is directly related to the highway funding bill and appeal the ruling of the chair that it is not. Under Senate rules, amendments that are directly related, or germane, to the underlying legislation can pass with just 51 votes.
Lee would need at least 11 vote to even get to a vote on overturning the chair’s ruling. But he was expected to fall far short of even that threshold because his parliamentary gambit is opposed by most Senate Republicans.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) on Sunday said there’s no reason to change Senate rules because legislation that has sufficient support will ultimately pass.
“Any time 65 senators want to do something here in the Senate, sooner or later they’re going to get their way,” he said on the Senate floor.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* To think that Lee wants to use the nuclear option to advance a bill that would get immediately vetoed by the President. Mike Lee is Ted Cruz without the brains or the political gifts. What a putz.
* And Obama would get the credit for saving healthcare for millions.
* So, frightened of a veto, they'll do nothing? Now, that's leadership. (That's sarcasm.) We Democrats haven't had nearly as many nasty things to say about Repubicongress as Trump has. It's like a circular firing squad in the Republican party now.
* I call bullxxx. They're playing both sides here - trying to appease the fanatical fringe while also trying to not get blamed for millions of Americans losing healthcare coverage.
* So the goal is to put it on the president's desk and they expect him to sign it? More wasted time, votes, and taxpayer dollars--this coming from the same group complaining they may have to give up a few days of their FIVE WEEK vacation.
* It's hard to fathom why anybody in the GOP thinks these perpetual, fruitless efforts to repeal Obamacare are a good idea. It makes the party look increasingly stupid, which is a hard thing to accomplish.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Lee backs down from Obamacare amendment, after staffer e-mails outside groups
By Kelsey Snell and Paul Kane, July 27, 2015
Conservative Sen. Mike Lee abandoned plans late Monday night to demand a controversial vote on repealing Obamacare following a meeting in which he apologized to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for the actions of a Lee staffer.
Lee gave up his plan to seek an amendment to the must-pass highway bill with a simple-majority vote — a tactic known as the “nuclear option” — after serious backlash from Republican colleagues, including McConnell.
Republicans were angered by an e-mail sent by a Lee staffer to outside groups, including the conservative Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, encouraging them to “score” the amendment vote. That would have forced Lee’s colleagues to support his Obamacare gambit or risk criticism from the right.
Lee’s actions prompted McConnell to call an hour-long closed-door meeting Monday night to bring the party together on a central strategy after weeks of infighting. Lee at first proposed pulling the amendment in favor of getting a later vote during budget reconciliation.
Lee Communications Director Conn Carroll said the senator spoke to McConnell ahead of the Monday night meeting and apologized for the e-mail from his staffer and said that the staffer was reprimanded.
Republicans halted a similar procedural move from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), when he tried on Sunday to stop the Iran nuclear deal until that country recognizes Israel and frees American hostages.
The Cruz and Lee efforts highlighted tension within Senate GOP ranks over when they should pick fights with the Obama administration and when they should hold their fire and move bipartisan legislation. Only a small handful of Republicans rose on Sunday to support Cruz.
Lee and McConnell have had a bumpy relationship from the start, and the move to ditch the rules is just their latest conflict. Lee joined a group of conservative senators in a push to ban earmarks in 2010, just weeks after he was elected, putting him at odds with McConnell’s pro-earmark position from day one.
They have since repaired their relationship and Lee now serves as an appointed member of McConnell’s leadership team. Lee’s spokesman, Conn Carroll, said the senator plans to keep his position in leadership and that the dust-up over rules is nothing more than a political disagreement.
Democrats famously used the so-called nuclear option in 2013 to break a blockade of presidential nominees by allowing them to be confirmed with simple-majority votes, leading to angry protests from Republicans who said they were ditching Senate traditions in the name of partisan politics.
But Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters ahead of the Cruz vote that there was no reason for Republicans to use the Democrats’ 2013 move as a justification for employing a similar tactic now.
“I think if we’re going to change the rules we’d better have debate and we’d better have votes and we’d better have consultation,” McCain. “We can’t just turn around and change the rules of the Senate.”
On Monday night, Lee was going to offer the Obamacare repeal amendment that failed through normal procedure on Sunday. He intended to argue that his proposal is directly related to the highway funding bill and appeal the ruling of the chair that it is not. Under Senate rules, amendments that are directly related, or germane, to the underlying legislation can pass with just 51 votes.
Lee would need at least 11 vote to even get to a vote on overturning the chair’s ruling. But he was expected to fall far short of even that threshold because his parliamentary gambit is opposed by most Senate Republicans.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) on Sunday said there’s no reason to change Senate rules because legislation that has sufficient support will ultimately pass.
“Any time 65 senators want to do something here in the Senate, sooner or later they’re going to get their way,” he said on the Senate floor.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Ousting Boehner-- a publicity stunt? Or a serious attempt? In any event, shouldn't the House be concentrating on other things such as the Iran deal?
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COMMENTS:
* I wish we could ship the entire GOP to some small deserted island and let them have their little civil war, leaving the rest of us to fix this country's problems.
* Republicans at work. Doing nothing that is their way. And blaming everyone else for problems the republicans caused, business as usual.
* Oh, geesh. As if that group known as conservative Republicans wasn't bad enough, now we have their bottom feeders attempting to make the group even more evil.
* Two great jobs the GOP congress has been persistently spent all the time on earth doing: repealing Obamacare and firing their own speaker. Good for them that the two just stick around so that they don't need to do one real thing.
* I love Republican on Republican attacks.
* Remember when they ran on the claim of being able to govern? LMAO...yea....that didn't work out so well, did it?
...................................................................................................................................................................
U.S. House conservative files motion to oust Speaker Boehner
By Susan Cornwell, July 28, 2015
A conservative member of the U.S. House of Representatives filed a motion on Tuesday to try to oust fellow Republican John Boehner from his leadership position, saying he was tired of a "punitive culture" against dissidents in the lawmaking body.
It is unlikely the motion by Representative Mark Meadows to remove Boehner as Speaker of the House will pass or even come to a vote, but it highlights the friction within the Republican Party ahead of a presidential election in 2016.
Meadows is a second-term lawmaker from North Carolina and a member of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservatives who often are at odds with Boehner. Recently they have disagreed on whether the Export-Import Bank, a government export credit agency, should be continued. Conservatives are trying to kill the bank; Boehner supports it.
Recently a committee chairman, presumably acting on orders of Boehner, stripped Meadows of his subcommittee chairmanship after Meadows and a number of other conservatives voted against a procedural motion during a heated trade debate in June.
Meadow's gavel was returned to him, reportedly after other members of the committee protested.
There was no comment from Boehner's office on Tuesday evening.
"Every member of Congress should have the ability to have their voice and their vote heard without fear of retribution if indeed they are representing the people back home," Meadows said.
Meadows' motion said the Speaker has "caused the power of Congress to atrophy" through inaction and "uses the power of the office to punish members who vote according to their conscience instead of the will of the Speaker."
In January, Boehner was re-elected to his third term as Speaker after surviving a challenge from 25 conservative Republicans in the biggest such intra-party rebellion against a Speaker candidate in over a century.
Meadow's challenge to Boehner comes as Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell also is under attack from conservatives within the Republican Party. Last week, Senator Ted Cruz, who is running for president, accused McConnell of lying to him and other Republicans about the leader’s plans for holding a vote on the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank.
Some conservatives in the House spoke about Meadow's motion in favorable terms on Tuesday, while other members derided it as a publicity stunt.
"I guess some people can't get enough attention," said Representative Carlos Curbelo, a freshman representative from Florida, said as he left the Capitol on Tuesday.
Republican Representative Peter King expressed concern that public debate over the August recess would be focused on Meadows' motion instead of what King said should be the focus: the Iran nuclear deal.
But Representative Justin Amash, a member of the Freedom Caucus, spoke approvingly of Meadows' action, saying: "I've talked about the need for new leadership for a long time .. People at home want us to take a new direction."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* I wish we could ship the entire GOP to some small deserted island and let them have their little civil war, leaving the rest of us to fix this country's problems.
* Republicans at work. Doing nothing that is their way. And blaming everyone else for problems the republicans caused, business as usual.
* Oh, geesh. As if that group known as conservative Republicans wasn't bad enough, now we have their bottom feeders attempting to make the group even more evil.
* Two great jobs the GOP congress has been persistently spent all the time on earth doing: repealing Obamacare and firing their own speaker. Good for them that the two just stick around so that they don't need to do one real thing.
* I love Republican on Republican attacks.
* Remember when they ran on the claim of being able to govern? LMAO...yea....that didn't work out so well, did it?
...................................................................................................................................................................
U.S. House conservative files motion to oust Speaker Boehner
By Susan Cornwell, July 28, 2015
A conservative member of the U.S. House of Representatives filed a motion on Tuesday to try to oust fellow Republican John Boehner from his leadership position, saying he was tired of a "punitive culture" against dissidents in the lawmaking body.
It is unlikely the motion by Representative Mark Meadows to remove Boehner as Speaker of the House will pass or even come to a vote, but it highlights the friction within the Republican Party ahead of a presidential election in 2016.
Meadows is a second-term lawmaker from North Carolina and a member of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservatives who often are at odds with Boehner. Recently they have disagreed on whether the Export-Import Bank, a government export credit agency, should be continued. Conservatives are trying to kill the bank; Boehner supports it.
Recently a committee chairman, presumably acting on orders of Boehner, stripped Meadows of his subcommittee chairmanship after Meadows and a number of other conservatives voted against a procedural motion during a heated trade debate in June.
Meadow's gavel was returned to him, reportedly after other members of the committee protested.
There was no comment from Boehner's office on Tuesday evening.
"Every member of Congress should have the ability to have their voice and their vote heard without fear of retribution if indeed they are representing the people back home," Meadows said.
Meadows' motion said the Speaker has "caused the power of Congress to atrophy" through inaction and "uses the power of the office to punish members who vote according to their conscience instead of the will of the Speaker."
In January, Boehner was re-elected to his third term as Speaker after surviving a challenge from 25 conservative Republicans in the biggest such intra-party rebellion against a Speaker candidate in over a century.
Meadow's challenge to Boehner comes as Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell also is under attack from conservatives within the Republican Party. Last week, Senator Ted Cruz, who is running for president, accused McConnell of lying to him and other Republicans about the leader’s plans for holding a vote on the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank.
Some conservatives in the House spoke about Meadow's motion in favorable terms on Tuesday, while other members derided it as a publicity stunt.
"I guess some people can't get enough attention," said Representative Carlos Curbelo, a freshman representative from Florida, said as he left the Capitol on Tuesday.
Republican Representative Peter King expressed concern that public debate over the August recess would be focused on Meadows' motion instead of what King said should be the focus: the Iran nuclear deal.
But Representative Justin Amash, a member of the Freedom Caucus, spoke approvingly of Meadows' action, saying: "I've talked about the need for new leadership for a long time .. People at home want us to take a new direction."
...................................................................................................................................................................
"American gun culture is impressively pervasive, remarkably influential and reliably deadly. Give the gun lobby its due: It gets results."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENT:
Nobody is calling to "ban beer" anymore than "ban all guns." But we do RESTRICT access to beer. In some states, it is easier for a kid to buy a gun than to buy beer (or cigarettes). We have laws that penalize people for drinking and driving and that make bars culpable is they allow a drunk to get behind the wheel. We have laws about texting while driving and penalties that can be enforced. The real problem is that the NRA has prevented us from installing any of these sort of mechanisms when it comes to guns. Saying that the answer to gun violence is "more guns" is like saying the answer to drunk driving is "more beer." It makes no sense. The NRA interprets any law that makes gun owners responsible for their actions a "ban" even when it is nothing of the sort. Want universal background checks to weed out felons? That is a ban. Want to institute a waiting period to allow a "cooling off" period to prevent spur of the moment purchases (that often lead to domestic assaults) That's a ban. Want to require some sort of firearms training? That is a ban. Anything that would require a firearms owner to make sure they know how to use the weapon safely is called a "ban." Even though the second amendment clearly says something about "well-regulated militia".
...................................................................................................................................................................
NRA Promises Apocalypse Now
By Francis Wilkinson, July 28, 2015
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who presides over a state with a high rate of gun violence and a low quality of gun laws, is shocked. "We never would've imagined it would've happened in Louisiana or Lafayette," he said after last week's movie theater shooting in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Jindal responded with a kind of gunner jujitsu, calling for other states to emulate the sloppy standards of Louisiana, which has loose gun laws and has largely failed to supply mental-health records to the criminal background check system, although a law signed by Jindal now requires it. Louisiana has the nation's second-highest rate of death by firearm.
How could this have happened? is perhaps the most dishonest question in all of gun land. American gun culture is impressively pervasive, remarkably influential and reliably deadly. Give the gun lobby its due: It gets results.
It also gives the angry, paranoid and armed a collective voice. John Russell Houser, the cantankerous 59-year-old who opened fire at a showing of "Trainwreck" in Lafayette, seems to have dabbled in Hitler love. But his online complaints also echo the decline-and-fall narrative of National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre.
"You must realize the power of the lone wolf, is the power that come forth in ALL situations," Houser reportedly wrote in an online forum, before heroically testing his theory on people in a movie theater. LaPierre, too, understands the call of the wild. "Do you trust this government really to protect you and your family?" he asked in a 2014 speech at the NRA's annual convention. "We're on our own," LaPierre told his pack. "That's a certainty."
LaPierre's gunslinger, abandoned by government, fighting off the apocalypse, is under attack from every conceivable side. No place is safe from "terrorists, home invaders, drug cartels, car jackers, 'knock-out' gamers, rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse a society that sustains us all," LaPierre said in that same 2014 speech.
Anyone can paint a picture of dystopia. LaPierre and the NRA work to realize it.
When government tries to erect barriers between the homicidal and the rest of us, the NRA steps in to resist. California law empowers authorities to remove guns from the homes of felons and others who are legally barred from purchasing them. An NRA representative, speaking on an NRA News show, described that measure as a "campaign of shame against gun owners."
A recent proposal in Washington ("trial balloon" may be a more apt description) calls for screening Social Security recipients -- some of whom are officially deemed not competent to manage their own affairs. It would add the names of the mentally incompetent to the federal background-check database, an idea that generated a ferocious response from the NRA, which called it "the largest gun grab in American history."
From the NRA website:
The NRA likewise fights to the death to retain loopholes that allow criminals and others to avoid background checks on gun purchases. Dylann Roof, the avowed racist who allegedly killed nine in a South Carolina church in June, exploited a loophole to obtain a firearm when his federal background check for a gun purchase was not rendered in the legally required three days. The sale should have been prohibited because of Roof's previous admission of drug possession, but a clerical error and a law that values convenient shopping over inhibiting violence enabled him to walk away armed and dangerous.
On its website, the NRA calls the loophole "necessary," in part because "it preserves a critical aspect of America's constitutional system, the due process principle that the government cannot arbitrarily deprive a person of his or her rights without making its case against that person." (The headline of the NRA post cites Michael Bloomberg -- the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News -- who supports an organization that works to combat gun violence.) Of course, Roof also had the option to visit an online marketplace or gun show where, due to the exertions of the NRA and its allies, no background check is required.
Yet despite all its success, the NRA cannot keep the monsters away.
For Houser, darkness had already descended. "They are now in control of spending and the printing of money," he is reported to have written online, in a paragraph citing welfare benefits and affirmative action. America had become a "filth farm," he declared. When a man has his finger on the trigger of an apocalypse, somebody's bound to get shot.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENT:
Nobody is calling to "ban beer" anymore than "ban all guns." But we do RESTRICT access to beer. In some states, it is easier for a kid to buy a gun than to buy beer (or cigarettes). We have laws that penalize people for drinking and driving and that make bars culpable is they allow a drunk to get behind the wheel. We have laws about texting while driving and penalties that can be enforced. The real problem is that the NRA has prevented us from installing any of these sort of mechanisms when it comes to guns. Saying that the answer to gun violence is "more guns" is like saying the answer to drunk driving is "more beer." It makes no sense. The NRA interprets any law that makes gun owners responsible for their actions a "ban" even when it is nothing of the sort. Want universal background checks to weed out felons? That is a ban. Want to institute a waiting period to allow a "cooling off" period to prevent spur of the moment purchases (that often lead to domestic assaults) That's a ban. Want to require some sort of firearms training? That is a ban. Anything that would require a firearms owner to make sure they know how to use the weapon safely is called a "ban." Even though the second amendment clearly says something about "well-regulated militia".
...................................................................................................................................................................
NRA Promises Apocalypse Now
By Francis Wilkinson, July 28, 2015
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who presides over a state with a high rate of gun violence and a low quality of gun laws, is shocked. "We never would've imagined it would've happened in Louisiana or Lafayette," he said after last week's movie theater shooting in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Jindal responded with a kind of gunner jujitsu, calling for other states to emulate the sloppy standards of Louisiana, which has loose gun laws and has largely failed to supply mental-health records to the criminal background check system, although a law signed by Jindal now requires it. Louisiana has the nation's second-highest rate of death by firearm.
How could this have happened? is perhaps the most dishonest question in all of gun land. American gun culture is impressively pervasive, remarkably influential and reliably deadly. Give the gun lobby its due: It gets results.
It also gives the angry, paranoid and armed a collective voice. John Russell Houser, the cantankerous 59-year-old who opened fire at a showing of "Trainwreck" in Lafayette, seems to have dabbled in Hitler love. But his online complaints also echo the decline-and-fall narrative of National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre.
"You must realize the power of the lone wolf, is the power that come forth in ALL situations," Houser reportedly wrote in an online forum, before heroically testing his theory on people in a movie theater. LaPierre, too, understands the call of the wild. "Do you trust this government really to protect you and your family?" he asked in a 2014 speech at the NRA's annual convention. "We're on our own," LaPierre told his pack. "That's a certainty."
LaPierre's gunslinger, abandoned by government, fighting off the apocalypse, is under attack from every conceivable side. No place is safe from "terrorists, home invaders, drug cartels, car jackers, 'knock-out' gamers, rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse a society that sustains us all," LaPierre said in that same 2014 speech.
Anyone can paint a picture of dystopia. LaPierre and the NRA work to realize it.
When government tries to erect barriers between the homicidal and the rest of us, the NRA steps in to resist. California law empowers authorities to remove guns from the homes of felons and others who are legally barred from purchasing them. An NRA representative, speaking on an NRA News show, described that measure as a "campaign of shame against gun owners."
A recent proposal in Washington ("trial balloon" may be a more apt description) calls for screening Social Security recipients -- some of whom are officially deemed not competent to manage their own affairs. It would add the names of the mentally incompetent to the federal background-check database, an idea that generated a ferocious response from the NRA, which called it "the largest gun grab in American history."
From the NRA website:
Are you a prohibited person? A new, unconstitutional Social Security Administration program will add over 4 million Americans to the prohibited persons list without due process. Contact your lawmakers today. Ask if you're one of the 4 million.Notice how a vague proposal of uncertain prospects has been transformed, through the magic of dishonesty, into an unconstitutional fait accompli.
The NRA likewise fights to the death to retain loopholes that allow criminals and others to avoid background checks on gun purchases. Dylann Roof, the avowed racist who allegedly killed nine in a South Carolina church in June, exploited a loophole to obtain a firearm when his federal background check for a gun purchase was not rendered in the legally required three days. The sale should have been prohibited because of Roof's previous admission of drug possession, but a clerical error and a law that values convenient shopping over inhibiting violence enabled him to walk away armed and dangerous.
On its website, the NRA calls the loophole "necessary," in part because "it preserves a critical aspect of America's constitutional system, the due process principle that the government cannot arbitrarily deprive a person of his or her rights without making its case against that person." (The headline of the NRA post cites Michael Bloomberg -- the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News -- who supports an organization that works to combat gun violence.) Of course, Roof also had the option to visit an online marketplace or gun show where, due to the exertions of the NRA and its allies, no background check is required.
Yet despite all its success, the NRA cannot keep the monsters away.
For nearly seven years now, the president has forced his transformation down America's throat, and our nation is choking on it. As he prepares to leave office, and leave his final legacy, there's no telling how far President Obama will go to dismantle our freedoms and reshape America into an America that you and I will not even recognize.Paranoia and rage must be nurtured and stoked, and ex-presidents make poor bogeymen. Which is why LaPierre has gotten a jump on his presidential transition. "Hillary Rodham Clinton will bring a permanent darkness of deceit," LaPierre warned at this year's NRA convention.
For Houser, darkness had already descended. "They are now in control of spending and the printing of money," he is reported to have written online, in a paragraph citing welfare benefits and affirmative action. America had become a "filth farm," he declared. When a man has his finger on the trigger of an apocalypse, somebody's bound to get shot.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"... Wisconsin has been nothing but a staging ground for the Koch's plan to buy the White House in 2016." We must stop this!
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENT:
Seems to me, republican/conservatives have this "must win" attitude regardless if they're the majority or minority ... their conservative views should always trump whatever ideas or opinions are out there. Same goes with the Supreme Court ... every decision "must" be based on their conservative ideology regardless what the language of the law says. And if there's a question about intent, the justices should always consider the conservative point of view only. Elections are great for the public to exercise their freedom to participate ... so long as they vote according to the standards established by conservatives ... nothing else is acceptable. And commerce is welcome to participate too, so long as their values match the conservative ideology and they're willing to "invest" time, effort and money. Odd thing is, when I was growing up I distinctly remember I was taught there was a country than actually practiced this with great vigor, but they reached too far, stumbled and became nothing more than a footnote in the story of human history. It was called the Soviet Union.
...................................................................................................................................................................
How the Billionaires Bought Justice for Scott Walker
By Thom Hartmann, July 18, 2015
Scott Walker is the perfect example of how billionaires can purchase justice a la carte to protect their pet politicians.
Now that's not to say that Scott Walker himself is a billionaire. But he has a well-known relationship with billionaires like the Koch Brothers -- and their assorted front groups.
And in short, that's why the Wisconsin Supreme Court dropped its John Doe probe into whether Scott Walker criminally violated campaign finance laws to win his recall election in 2012.
The Koch brothers and their front groups, particularly the Wisconsin Club for Growth, along with the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce group (WMC) have been setting up this ruling for almost a decade.
This story starts in 2007 with an election for an open seat on the state Supreme Court.
In that election, conservative front groups spent $2.9 million backing the conservative Annette Ziegler and attacking her liberal opponent.
Total spending on that election was four times the previous record for a Wisconsin Supreme Court race. And that was just to keep a liberal from winning the seat.
And In 2008, those same groups spent $2.7 million to unseat liberal justice Louis Butler and to put in place conservative Michael Gableman.
But after two elections of blatant spending by partisan interest groups, the legislature pushed back and passed the "Impartial Justice Act." It set up a clean campaign finance system in Wisconsin and it even included a matching funds provision to help candidates counter negative ads against them.
But by then, the march to statewide plutocracy was in motion. And the Kochs weren't going to let finance laws block them from owning the state government.
Walker won his first gubernatorial election in 2010, riding a wave of finance and support from Americans for Prosperity. That's another Koch money front group.
And when he took office, Walker and the newly conservative legislature quickly and quietly stuck a repeal of the Impartial Justice Act into his first state budget in 2011.
Later in 2011, one of the conservative judges on Wisconsin's Supreme Court was up for re-election -- David Prosser. The state was in upheaval over Walker's assault on public unions, and the Kochs couldn't afford to lose a seat on the court.
So the Wisconsin Club for Growth and WMC spent an estimated $2.5 million to keep conservative Justice David Prosser on Wisconsin's Supreme Court -- while his own campaign only spent about $700,000.
He only won re-election by 7,004 votes. But $2.5 million is a small price for billionaires to protect a shill like Walker.
Especially when the end result is a wholly owned state government -- executive, legislature and the courts.
But all those gains were threatened when prosecutors started investigating Walker for coordinating with the Wisconsin Club for Growth and WMC during Walker's recall election in 2012.
In response, the Wisconsin Club for Growth filed a lawsuit to end the investigation.
Remember, in the last decade alone: Three of the seven Wisconsin Supreme Court justices have won their elections with help from the Kochs.
In the same way as Scott Walker.
And with the same groups.
Knowing this, prosecutors filed for two of the justices to recuse themselves.
And under a 2009 US Supreme Court ruling, they would have had to recuse themselves in pretty much every other state.
But not in Wisconsin. Because it pays to own the state Supreme Court.
The court simply adopted rules -- THAT WERE PROPOSED BY THE WMC -- that say very simply that "that the receipt of a lawful campaign contribution shall not, by itself, warrant judicial recusal."
Make no mistake. These groups are simply dark money cover groups for the Koch brothers and their billionaire buddies to funnel as much money as they want into state and federal elections.
And the way they do it is technically "legal" because of the disastrous rulings in Citizens United and Buckley v. Valeo.
Which brings us back to the Koch Brothers' presidential candidate of choice: Scott Walker.
Since Scott Walker became governor in 2011, Wisconsin has been nothing but a staging ground for the Koch's plan to buy the White House in 2016.
If Scott Walker and these dark money groups faced real investigation, it wouldn't just lead to Walker possibly going to jail and losing out on being president.
It would also call into question the entire idea of campaign spending as free speech. It would expose the unfettered power of money to control our political system.
And THAT would be disastrous for the Kochs, who have pledged to spend more than $800 million in this upcoming election.
Sadly for our democracy, the Kochs and their friends spent more than $10 million in less than a decade to buy Wisconsin's Supreme Court.
And that investment paid off huge today, when the court ended the investigation into whether Scott Walker violated any campaign finance laws and ordered all the evidence destroyed.
This is a true crisis for our Republic.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENT:
Seems to me, republican/conservatives have this "must win" attitude regardless if they're the majority or minority ... their conservative views should always trump whatever ideas or opinions are out there. Same goes with the Supreme Court ... every decision "must" be based on their conservative ideology regardless what the language of the law says. And if there's a question about intent, the justices should always consider the conservative point of view only. Elections are great for the public to exercise their freedom to participate ... so long as they vote according to the standards established by conservatives ... nothing else is acceptable. And commerce is welcome to participate too, so long as their values match the conservative ideology and they're willing to "invest" time, effort and money. Odd thing is, when I was growing up I distinctly remember I was taught there was a country than actually practiced this with great vigor, but they reached too far, stumbled and became nothing more than a footnote in the story of human history. It was called the Soviet Union.
...................................................................................................................................................................
How the Billionaires Bought Justice for Scott Walker
By Thom Hartmann, July 18, 2015
Scott Walker is the perfect example of how billionaires can purchase justice a la carte to protect their pet politicians.
Now that's not to say that Scott Walker himself is a billionaire. But he has a well-known relationship with billionaires like the Koch Brothers -- and their assorted front groups.
And in short, that's why the Wisconsin Supreme Court dropped its John Doe probe into whether Scott Walker criminally violated campaign finance laws to win his recall election in 2012.
The Koch brothers and their front groups, particularly the Wisconsin Club for Growth, along with the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce group (WMC) have been setting up this ruling for almost a decade.
This story starts in 2007 with an election for an open seat on the state Supreme Court.
In that election, conservative front groups spent $2.9 million backing the conservative Annette Ziegler and attacking her liberal opponent.
Total spending on that election was four times the previous record for a Wisconsin Supreme Court race. And that was just to keep a liberal from winning the seat.
And In 2008, those same groups spent $2.7 million to unseat liberal justice Louis Butler and to put in place conservative Michael Gableman.
But after two elections of blatant spending by partisan interest groups, the legislature pushed back and passed the "Impartial Justice Act." It set up a clean campaign finance system in Wisconsin and it even included a matching funds provision to help candidates counter negative ads against them.
But by then, the march to statewide plutocracy was in motion. And the Kochs weren't going to let finance laws block them from owning the state government.
Walker won his first gubernatorial election in 2010, riding a wave of finance and support from Americans for Prosperity. That's another Koch money front group.
And when he took office, Walker and the newly conservative legislature quickly and quietly stuck a repeal of the Impartial Justice Act into his first state budget in 2011.
Later in 2011, one of the conservative judges on Wisconsin's Supreme Court was up for re-election -- David Prosser. The state was in upheaval over Walker's assault on public unions, and the Kochs couldn't afford to lose a seat on the court.
So the Wisconsin Club for Growth and WMC spent an estimated $2.5 million to keep conservative Justice David Prosser on Wisconsin's Supreme Court -- while his own campaign only spent about $700,000.
He only won re-election by 7,004 votes. But $2.5 million is a small price for billionaires to protect a shill like Walker.
Especially when the end result is a wholly owned state government -- executive, legislature and the courts.
But all those gains were threatened when prosecutors started investigating Walker for coordinating with the Wisconsin Club for Growth and WMC during Walker's recall election in 2012.
In response, the Wisconsin Club for Growth filed a lawsuit to end the investigation.
Remember, in the last decade alone: Three of the seven Wisconsin Supreme Court justices have won their elections with help from the Kochs.
In the same way as Scott Walker.
And with the same groups.
Knowing this, prosecutors filed for two of the justices to recuse themselves.
And under a 2009 US Supreme Court ruling, they would have had to recuse themselves in pretty much every other state.
But not in Wisconsin. Because it pays to own the state Supreme Court.
The court simply adopted rules -- THAT WERE PROPOSED BY THE WMC -- that say very simply that "that the receipt of a lawful campaign contribution shall not, by itself, warrant judicial recusal."
Make no mistake. These groups are simply dark money cover groups for the Koch brothers and their billionaire buddies to funnel as much money as they want into state and federal elections.
And the way they do it is technically "legal" because of the disastrous rulings in Citizens United and Buckley v. Valeo.
Which brings us back to the Koch Brothers' presidential candidate of choice: Scott Walker.
Since Scott Walker became governor in 2011, Wisconsin has been nothing but a staging ground for the Koch's plan to buy the White House in 2016.
If Scott Walker and these dark money groups faced real investigation, it wouldn't just lead to Walker possibly going to jail and losing out on being president.
It would also call into question the entire idea of campaign spending as free speech. It would expose the unfettered power of money to control our political system.
And THAT would be disastrous for the Kochs, who have pledged to spend more than $800 million in this upcoming election.
Sadly for our democracy, the Kochs and their friends spent more than $10 million in less than a decade to buy Wisconsin's Supreme Court.
And that investment paid off huge today, when the court ended the investigation into whether Scott Walker violated any campaign finance laws and ordered all the evidence destroyed.
This is a true crisis for our Republic.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Monday, July 27, 2015
"... fossil fuel interests are resorting to desperate tactics such as the propaganda piece by AFP in The Wall Street Journal." Shame on the Koch brothers!
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* THE KOCH BROTHERS ARE A NAITONAL DISGRACE, ALONG WITH SCOTT WALKER.
* Come on. Trust the Koch's? Google their history---and you'll say no way.
* ... The Koch folks should be ashamed of themselves and will not be remembered well for the delays they have caused to climate action. But as you point out, the truth is starting to win over their money. Conservative Geogretown, Texas is going 100% renewable for economic reasons. We're headed towards 30% renewables in California in 2016 and 50% by 2030. We know what needs to be done and California leaders are working hard to get there. Our latest California data shows a decoupling between economic growth and GHG emissions. (my latest blog post is on Calif renewables at:http://climatedispatch.blogspot.com/ )
* Not only a disgrace but a great danger to our way of life. ... We can't allow a radicalized republican party, led by the Koch brothers, to drag us into their hell on earth vision of America. Like I said, drastic measures!
...................................................................................................................................................................
Exposing Koch-Funded Groups and Their Dubious Claims About Renewable Portfolio Standards
By Dorothy Barnett, July 20, 2015
The Wall Street Journal frequently opens its pages to fossil-fuel-funded front groups and individuals to launch blatantly false attacks on our country's burgeoning clean energy industry. A week ago Friday was no exception, with the paper printing a misleading, anti-clean energy screed by two leaders in the group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP). A bit of background on AFP tells us what we're dealing with here.
First, fossil fuel industry interests, including the American Petroleum Institute and the Koch brothers, heavily fund the group. Second, AFP relentlessly pushes the supposed virtues of fossil fuels and the supposed ills of wind and solar power, twisting the evidence - and spending a great deal of money to spread the resulting propaganda around as widely as possible.
In the Wall Street Journal piece, for instance, the AFP members cite highly dubious, cherry-picked numbers from three other fossil fuel industry front groups: the Koch-funded Institute for Energy Research, the Koch-funded Manhattan Institute and the Koch-funded Institute of Political Economy at Utah State University. They do this in an effort to misinform the public and policymakers about bipartisan and universally popular Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS).
As for the AFP's dubious claims about electricity prices in RPS states, DBL Investors found that the 10 states using mostly renewables had cheaper electricity prices, on average, than the 10 states making use of the least amount of renewables. The reason for this is simple: the cost of clean energy has plummeted in the past few years, to the point where it's less expensive than coal or natural gas in many parts of the country, as The New York Times reported late last year. Keep in mind that this is the case despite the massive taxpayer-funded government subsidies that have been provided for decades to the fossil fuel lobby. Finally, a 2014 Lazard report found that the cheapest forms of energy in the United States are now energy efficiency, utility-scale solar power and onshore wind.
Given all this, it's not surprising that clean energy is wildly popular across the country. No wonder the Koch brothers' efforts at stopping clean energy's progress in Kansas - their and my home state - were beaten back four years in a row. Meanwhile, investors and utilities see the value of wind, with Kansas blowing past its 20% by 2020 RPS five years early. The best the Koch brothers could do was to get an already-exceeded RPS converted into a "voluntary" goal.
A big part of the reason why the Koch brothers keep losing is that support for clean energy is broad and bipartisan, with a great deal of Republican support among farmers, county commissioners, local chambers of commerce and economic development officials. Even the Tea Party is pushing back against Koch-funded groups in Kansas, Tennessee and Florida.
In desperation, the Koch brothers are now using front groups like AFP to crank up the volume on their spin machine in an effort to spread misinformation about clean energy and RPS laws, including against North Carolina's bipartisan and hugely successful RPS.
Here's the truth: States that continue to embrace renewable energy standards are reaping the economic benefits. In June, for instance, a broad coalition of rural conservatives and local businesses rejected an attempt to end Texas' RPS, even as renewable energy is bringing in huge amounts of private investments while keeping Texans' electricity prices low. It's worth noting that 29 states maintain RPS standards, and that half a dozen states - including Hawaii, Vermont and California - are actually in the process of expanding and extending their RPS laws. On the flip side, Koch-funded groups have pushed anti-RPS bills in Colorado, New Mexico and New Hampshire, and each time they failed.
In the end, the powerful economic and technological improvements that we've seen in recent years are helping to advance solar, wind and other forms of renewable electricity. Add in strong, bipartisan public and business resistance to efforts aimed at slowing this country's clean energy boom, and it's no wonder fossil fuel interests are resorting to desperate tactics such as the propaganda piece by AFP in The Wall Street Journal.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* THE KOCH BROTHERS ARE A NAITONAL DISGRACE, ALONG WITH SCOTT WALKER.
* Come on. Trust the Koch's? Google their history---and you'll say no way.
* ... The Koch folks should be ashamed of themselves and will not be remembered well for the delays they have caused to climate action. But as you point out, the truth is starting to win over their money. Conservative Geogretown, Texas is going 100% renewable for economic reasons. We're headed towards 30% renewables in California in 2016 and 50% by 2030. We know what needs to be done and California leaders are working hard to get there. Our latest California data shows a decoupling between economic growth and GHG emissions. (my latest blog post is on Calif renewables at:http://climatedispatch.blogspot.com/ )
* Not only a disgrace but a great danger to our way of life. ... We can't allow a radicalized republican party, led by the Koch brothers, to drag us into their hell on earth vision of America. Like I said, drastic measures!
...................................................................................................................................................................
Exposing Koch-Funded Groups and Their Dubious Claims About Renewable Portfolio Standards
By Dorothy Barnett, July 20, 2015
The Wall Street Journal frequently opens its pages to fossil-fuel-funded front groups and individuals to launch blatantly false attacks on our country's burgeoning clean energy industry. A week ago Friday was no exception, with the paper printing a misleading, anti-clean energy screed by two leaders in the group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP). A bit of background on AFP tells us what we're dealing with here.
First, fossil fuel industry interests, including the American Petroleum Institute and the Koch brothers, heavily fund the group. Second, AFP relentlessly pushes the supposed virtues of fossil fuels and the supposed ills of wind and solar power, twisting the evidence - and spending a great deal of money to spread the resulting propaganda around as widely as possible.
In the Wall Street Journal piece, for instance, the AFP members cite highly dubious, cherry-picked numbers from three other fossil fuel industry front groups: the Koch-funded Institute for Energy Research, the Koch-funded Manhattan Institute and the Koch-funded Institute of Political Economy at Utah State University. They do this in an effort to misinform the public and policymakers about bipartisan and universally popular Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS).
As for the AFP's dubious claims about electricity prices in RPS states, DBL Investors found that the 10 states using mostly renewables had cheaper electricity prices, on average, than the 10 states making use of the least amount of renewables. The reason for this is simple: the cost of clean energy has plummeted in the past few years, to the point where it's less expensive than coal or natural gas in many parts of the country, as The New York Times reported late last year. Keep in mind that this is the case despite the massive taxpayer-funded government subsidies that have been provided for decades to the fossil fuel lobby. Finally, a 2014 Lazard report found that the cheapest forms of energy in the United States are now energy efficiency, utility-scale solar power and onshore wind.
Given all this, it's not surprising that clean energy is wildly popular across the country. No wonder the Koch brothers' efforts at stopping clean energy's progress in Kansas - their and my home state - were beaten back four years in a row. Meanwhile, investors and utilities see the value of wind, with Kansas blowing past its 20% by 2020 RPS five years early. The best the Koch brothers could do was to get an already-exceeded RPS converted into a "voluntary" goal.
A big part of the reason why the Koch brothers keep losing is that support for clean energy is broad and bipartisan, with a great deal of Republican support among farmers, county commissioners, local chambers of commerce and economic development officials. Even the Tea Party is pushing back against Koch-funded groups in Kansas, Tennessee and Florida.
In desperation, the Koch brothers are now using front groups like AFP to crank up the volume on their spin machine in an effort to spread misinformation about clean energy and RPS laws, including against North Carolina's bipartisan and hugely successful RPS.
Here's the truth: States that continue to embrace renewable energy standards are reaping the economic benefits. In June, for instance, a broad coalition of rural conservatives and local businesses rejected an attempt to end Texas' RPS, even as renewable energy is bringing in huge amounts of private investments while keeping Texans' electricity prices low. It's worth noting that 29 states maintain RPS standards, and that half a dozen states - including Hawaii, Vermont and California - are actually in the process of expanding and extending their RPS laws. On the flip side, Koch-funded groups have pushed anti-RPS bills in Colorado, New Mexico and New Hampshire, and each time they failed.
In the end, the powerful economic and technological improvements that we've seen in recent years are helping to advance solar, wind and other forms of renewable electricity. Add in strong, bipartisan public and business resistance to efforts aimed at slowing this country's clean energy boom, and it's no wonder fossil fuel interests are resorting to desperate tactics such as the propaganda piece by AFP in The Wall Street Journal.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"... men, without the vaguest notion of ... what it is like to be a woman denied control of her own body, her own most private and personal decision making."
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Republicans may have forgotten that women are no longer legally the property of their fathers (if single) or of their husbands. We won the right to vote in 1920. We are no longer chattel.
* If you don't have a uterus you're not allowed to tell women how to operate them.
* ... stop being logical with Republicans.. They'll never get it, no matter how much evidence is on your side
* I can understand that Republican males see it as their own best interest to dominate and subjugate women. What I just cannot understand is the women who support them. What is that about? …. Self-hatred or the fear that you need a man to survive? If you keep letting these people make laws, we will go right back to when a women was kept uneducated and poor so she could be subjugated.
* Did you forget the rights of the unborn child? You can't take someone elses rights away for your own.
* You don't have any rights until you are born. It's really simple, actually. You have to exist before you have rights. Get it yet?
...................................................................................................................................................................
Republican Men Against Women's Rights
By Fran Moreland Johns, July 27, 2015
There is something unnerving about the rush of Republican presidential candidates to go on record as standing firmly against women's reproductive rights.
Addressing a recent gathering of the National Right to Life Committee -- which itself stands firmly against reproductive rights for women; its sole concern is with the fetus -- a handful of the leading Republican candidates tried to outdo each other in expressing their anti-women positions. This was before Wisconsin governor Scott Walker threw his hat into the ring with a stirring promise to work for "the unborn." What Walker means is this: he has zero interest in the mothers of those "unborns;" but he welcomes the political support of anti-abortion forces.
And anti-abortion forces have a lot of political muscle. A sample of the comments being made by candidates seeking to capture it would include:
Jeb Bush, whose "moral absolutes" do not include a woman's moral right to make her own reproductive decisions, points to the laws passed during his tenure as governor of Florida: the funding of adoption counseling -- but not abortion counseling, banning late-term abortion and imposing medically unnecessary regulations on clinics offering abortion.
Rick Perry wanted the anti-abortion group to understand that when he was governor of Texas his record on denial of a woman's right to choose was best of all. "That's a fact," he said. "We passed a parental notification law. I signed a parental consent law. I signed a sonogram law so mothers facing that agonizing choice can actually see." Forcing parental involvement on very young women who often need to keep their decision private, and all women to view a medically irrelevant sonogram whether they wish to or not -- these are the sources of Perry's pride.
More recently, we have the ever-articulate Donald Trump entering the fray with the comment that "it really, really bothers me, the whole concept of abortion." Trump's interest in women, which is well-documented if problematic, does not extend to an interest in their right to make their own reproductive choices.
And lastly, Marco Rubio seeks to enter the White House because it "needs an occupant who values and prioritizes life." Read: life of "the unborn." If Rubio gave a fig for the lives of uncounted thousands of women put at risk by the restrictive laws he supports -- his values and priorities might shift.
All of the above are men, without the vaguest notion of what it is like to be pregnant as a result of abuse, incest, assault or a multitude of other wrongs, or simply what it is like to be a woman denied control of her own body, her own most private and personal decision making.
Such is presidential politics today.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Republicans may have forgotten that women are no longer legally the property of their fathers (if single) or of their husbands. We won the right to vote in 1920. We are no longer chattel.
* If you don't have a uterus you're not allowed to tell women how to operate them.
* ... stop being logical with Republicans.. They'll never get it, no matter how much evidence is on your side
* I can understand that Republican males see it as their own best interest to dominate and subjugate women. What I just cannot understand is the women who support them. What is that about? …. Self-hatred or the fear that you need a man to survive? If you keep letting these people make laws, we will go right back to when a women was kept uneducated and poor so she could be subjugated.
* Did you forget the rights of the unborn child? You can't take someone elses rights away for your own.
* You don't have any rights until you are born. It's really simple, actually. You have to exist before you have rights. Get it yet?
...................................................................................................................................................................
Republican Men Against Women's Rights
By Fran Moreland Johns, July 27, 2015
There is something unnerving about the rush of Republican presidential candidates to go on record as standing firmly against women's reproductive rights.
Addressing a recent gathering of the National Right to Life Committee -- which itself stands firmly against reproductive rights for women; its sole concern is with the fetus -- a handful of the leading Republican candidates tried to outdo each other in expressing their anti-women positions. This was before Wisconsin governor Scott Walker threw his hat into the ring with a stirring promise to work for "the unborn." What Walker means is this: he has zero interest in the mothers of those "unborns;" but he welcomes the political support of anti-abortion forces.
And anti-abortion forces have a lot of political muscle. A sample of the comments being made by candidates seeking to capture it would include:
Jeb Bush, whose "moral absolutes" do not include a woman's moral right to make her own reproductive decisions, points to the laws passed during his tenure as governor of Florida: the funding of adoption counseling -- but not abortion counseling, banning late-term abortion and imposing medically unnecessary regulations on clinics offering abortion.
Rick Perry wanted the anti-abortion group to understand that when he was governor of Texas his record on denial of a woman's right to choose was best of all. "That's a fact," he said. "We passed a parental notification law. I signed a parental consent law. I signed a sonogram law so mothers facing that agonizing choice can actually see." Forcing parental involvement on very young women who often need to keep their decision private, and all women to view a medically irrelevant sonogram whether they wish to or not -- these are the sources of Perry's pride.
More recently, we have the ever-articulate Donald Trump entering the fray with the comment that "it really, really bothers me, the whole concept of abortion." Trump's interest in women, which is well-documented if problematic, does not extend to an interest in their right to make their own reproductive choices.
And lastly, Marco Rubio seeks to enter the White House because it "needs an occupant who values and prioritizes life." Read: life of "the unborn." If Rubio gave a fig for the lives of uncounted thousands of women put at risk by the restrictive laws he supports -- his values and priorities might shift.
All of the above are men, without the vaguest notion of what it is like to be pregnant as a result of abuse, incest, assault or a multitude of other wrongs, or simply what it is like to be a woman denied control of her own body, her own most private and personal decision making.
Such is presidential politics today.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"... like many other defenders of biblical bigotry, Tedesco doesn't seem to fully grasp the difference between the company's first amendment rights and discrimination." He doesn't *want* to grasp the difference!
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Providing a service does not make you a participant in the event. I own a business. We make plant arrangements for events all the time. We'll even deliver them and place them on tables. That's not participating in the event. That's providing a service. The event hasn't even started when we are there. And just because I sold them plants does [not] mean I endorse their event. If I wanted to endorse their event, I would donate my services or provide then at a substantial discount. Its discrimination plain and simple.
* We don't live in a theocracy, Lynn; we are a secular society. You can state your "biblical truth" all you want. What you can't do is to operate a business in a secular society and engage in illegal discrimination based upon your religion. Operating a business is a privilege, not a right. You generally need a license from the secular state to operate, and you must obey the secular laws. If you want to discriminate, operate from a private, gated community that only allow Christians, or run a membership-based business that requires one to be Christian to become a member. Religious freedom does not grant the freedom to break secular laws and to treat people disparately because of your religion. Besides, Christianity is silly anyway.
* Religious freedom is the right to belong to and attend the church or other religious institution of your choice. It is not the right to cram your religion down other people's throats.
* Christians never research because they trust and obey what they are told without questioning anything their trusted leader tells them what to think and say.
* You may practice your faith as you choose, but your business does not. Engaging in a public business requires you to abide by the laws of the land, not the laws of your faith.
* If I show you two cakes that look identical, can you identify the straight wedding cake and the gay wedding cake for me?
...................................................................................................................................................................
Being Christian Doesn't Give You the Right to Discriminate
By Dale Hansen, July 27, 2015
Conservatives have spent a lot of time recently asserting their right to illegally discriminate, which they like to call "religious freedom". The problem is that these conservatives seem to have different standards depending on whose rights are being discussed.
A perfect example of this issue comes from an article titled "How the far left's legal goals put everyone's freedoms at risk" recently penned by the director of the Freedom of Conscience Initiative for Alliance Defending Freedom, Jeremy Tedesco. The basis for this opinion piece is a lawsuit where Tedesco's client, Masterpiece Cakeshop, was determined to have discriminated against a same sex couple for refusing to bake them a cake for their wedding.
Tedesco believes that his clients should be able to discriminate based on their biblical belief that homosexuality is a sin despite the fact that such actions are against the law. The reality is that Masterpiece Cakeshop has the right to refuse service. They just don't have the right to do so based on who the person is. To counter this, Tedesco argues that his client is an artist and that "Like many cake artists and individuals in other artistic professions, Jack objects to artistically designing and creating cakes that celebrate things that violate his beliefs."
Unfortunately, like many other defenders of biblical bigotry, Tedesco doesn't seem to fully grasp the difference between the company's first amendment rights and discrimination. Artist or not, the cake is the product or service that his client provides. Jack and the staff at Masterpiece Cakeshop are free to refuse to make any cake they see fit. No customer can force them to make a cake they don't offer. For example, if Masterpiece Cakeshop only makes vanilla cakes, they cannot be sued for refusing to bake a chocolate cake. Having said that, if a homosexual couple and a heterosexual couple entered Masterpiece Cakeshop and requested the same cake it would be discrimination to bake that cake for the heterosexual couple but refuse to make that same cake for the homosexual couple simply because they're gay.
This is also true of wording for the cake. Masterpiece Cakeshop has the first amendment right to refuse to write anything supporting gay marriage, just as they have the right to refuse to depict bible verses or the Confederate flag. The reality is that denying service based on the service is not the same thing as denying service based on the person.
Of course beyond that, Tedesco makes no mention of the hypocrisy his client is displaying. Being gluttonous is also a sin according to the bible. Would Tedesco be willing to defend Masterpiece Cakeshop if their sincerely held religious belief was that they won't provide wedding cakes for overweight couples? Beyond that it should be noted that the bible never says gay marriage is a sin. If Masterpiece Cakeshop was following their religious tenets, they would inquire about the sexuality of all patrons before providing service. Not doing so compromises their religious beliefs and exposes how fraudulent their religious convictions really are.
Not surprisingly, like most biblical discrimination advocates, Tedesco thinks he has a situation that exposes the hypocrisy of those demanding equal treatment for all. Tedesco writes, "Suppose a fine art painter advertises to the public that he or she will make oil paintings on commission, and then a patron contacts the artist and requests that the artist paint a commissioned picture that celebrates gay marriages, and the artist refuses, saying, 'I won't do that. I don't believe that." - Is that discrimination? The answer again is no.
The artist can deny service based on the content of the service. In this case the "celebrating gay marriage" is the content and is therefore protected by the first amendment. What the painter can't refuse to do is paint a picture for a homosexual couple simply because they are homosexual. That is discrimination and that is what his client, Masterpiece Cakeshop, did and why they lost their case.
Perhaps the best way for people like Tedesco to understand the implications of the position is to ask them if they would support a bakery that refused to provide a cake for a Christian wedding that didn't include any wording, despite making that same cake for an atheist couple. If Tedesco got his way, this sort of discrimination would be perfectly legal.
In the end, the fight here is not about religious freedom. The courts have already determined what is and isn't covered, and arguments like the one presented by Jeremy Tedesco show an ignorance to the facts in order to feign oppression. The real fight is over who is protected by discrimination laws. So while Tedesco can lament adding "sexual orientation" to the protected classes of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, his concern over "protecting only those with 'acceptable' views and permitting the government to present dissidents with a terrible choice: coerced agreement or forced silence" should fall on deaf ears since nearly every law on the books does this exact same thing.
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COMMENTS:
* Providing a service does not make you a participant in the event. I own a business. We make plant arrangements for events all the time. We'll even deliver them and place them on tables. That's not participating in the event. That's providing a service. The event hasn't even started when we are there. And just because I sold them plants does [not] mean I endorse their event. If I wanted to endorse their event, I would donate my services or provide then at a substantial discount. Its discrimination plain and simple.
* We don't live in a theocracy, Lynn; we are a secular society. You can state your "biblical truth" all you want. What you can't do is to operate a business in a secular society and engage in illegal discrimination based upon your religion. Operating a business is a privilege, not a right. You generally need a license from the secular state to operate, and you must obey the secular laws. If you want to discriminate, operate from a private, gated community that only allow Christians, or run a membership-based business that requires one to be Christian to become a member. Religious freedom does not grant the freedom to break secular laws and to treat people disparately because of your religion. Besides, Christianity is silly anyway.
* Religious freedom is the right to belong to and attend the church or other religious institution of your choice. It is not the right to cram your religion down other people's throats.
* Christians never research because they trust and obey what they are told without questioning anything their trusted leader tells them what to think and say.
* You may practice your faith as you choose, but your business does not. Engaging in a public business requires you to abide by the laws of the land, not the laws of your faith.
* If I show you two cakes that look identical, can you identify the straight wedding cake and the gay wedding cake for me?
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Being Christian Doesn't Give You the Right to Discriminate
By Dale Hansen, July 27, 2015
Conservatives have spent a lot of time recently asserting their right to illegally discriminate, which they like to call "religious freedom". The problem is that these conservatives seem to have different standards depending on whose rights are being discussed.
A perfect example of this issue comes from an article titled "How the far left's legal goals put everyone's freedoms at risk" recently penned by the director of the Freedom of Conscience Initiative for Alliance Defending Freedom, Jeremy Tedesco. The basis for this opinion piece is a lawsuit where Tedesco's client, Masterpiece Cakeshop, was determined to have discriminated against a same sex couple for refusing to bake them a cake for their wedding.
Tedesco believes that his clients should be able to discriminate based on their biblical belief that homosexuality is a sin despite the fact that such actions are against the law. The reality is that Masterpiece Cakeshop has the right to refuse service. They just don't have the right to do so based on who the person is. To counter this, Tedesco argues that his client is an artist and that "Like many cake artists and individuals in other artistic professions, Jack objects to artistically designing and creating cakes that celebrate things that violate his beliefs."
Unfortunately, like many other defenders of biblical bigotry, Tedesco doesn't seem to fully grasp the difference between the company's first amendment rights and discrimination. Artist or not, the cake is the product or service that his client provides. Jack and the staff at Masterpiece Cakeshop are free to refuse to make any cake they see fit. No customer can force them to make a cake they don't offer. For example, if Masterpiece Cakeshop only makes vanilla cakes, they cannot be sued for refusing to bake a chocolate cake. Having said that, if a homosexual couple and a heterosexual couple entered Masterpiece Cakeshop and requested the same cake it would be discrimination to bake that cake for the heterosexual couple but refuse to make that same cake for the homosexual couple simply because they're gay.
This is also true of wording for the cake. Masterpiece Cakeshop has the first amendment right to refuse to write anything supporting gay marriage, just as they have the right to refuse to depict bible verses or the Confederate flag. The reality is that denying service based on the service is not the same thing as denying service based on the person.
Of course beyond that, Tedesco makes no mention of the hypocrisy his client is displaying. Being gluttonous is also a sin according to the bible. Would Tedesco be willing to defend Masterpiece Cakeshop if their sincerely held religious belief was that they won't provide wedding cakes for overweight couples? Beyond that it should be noted that the bible never says gay marriage is a sin. If Masterpiece Cakeshop was following their religious tenets, they would inquire about the sexuality of all patrons before providing service. Not doing so compromises their religious beliefs and exposes how fraudulent their religious convictions really are.
Not surprisingly, like most biblical discrimination advocates, Tedesco thinks he has a situation that exposes the hypocrisy of those demanding equal treatment for all. Tedesco writes, "Suppose a fine art painter advertises to the public that he or she will make oil paintings on commission, and then a patron contacts the artist and requests that the artist paint a commissioned picture that celebrates gay marriages, and the artist refuses, saying, 'I won't do that. I don't believe that." - Is that discrimination? The answer again is no.
The artist can deny service based on the content of the service. In this case the "celebrating gay marriage" is the content and is therefore protected by the first amendment. What the painter can't refuse to do is paint a picture for a homosexual couple simply because they are homosexual. That is discrimination and that is what his client, Masterpiece Cakeshop, did and why they lost their case.
Perhaps the best way for people like Tedesco to understand the implications of the position is to ask them if they would support a bakery that refused to provide a cake for a Christian wedding that didn't include any wording, despite making that same cake for an atheist couple. If Tedesco got his way, this sort of discrimination would be perfectly legal.
In the end, the fight here is not about religious freedom. The courts have already determined what is and isn't covered, and arguments like the one presented by Jeremy Tedesco show an ignorance to the facts in order to feign oppression. The real fight is over who is protected by discrimination laws. So while Tedesco can lament adding "sexual orientation" to the protected classes of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, his concern over "protecting only those with 'acceptable' views and permitting the government to present dissidents with a terrible choice: coerced agreement or forced silence" should fall on deaf ears since nearly every law on the books does this exact same thing.
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"... does it have actual principles and priorities it seeks to make a reality?" You couldn't prove it by me that the GOP has those.
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COMMENTS:
* Yes, exactly. Conservative voters are kidding themselves if they imagine that all it takes to effect meaningful change in how the federal government operates is to show up at the polls once every so often and vote for whatever GOP candidate is printed on the ballot.
* Like the Democrat Party, the modern Republican Party exists to serve its clients, and foremost among those are U.S. Chamber of Commerce crony capitalists. They don't want Republicans to make waves about social issues, so Planned Parenthood grotesquerie gets a pass, but they do want the mass Third World immigration that is killing America to continue, so it continues. Conservatives must stage a revolution within the Republican Party or leave it and let it die, because as it now exists, the Republican Party is as much an enemy of the American people as the other half of the political duopoly.
* Absolutely. Any benefit to the people from actions taken by either party is purely coincidental. They serve their donors and keep the rank and file busy at each others throats over relatively minor social issues.
* The GOP has devolved into a political organization that exists only to keep itself in existence, apparently. It's not to represent the will of the voters. It exists just to re-elect its members and to do whatever is necessary to keep doing that. They sure don't exist to follow our Constitution and our laws, or to make government smaller and less intrusive.
* The problem with republican voters is that they believe the party rhetoric and never bother to look at the party actions. Presidents Clinton and Obama spent most of their time in office correcting the mistakes of their predecessors. The entire agendas for Presidents Clinton and Obama was to save the country and try to help the average American. And republicans wonder why the voters do not want another republican administration.
* The GOP's 2016 campaign slogan: "The other guys are even worse!"
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Why Does The Republican Party Exist?
Why does the Republican Party exist? Who is it for? What principle does it serve? It's hard to say.
By Ben Domenech, July 27, 2015
Why does the Republican Party exist? What is its purpose as a political entity – to what end do its members work to elect their fellow Republicans? What are its priorities? Whose interests does it serve? Why is this political party still around so long after its primary motivations for creation – the defense of the Union and the end of slavery – were achieved? The Democratic Party exists to serve its clients – but the Republican Party’s justification is more ethereal. Is it just an arbitrary entity seeking a universal negative, designed to push back against Democratic policies and demand they be more something (efficient) or less something else (expensive)? Or does it have actual principles and priorities it seeks to make a reality?
The Republican Party’s voters and supporters certainly seem to have such beliefs. But they rarely seem to make it through the process of synthesis that turns such beliefs into actual policy priorities. Being a negative force is not nothing, and blocking bad policy is worthwhile. But when given the opportunity to put good policy into place, or to take steps to make such policy more feasible in the future, where is the Republican Party to be found?
David Harsanyi writes about this today in the context of explaining poll after poll which shows the Republican Party less and less popular among Republicans, even as rabble-rousers like Donald Trump are overperforming:
Perhaps you believe the Republican Party exists as a national security party, which believes in a clear-eyed trust but verify approach to dealing with our enemies. This is impossible after the past few months, where the Senate Republicans completely ceded their Constitutional duty regarding the Iran deal, putting them in the wonderful position (so politically advantageous in the realm of domestic policy) of decrying this deal as awful without being on the hook for anything that happens because of it.
Perhaps you believe the Republican Party exists as today the lone pro-life party in the United States. This cannot be possible after the weekend, where Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blocked any attempt to force President Obama and all his fellow Senate Democrats to take a stand for or against not even the legality, but the taxpayer subsidization of harvesting organs from aborted babies. The fact that McConnell did all this after telling his GOP colleagues that he definitely wouldn’t, and the fact that Texas Senator Ted Cruz pointed this out, is a breach of decorum. Orrin Hatch will be along with a ruler shortly to rap your knuckles, you naughty boy.
Taken together, the stance of the Senate Republican caucus on these three issues reveal the utter failure of post-Cold War fusionism. The Senate Republicans have in the space of a few short months dramatically undercut their ability to be considered serious on national security, fiscal conservative, and social conservative priorities. And for what? What is worth cutting all three flimsy legs of the stool shorter? Surely it has to be something worthwhile – avoiding a government shutdown, or repealing Obamacare? Surely it must be about achieving some greater legislative goal or laying the groundwork for taking the White House in 2016?
Well, actually, the aim is to pass a Highway Bill. It is a thousand page tax and pork-laden monstrosity which does not deserve to pass in the first place, and whose failure would be greeted as a positive development for any fiscal conservative. For conservatives, the Highway Bill is a bad thing that could be the vehicle for something politically useful. For Republicans, this is not the case. The passage of a Planned Parenthood defunding amendment would set up a direct conflict with the White House over the issue, and undercut McConnell’s priority of passing a Highway Bill with an Ex-Im resurrection attached to it – two things that are not a priority at all for Republican voters, mind you, but for the corporatist constituency the Republican Party actually serves, are near the top of the list.
And that is why the Republican Party exists.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* Yes, exactly. Conservative voters are kidding themselves if they imagine that all it takes to effect meaningful change in how the federal government operates is to show up at the polls once every so often and vote for whatever GOP candidate is printed on the ballot.
* Like the Democrat Party, the modern Republican Party exists to serve its clients, and foremost among those are U.S. Chamber of Commerce crony capitalists. They don't want Republicans to make waves about social issues, so Planned Parenthood grotesquerie gets a pass, but they do want the mass Third World immigration that is killing America to continue, so it continues. Conservatives must stage a revolution within the Republican Party or leave it and let it die, because as it now exists, the Republican Party is as much an enemy of the American people as the other half of the political duopoly.
* Absolutely. Any benefit to the people from actions taken by either party is purely coincidental. They serve their donors and keep the rank and file busy at each others throats over relatively minor social issues.
* The GOP has devolved into a political organization that exists only to keep itself in existence, apparently. It's not to represent the will of the voters. It exists just to re-elect its members and to do whatever is necessary to keep doing that. They sure don't exist to follow our Constitution and our laws, or to make government smaller and less intrusive.
* The problem with republican voters is that they believe the party rhetoric and never bother to look at the party actions. Presidents Clinton and Obama spent most of their time in office correcting the mistakes of their predecessors. The entire agendas for Presidents Clinton and Obama was to save the country and try to help the average American. And republicans wonder why the voters do not want another republican administration.
* The GOP's 2016 campaign slogan: "The other guys are even worse!"
...................................................................................................................................................................
Why Does The Republican Party Exist?
Why does the Republican Party exist? Who is it for? What principle does it serve? It's hard to say.
By Ben Domenech, July 27, 2015
Why does the Republican Party exist? What is its purpose as a political entity – to what end do its members work to elect their fellow Republicans? What are its priorities? Whose interests does it serve? Why is this political party still around so long after its primary motivations for creation – the defense of the Union and the end of slavery – were achieved? The Democratic Party exists to serve its clients – but the Republican Party’s justification is more ethereal. Is it just an arbitrary entity seeking a universal negative, designed to push back against Democratic policies and demand they be more something (efficient) or less something else (expensive)? Or does it have actual principles and priorities it seeks to make a reality?
The Republican Party’s voters and supporters certainly seem to have such beliefs. But they rarely seem to make it through the process of synthesis that turns such beliefs into actual policy priorities. Being a negative force is not nothing, and blocking bad policy is worthwhile. But when given the opportunity to put good policy into place, or to take steps to make such policy more feasible in the future, where is the Republican Party to be found?
David Harsanyi writes about this today in the context of explaining poll after poll which shows the Republican Party less and less popular among Republicans, even as rabble-rousers like Donald Trump are overperforming:
“It’s conceivable, and I’m just spitballing here, that many conservatives are wondering: If the Republican Party is incapable or unwilling to make a compelling case against the selling of baby organs or the emergence of a nuclear Iran or the funding of a cronyist state-run bank—or all three—then really, what exactly can it do? Setting aside presidential politics for a moment, three issues have filled the conservative ether the past few weeks: The administration’s pact abetting Iran’s efforts to become a threshold nuclear power, Planned Parenthood’s organ harvesting controversy, and, to a lesser extent, the renewal of the Export-Import bank. None of these are hobbyhorses of the wild fringe. These are issues—ostensibly, at least—that strike at the heart of the modern GOP. And on all three, Republican leadership have, though they held plenty of leverage to raise a stink, capitulated. In fact, they have probably put more effort into evading confrontation than their standard response of pretending to court it.”Perhaps you believe the Republican Party exists as the party of limited government and free markets. This is impossible after the past weekend, where Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell went so far as to blatantly make the lie he told his fellow Senators – that no deal had been cut with interested Democrats during an earlier debate to reanimate an entity of pure corporate welfare, the Export-Import Bank – a priority so critical he would box out all other attempts to attach amendments to what is considered a “must-pass” measure, the Highway Bill.
Perhaps you believe the Republican Party exists as a national security party, which believes in a clear-eyed trust but verify approach to dealing with our enemies. This is impossible after the past few months, where the Senate Republicans completely ceded their Constitutional duty regarding the Iran deal, putting them in the wonderful position (so politically advantageous in the realm of domestic policy) of decrying this deal as awful without being on the hook for anything that happens because of it.
Perhaps you believe the Republican Party exists as today the lone pro-life party in the United States. This cannot be possible after the weekend, where Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blocked any attempt to force President Obama and all his fellow Senate Democrats to take a stand for or against not even the legality, but the taxpayer subsidization of harvesting organs from aborted babies. The fact that McConnell did all this after telling his GOP colleagues that he definitely wouldn’t, and the fact that Texas Senator Ted Cruz pointed this out, is a breach of decorum. Orrin Hatch will be along with a ruler shortly to rap your knuckles, you naughty boy.
Taken together, the stance of the Senate Republican caucus on these three issues reveal the utter failure of post-Cold War fusionism. The Senate Republicans have in the space of a few short months dramatically undercut their ability to be considered serious on national security, fiscal conservative, and social conservative priorities. And for what? What is worth cutting all three flimsy legs of the stool shorter? Surely it has to be something worthwhile – avoiding a government shutdown, or repealing Obamacare? Surely it must be about achieving some greater legislative goal or laying the groundwork for taking the White House in 2016?
Well, actually, the aim is to pass a Highway Bill. It is a thousand page tax and pork-laden monstrosity which does not deserve to pass in the first place, and whose failure would be greeted as a positive development for any fiscal conservative. For conservatives, the Highway Bill is a bad thing that could be the vehicle for something politically useful. For Republicans, this is not the case. The passage of a Planned Parenthood defunding amendment would set up a direct conflict with the White House over the issue, and undercut McConnell’s priority of passing a Highway Bill with an Ex-Im resurrection attached to it – two things that are not a priority at all for Republican voters, mind you, but for the corporatist constituency the Republican Party actually serves, are near the top of the list.
And that is why the Republican Party exists.
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Sunday, July 26, 2015
"... they wanted a chance to get on the record on a campaign promise they’d all made." Their damned "promises"-- that's the problem!
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COMMENTS:
* Tales from the Clown Car.
* Unfortunately if they are in the Clown Car, what does that say about us who put them there? Is running this country supposed to be a comedy? The joke's on us.
* "How's that GOP majority working out?" As expected... But credit-where-credit-due, The GOP found the votes to get two post offices named and to re-affirm July as "National Ice Cream Month."
* The GOP: Repeal Obama Care, Cut Taxes for the Rich, Oppose gay Marriage. What are they for? We know that they are against almost everything.
* What is truly disgusting about the scum that are conservatives these days is that they did not even try to pretend they were going to replace the bill. They simply voted to destroy the insurance of 16 million people, take away their cancer treatments, their dialysis, the infection treatments, the heart medicines, and had nothing -- NOTHING -- to put in its place for these sick people. The GOP: the party that throws Americans into the ditch to die.
* The GOP: Repealing Obamacare since 2009. The Party of Mission: Never Accomplshed
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Obamacare repeal vote fails in Senate
By Jennifer Haberkorn, July 26, 2015
The Senate on Sunday voted down a Republican effort to repeal Obamacare, the GOP’s first attempt to get rid of the president’s health law since the party took control of the chamber in January.
The effort fell 49-43, exactly along party lines, with eight senators not voting in the rare weekend session. Third-fifths of the Senate would have had to vote to add Obamacare repeal to a highway funding bill.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is expected to ask the Senate — likely Monday — to reconsider the Obamacare amendment. He would propose a procedural motion to change Senate rules in order to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act with just 51 votes.
Such a momentous change in the Senate’s rules is unlikely. But conservatives have suggested that they would chastise Republicans who would block a rule change that could lead to repealing the health law that they detest.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) all initially voted against repeal but changed their votes within minutes after the apparent mistakes. Paul’s aide was spotted on the floor talking with the senator after the initial vote was cast. Collins and Sasse corrected their votes at the same time and shared comments on the Senate floor.
Other than that, Sunday’s repeal vote played out as expected. No Republican or Democrat has expressed any hint that they would break from their party’s firmly held position on Obamacare.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) predicted that outcome on Friday as he railed against Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s decision to hold the vote, saying it was done to placate conservatives who were angry that another vote was called to authorize the Export-Import bank.
“We’ll have a vote on repealing Obamacare. The Republicans will all vote yes, the Democrats will all vote no. It will be at a 60-vote threshold, it will fail,” Cruz said then. “It will be an exercise in meaningless political theater.”
Yet the vote does allow Republicans — particularly freshman lawmakers — to say that they’ve cast a vote to repeal the ACA. Several had said they wanted a chance to get on the record on a campaign promise they’d all made.
“What I’m trying to do in my short time here is look at the commitments I made to the constituents and voters of Alaska and follow through on those commitments,” first-term Sen. Dan Sullivan said last week. “And that was a commitment, and I want to follow through on it.
But Sullivan, like many other Republicans, also said he’d like to see the Senate act on changes to the health law that have a chance of becoming law, such as repealing its medical-device tax or changing its definition of “full time” work from 30 hours to 40 hours.
“Obviously a full repeal and replace is going … to be unsuccessful,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said before the vote was scheduled. “So I would like to see us do things like move the work week to 40 hours.”
Democrats used Sunday’s vote as an opportunity to praise the health care law.
“The House has voted 55 times. The Supreme Court said it’s fine. We’re reaching 20 million Americans who now have health care,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Friday. Repeal “would hurt too many people, it would create chaos.”
The Senate has voted three other times on legislation to fully repeal Obamacare — in March 2010, February 2011 and March 2013. All were on party lines. The Senate has voted about three dozen times on bills to repeal or defund all or part of the health care law since it was passed in 2010.
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COMMENTS:
* Tales from the Clown Car.
* Unfortunately if they are in the Clown Car, what does that say about us who put them there? Is running this country supposed to be a comedy? The joke's on us.
* "How's that GOP majority working out?" As expected... But credit-where-credit-due, The GOP found the votes to get two post offices named and to re-affirm July as "National Ice Cream Month."
* The GOP: Repeal Obama Care, Cut Taxes for the Rich, Oppose gay Marriage. What are they for? We know that they are against almost everything.
* What is truly disgusting about the scum that are conservatives these days is that they did not even try to pretend they were going to replace the bill. They simply voted to destroy the insurance of 16 million people, take away their cancer treatments, their dialysis, the infection treatments, the heart medicines, and had nothing -- NOTHING -- to put in its place for these sick people. The GOP: the party that throws Americans into the ditch to die.
* The GOP: Repealing Obamacare since 2009. The Party of Mission: Never Accomplshed
...................................................................................................................................................................
Obamacare repeal vote fails in Senate
By Jennifer Haberkorn, July 26, 2015
The Senate on Sunday voted down a Republican effort to repeal Obamacare, the GOP’s first attempt to get rid of the president’s health law since the party took control of the chamber in January.
The effort fell 49-43, exactly along party lines, with eight senators not voting in the rare weekend session. Third-fifths of the Senate would have had to vote to add Obamacare repeal to a highway funding bill.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is expected to ask the Senate — likely Monday — to reconsider the Obamacare amendment. He would propose a procedural motion to change Senate rules in order to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act with just 51 votes.
Such a momentous change in the Senate’s rules is unlikely. But conservatives have suggested that they would chastise Republicans who would block a rule change that could lead to repealing the health law that they detest.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) all initially voted against repeal but changed their votes within minutes after the apparent mistakes. Paul’s aide was spotted on the floor talking with the senator after the initial vote was cast. Collins and Sasse corrected their votes at the same time and shared comments on the Senate floor.
Other than that, Sunday’s repeal vote played out as expected. No Republican or Democrat has expressed any hint that they would break from their party’s firmly held position on Obamacare.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) predicted that outcome on Friday as he railed against Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s decision to hold the vote, saying it was done to placate conservatives who were angry that another vote was called to authorize the Export-Import bank.
“We’ll have a vote on repealing Obamacare. The Republicans will all vote yes, the Democrats will all vote no. It will be at a 60-vote threshold, it will fail,” Cruz said then. “It will be an exercise in meaningless political theater.”
Yet the vote does allow Republicans — particularly freshman lawmakers — to say that they’ve cast a vote to repeal the ACA. Several had said they wanted a chance to get on the record on a campaign promise they’d all made.
“What I’m trying to do in my short time here is look at the commitments I made to the constituents and voters of Alaska and follow through on those commitments,” first-term Sen. Dan Sullivan said last week. “And that was a commitment, and I want to follow through on it.
But Sullivan, like many other Republicans, also said he’d like to see the Senate act on changes to the health law that have a chance of becoming law, such as repealing its medical-device tax or changing its definition of “full time” work from 30 hours to 40 hours.
“Obviously a full repeal and replace is going … to be unsuccessful,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said before the vote was scheduled. “So I would like to see us do things like move the work week to 40 hours.”
Democrats used Sunday’s vote as an opportunity to praise the health care law.
“The House has voted 55 times. The Supreme Court said it’s fine. We’re reaching 20 million Americans who now have health care,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Friday. Repeal “would hurt too many people, it would create chaos.”
The Senate has voted three other times on legislation to fully repeal Obamacare — in March 2010, February 2011 and March 2013. All were on party lines. The Senate has voted about three dozen times on bills to repeal or defund all or part of the health care law since it was passed in 2010.
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Trump doesn't have any specific ideas-- all he can produce is "word salad".
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COMMENTS:
* I'll give it to Tapper, finally someone cracked the nut....literally.
* LOL. The man is going to duck and weave but the rest of the candidates need to MAKE HIM answer. If he doesn't, call him on it. All they have to say is "you did not answer my question Mr Trump". This debate should be a hoot.
* If you get the bad ones out that should leave zero.
* if he doesn't put together real solutions, he is done. I like the issues he has brought up, but we need a detailed plan to remedy them. So far, I have not heard any specifics on any of the issues he has brought up. that's why I am starting to think trump is not for real here. he should be studying the issues IN DETAIL, put together plans, and be able to convey them to us. if he cant, he will plunge very soon in the polls.
* I have noticed this in every interview - as soon as someone asks a policy question, Trump either changes the subject by insulting the interviewer, saying how much money he is worth, or saying it is a stupid question. He comes across as an idiot when challenged. Debates should be interesting.
* He can't even put together a coherent sentence. Let alone an agenda for the American people.
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On Sunday, Donald Trump Showed Why His Campaign Is Doomed
By Rob Garver, July 26, 2015
For the past six weeks, an overarching concern for the Republican Party has been the impact that Donald Trump might have on the GOP primary election – particularly the damage he could do on the debate stage by turning an already unmanageable 10-candidate forum into a full-on circus.
On Sunday, though, Trump himself gave one of the clearest examples yet of why his candidacy is doomed to fail, and why, if handled properly, the debate stage could be his Waterloo.
Trump called in to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning to speak with host Jake Tapper.
Much of the appearance was, in fact, more of a Trumpian soliloquy, which appears to be his favorite form of expression, than an interview. However, when Tapper was eventually able to interrupt him and press for some policy specifics, the cracks in Trump’s façade quickly became evident.
Trump has staked much of his campaign on his promise to solve what many of his supporters see as a major immigration crisis. As anyone serious about the issue of illegal immigration recognizes, there are at least 11 million undocumented workers in the U.S. right now, and rounding them up for deportation is not a viable option.
Tapper asked Trump to expand on his policy beyond building a wall on the border. The host may have been hoping for a considered reply revealing Trump’s detailed thinking on immigration.
What he got was a sort of immigration-related word salad.
“We’re going to get the bad ones out,” Trump vowed. “We have some really bad dudes who are here in this country and we’re getting them out. We’re sending them back where they came from.”
Tapper tried again. What about the 11 million already here?
“The bad ones are going to get out. Then from that point on, we’re going to look very, very strongly at what we do. And I’m going to formulate a plan that I think people are going to be happy with. But we’re going to look very, very strongly at what we do.”
No really, what about the 11 million?
“I’m gonna get rid of the bad ones fast, and I’m gonna send them back. We’re not going to be putting them in prisons here and pay for them for the next 40 years.”
One more try. There will be millions left. What’s your plan?
“We’re going to see what we’re going to see,” Trump finally said. “It’s a very hard thing from a moral standpoint, from a physical standpoint, you don’t get them out. At least 11 million people – I’ve heard the number’s much higher…
“We’re going to take the high ground. We’re going to do what’s right. Some are going to have to go and some – Hey, we’re just going to see what happens. It’s a very, very big subject and a very complicated subject.”
He added, “The wall’s going to be built. We’re going to have a great border. People can come into the country legally, but not illegally, and the people that come in are going to be good people are going to be great people and I want that. That’s very important to me.”
Tapper asked Trump for his thoughts on the mass shooting last week in a Louisiana move theater, with a follow up asking him whether he approves of policies that would make it more difficult for the mentally ill to obtain firearms.
After declaring, “These are sick people. These are very, very sick people,” Trump told Tapper that the problem wasn’t easy access to guns, but the “mentality” of the people wielding them.
“I’m a big second amendment person,” Trump said. “I believe in it so strongly.”
“You need protection from the bad ones that have the guns. You take the guns away from the good people and the bad ones are going to have target practice.”
Pressed by Tapper to take a position on whether the mentally ill should be denied access to firearms, Trump declined to come out in favor of a ban.
“I think that if a person is mentally ill and it’s proven and documented you have to be extremely careful not to let them kill people,” was as far as he would go.
Referring to the shooter in Louisiana, who had a documented history of mental problems, Trump suggested that the problem was not that he was allowed to buy a gun, but that he hadn’t been locked up in the first place.
“He should be in an institution,” Trump said. “He was a very sick puppy.”
The former reality TV star also jumped on the opportunity to attack Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner currently being pummeled by the ongoing investigation of her use of a private email server for her correspondence while Secretary of State. On Friday, the New York Times published a story claiming that two federal inspectors general had asked the FBI to open a criminal investigation into her handling of classified information.
The Times was forced to correct the record after the Department of Justice confirmed that while the FBI was asked to investigate whether there had been a security breach, there was no criminal referral.
That fact, however, didn’t deter Trump from not only declaring Clinton a criminal, but also positing a Democratic conspiracy within the Justice Department to shield her.
“What she has done is criminal. What she has done is criminal,” he repeated. “I don’t see how she can run. Because if the prosecutors, who are all Democrats by the way – that’s part of the problem with fairness here, they’re all Democrats so they’re protecting her. But if you had an impartial prosecutor and they were honorable – and maybe they are -- we’re gonna find out but what she’s done is criminal.”
Asked by Tapper to outline exactly what he thought Clinton had done that was criminal, all Trump could manage was, “The whole email scandal. It’s a scandal. And she’s been protected.”
If any of Trump’s potential debate opponents were watching, it should have been a very instructive few minutes. Even on Trump’s signature issue, his policy positions are tissue-thin, and don’t stand up to the lightest questioning.
Why [when?] he begins to be required to answer substantive questions – and to defend his answers – in a forum he doesn’t control, The Donald may just end up firing himself.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* I'll give it to Tapper, finally someone cracked the nut....literally.
* LOL. The man is going to duck and weave but the rest of the candidates need to MAKE HIM answer. If he doesn't, call him on it. All they have to say is "you did not answer my question Mr Trump". This debate should be a hoot.
* If you get the bad ones out that should leave zero.
* if he doesn't put together real solutions, he is done. I like the issues he has brought up, but we need a detailed plan to remedy them. So far, I have not heard any specifics on any of the issues he has brought up. that's why I am starting to think trump is not for real here. he should be studying the issues IN DETAIL, put together plans, and be able to convey them to us. if he cant, he will plunge very soon in the polls.
* I have noticed this in every interview - as soon as someone asks a policy question, Trump either changes the subject by insulting the interviewer, saying how much money he is worth, or saying it is a stupid question. He comes across as an idiot when challenged. Debates should be interesting.
* He can't even put together a coherent sentence. Let alone an agenda for the American people.
...................................................................................................................................................................
On Sunday, Donald Trump Showed Why His Campaign Is Doomed
By Rob Garver, July 26, 2015
For the past six weeks, an overarching concern for the Republican Party has been the impact that Donald Trump might have on the GOP primary election – particularly the damage he could do on the debate stage by turning an already unmanageable 10-candidate forum into a full-on circus.
On Sunday, though, Trump himself gave one of the clearest examples yet of why his candidacy is doomed to fail, and why, if handled properly, the debate stage could be his Waterloo.
Trump called in to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning to speak with host Jake Tapper.
Much of the appearance was, in fact, more of a Trumpian soliloquy, which appears to be his favorite form of expression, than an interview. However, when Tapper was eventually able to interrupt him and press for some policy specifics, the cracks in Trump’s façade quickly became evident.
Trump has staked much of his campaign on his promise to solve what many of his supporters see as a major immigration crisis. As anyone serious about the issue of illegal immigration recognizes, there are at least 11 million undocumented workers in the U.S. right now, and rounding them up for deportation is not a viable option.
Tapper asked Trump to expand on his policy beyond building a wall on the border. The host may have been hoping for a considered reply revealing Trump’s detailed thinking on immigration.
What he got was a sort of immigration-related word salad.
“We’re going to get the bad ones out,” Trump vowed. “We have some really bad dudes who are here in this country and we’re getting them out. We’re sending them back where they came from.”
Tapper tried again. What about the 11 million already here?
“The bad ones are going to get out. Then from that point on, we’re going to look very, very strongly at what we do. And I’m going to formulate a plan that I think people are going to be happy with. But we’re going to look very, very strongly at what we do.”
No really, what about the 11 million?
“I’m gonna get rid of the bad ones fast, and I’m gonna send them back. We’re not going to be putting them in prisons here and pay for them for the next 40 years.”
One more try. There will be millions left. What’s your plan?
“We’re going to see what we’re going to see,” Trump finally said. “It’s a very hard thing from a moral standpoint, from a physical standpoint, you don’t get them out. At least 11 million people – I’ve heard the number’s much higher…
“We’re going to take the high ground. We’re going to do what’s right. Some are going to have to go and some – Hey, we’re just going to see what happens. It’s a very, very big subject and a very complicated subject.”
He added, “The wall’s going to be built. We’re going to have a great border. People can come into the country legally, but not illegally, and the people that come in are going to be good people are going to be great people and I want that. That’s very important to me.”
Tapper asked Trump for his thoughts on the mass shooting last week in a Louisiana move theater, with a follow up asking him whether he approves of policies that would make it more difficult for the mentally ill to obtain firearms.
After declaring, “These are sick people. These are very, very sick people,” Trump told Tapper that the problem wasn’t easy access to guns, but the “mentality” of the people wielding them.
“I’m a big second amendment person,” Trump said. “I believe in it so strongly.”
“You need protection from the bad ones that have the guns. You take the guns away from the good people and the bad ones are going to have target practice.”
Pressed by Tapper to take a position on whether the mentally ill should be denied access to firearms, Trump declined to come out in favor of a ban.
“I think that if a person is mentally ill and it’s proven and documented you have to be extremely careful not to let them kill people,” was as far as he would go.
Referring to the shooter in Louisiana, who had a documented history of mental problems, Trump suggested that the problem was not that he was allowed to buy a gun, but that he hadn’t been locked up in the first place.
“He should be in an institution,” Trump said. “He was a very sick puppy.”
The former reality TV star also jumped on the opportunity to attack Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner currently being pummeled by the ongoing investigation of her use of a private email server for her correspondence while Secretary of State. On Friday, the New York Times published a story claiming that two federal inspectors general had asked the FBI to open a criminal investigation into her handling of classified information.
The Times was forced to correct the record after the Department of Justice confirmed that while the FBI was asked to investigate whether there had been a security breach, there was no criminal referral.
That fact, however, didn’t deter Trump from not only declaring Clinton a criminal, but also positing a Democratic conspiracy within the Justice Department to shield her.
“What she has done is criminal. What she has done is criminal,” he repeated. “I don’t see how she can run. Because if the prosecutors, who are all Democrats by the way – that’s part of the problem with fairness here, they’re all Democrats so they’re protecting her. But if you had an impartial prosecutor and they were honorable – and maybe they are -- we’re gonna find out but what she’s done is criminal.”
Asked by Tapper to outline exactly what he thought Clinton had done that was criminal, all Trump could manage was, “The whole email scandal. It’s a scandal. And she’s been protected.”
If any of Trump’s potential debate opponents were watching, it should have been a very instructive few minutes. Even on Trump’s signature issue, his policy positions are tissue-thin, and don’t stand up to the lightest questioning.
Why [when?] he begins to be required to answer substantive questions – and to defend his answers – in a forum he doesn’t control, The Donald may just end up firing himself.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"The GOP, as in the past, will have absolutely not a shred of hard evidence to base this smear on." They don't care about evidence, however.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* I trust her. I don't trust the people (right-wingers) who are trying to convince me not to. Why should I trust these people? They smeared Gore as a liar. They smeared Kerry as a traitor. Now I'm supposed to believe that they are telling God's own truth when they say that Clinton can't be trusted? The right has lied so many times I'm not even sure that they know what the truth is any more themselves.
* It's a matter of the lessor of evils. I just happen to think that as bad as Clinton is , all the GOP alternatives are far worse. But I'll be going for Sanders anyway, as I feel I can trust him more than the rest.
* The people have spoken, they'd rather have Hil than more conmen.
* She did nothing wrong. Everything she did with emails she had every right to do.
* Bullcrap. Everyone does it that way, including Colin Powell. I know, I worked there.
* Actually, the right wing conspiracy against the Clintons is well-documented. There have been many articles and even books written about it. You may not personally like Clinton, but let's not pretend that the right hasn't been attacking her and her husband without cause for decades.
...................................................................................................................................................................
It's Not About Hillary's Emails, But Hillary
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, July 26, 2015
Three, remember that number.
That's the number of times Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will have been dragged before the GOP controlled House Select Committee to testify about Benghazi if she testifies as reports say this October. The date hasn't as yet been officially confirmed. This time the panel will zero in on Clinton's private emails to make the case that as then Secretary of State she either badly bungled the U.S. response to the Benghazi attack or deliberately lied about what she did or didn't do to prevent the attack.
The emails supposedly contain classified material that can be crucial to establishing the GOP's bogus case against Clinton. The GOP quickly jumped all over a report from a government inspector general that a handful of Clinton's personal emails contained classified material. The government investigator did not say what the nature of the classified material was, whether the alleged transmitting of this material was inadvertent, or whose responsibility it was to insure the classified material was marked as classified.
That didn't really matter. The relentless GOP narrative has been that Clinton illegally used her private email account to conduct State Department business and that those emails will show a pattern of neglect, incompetence and cover-up. The story got even bigger when a tantalizing hint was dropped that there could even be a criminal probe into Clinton's supposed misuse of her emails.
None of this is new stuff. It's been hashed and rehashed over so much that if anything the raw facts about the emails have been blurred or distorted. The facts, though, are clear. There is absolutely no proof that Clinton did anything wrong in using her private server to conduct some State Department business. There was no legal prohibition on any government employee using their personal email account to conduct government business at the time she did. The GOP has tried hard to poison the public well with the suggestion that Clinton may have destroyed or mishandled, either deliberately or accidentally, government documents tied back into Benghazi.
But there is no proof of that either. Though it's true that a National Archives and Records Administration rule does mandate that emails be "preserved in the appropriate record keeping system," during Clinton's tenure at the State Department there was no regulation in place that set a deadline for Clinton to turn those emails over to the Administration. The rules prohibiting government officials from using their private email accounts to conduct government business officials was changed nearly two years after Clinton left the State Department.
Yet, even this is a moot point since Clinton turned over 55,000 pages of her emails to the State Department that were related to her work at the department. This, and the fact that the there was no law on the books then that barred Clinton from using her private emails to conduct business, makes the notion of criminal conduct on her part crass and silly.
However, the point of the GOP's Hillary email obsession is the same as its pound of her for her alleged missteps and conniving on Benghazi. That is to embarrass and discredit her as a 2016 presidential candidate. The contrived email and Benghazi flap fit neatly into the GOP's now chosen point of attack on her. And that's to tar her as someone who is totally untrustworthy, even a congenital liar. The Republican National Committee wasted no time in issuing a statement following the inspector general's report on the handful of supposedly sensitive emails. It lambasted her for "jeopardizing" the nation's national security.
If Clinton eventually testifies before the House panel on Benghazi, the emails almost certainly will be its exhibit number one to make a circumstantial case that there's both a trust issue with Clinton and she is a menace to the nation's security. The GOP, as in the past, will have absolutely not a shred of hard evidence to base this smear on. This is less important than Republicans will again get what they want. That is lots of media talk and the hope that this will plant even deeper the seed of doubt in the general public about Clinton's fitness to be the nation's next commander-in-chief.
Clinton made an effort to parry the GOP's planned ambush by laying down ground rules for her testimony. The main one being that the questions be confined to the Benghazi attack, and not her emails. It's on this very point that predictably things have hit a snag. The panel from its public statements has no intention of agreeing to that. This would defeat its purpose which is to slur her integrity. The repeated playing up Clinton's emails as some sort of dark, sinister plot by her to cover-up and whitewash her actions on Benghazi and at the State Department won't end with the House committee's hearing. That's because it's not about Hillary's emails, but Hillary.
...................................................................................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
* I trust her. I don't trust the people (right-wingers) who are trying to convince me not to. Why should I trust these people? They smeared Gore as a liar. They smeared Kerry as a traitor. Now I'm supposed to believe that they are telling God's own truth when they say that Clinton can't be trusted? The right has lied so many times I'm not even sure that they know what the truth is any more themselves.
* It's a matter of the lessor of evils. I just happen to think that as bad as Clinton is , all the GOP alternatives are far worse. But I'll be going for Sanders anyway, as I feel I can trust him more than the rest.
* The people have spoken, they'd rather have Hil than more conmen.
* She did nothing wrong. Everything she did with emails she had every right to do.
* Bullcrap. Everyone does it that way, including Colin Powell. I know, I worked there.
* Actually, the right wing conspiracy against the Clintons is well-documented. There have been many articles and even books written about it. You may not personally like Clinton, but let's not pretend that the right hasn't been attacking her and her husband without cause for decades.
...................................................................................................................................................................
It's Not About Hillary's Emails, But Hillary
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, July 26, 2015
Three, remember that number.
That's the number of times Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will have been dragged before the GOP controlled House Select Committee to testify about Benghazi if she testifies as reports say this October. The date hasn't as yet been officially confirmed. This time the panel will zero in on Clinton's private emails to make the case that as then Secretary of State she either badly bungled the U.S. response to the Benghazi attack or deliberately lied about what she did or didn't do to prevent the attack.
The emails supposedly contain classified material that can be crucial to establishing the GOP's bogus case against Clinton. The GOP quickly jumped all over a report from a government inspector general that a handful of Clinton's personal emails contained classified material. The government investigator did not say what the nature of the classified material was, whether the alleged transmitting of this material was inadvertent, or whose responsibility it was to insure the classified material was marked as classified.
That didn't really matter. The relentless GOP narrative has been that Clinton illegally used her private email account to conduct State Department business and that those emails will show a pattern of neglect, incompetence and cover-up. The story got even bigger when a tantalizing hint was dropped that there could even be a criminal probe into Clinton's supposed misuse of her emails.
None of this is new stuff. It's been hashed and rehashed over so much that if anything the raw facts about the emails have been blurred or distorted. The facts, though, are clear. There is absolutely no proof that Clinton did anything wrong in using her private server to conduct some State Department business. There was no legal prohibition on any government employee using their personal email account to conduct government business at the time she did. The GOP has tried hard to poison the public well with the suggestion that Clinton may have destroyed or mishandled, either deliberately or accidentally, government documents tied back into Benghazi.
But there is no proof of that either. Though it's true that a National Archives and Records Administration rule does mandate that emails be "preserved in the appropriate record keeping system," during Clinton's tenure at the State Department there was no regulation in place that set a deadline for Clinton to turn those emails over to the Administration. The rules prohibiting government officials from using their private email accounts to conduct government business officials was changed nearly two years after Clinton left the State Department.
Yet, even this is a moot point since Clinton turned over 55,000 pages of her emails to the State Department that were related to her work at the department. This, and the fact that the there was no law on the books then that barred Clinton from using her private emails to conduct business, makes the notion of criminal conduct on her part crass and silly.
However, the point of the GOP's Hillary email obsession is the same as its pound of her for her alleged missteps and conniving on Benghazi. That is to embarrass and discredit her as a 2016 presidential candidate. The contrived email and Benghazi flap fit neatly into the GOP's now chosen point of attack on her. And that's to tar her as someone who is totally untrustworthy, even a congenital liar. The Republican National Committee wasted no time in issuing a statement following the inspector general's report on the handful of supposedly sensitive emails. It lambasted her for "jeopardizing" the nation's national security.
If Clinton eventually testifies before the House panel on Benghazi, the emails almost certainly will be its exhibit number one to make a circumstantial case that there's both a trust issue with Clinton and she is a menace to the nation's security. The GOP, as in the past, will have absolutely not a shred of hard evidence to base this smear on. This is less important than Republicans will again get what they want. That is lots of media talk and the hope that this will plant even deeper the seed of doubt in the general public about Clinton's fitness to be the nation's next commander-in-chief.
Clinton made an effort to parry the GOP's planned ambush by laying down ground rules for her testimony. The main one being that the questions be confined to the Benghazi attack, and not her emails. It's on this very point that predictably things have hit a snag. The panel from its public statements has no intention of agreeing to that. This would defeat its purpose which is to slur her integrity. The repeated playing up Clinton's emails as some sort of dark, sinister plot by her to cover-up and whitewash her actions on Benghazi and at the State Department won't end with the House committee's hearing. That's because it's not about Hillary's emails, but Hillary.
...................................................................................................................................................................
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