Bigots at National Organization for Marriage
endorse Mitt Romney

post from Daily Kos on 11 April 2012 04:00:04 PM. © Daily Kos

Severely the best they can do.
Mitt Romney (Matthew Reichbach)Mitt Romney continues to rack up dull, begrudging endorsements from conservative organizations that would rather have had almost anyone else. This time it's the anti-everything National Organization for Marriage's turn to accept their fate:

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) today announced its endorsement of Mitt Romney for President of the United States. NOM said it was making the endorsement to help focus social conservatives on the need to defeat President Obama in November.
"We are proud to endorse Mitt Romney for President," said Brian Brown, NOM's president. "Governor Romney was an early signer of NOM's presidential pledge which represents his commitment to the nation to take specific actions as president to preserve and protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman."

NOM is one of the groups that drafted a "Marriage Pledge" for Republican presidential candidates to sign, a vow basically saying that if you become president you will hate gay people, appoint Supreme Court justices who hate gay people, do your damnedest to make sure the Constitution properly hates gay people, and conduct investigations into whether people who hate gay people are the real victims here. This somehow "defends" marriage, presumably because Brian Brown and the rest of the NOM crew are always one inch away from gay marrying each other already and can only keep themselves in line by passing a constitutional amendment saying they're not allowed to.

Romney, Gingrich, and Pope Ricky the First all signed the pledge. Gingrich was always a dubious choice for defending marriage (cough), so now that Pope Ricky has dropped out of the race, NOM no longer has much of a choice. As the press release says, they need to "focus" social conservatives on accepting Mitt and not, say, just staying home and getting drunk on election night.

Note to the National Organization for Marriage: It doesn't get better. Sorry. You're stuck with this clown.

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ganization-for-Marriage-endorse-Mitt-Romney

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Reports: Zimmerman to Be Charged in Trayvon
Martin Death

post from Firedoglake on 11 April 2012 03:40:02 PM. © Firedoglake

According to multiple reports, neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman will be charged this afternoon in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Special prosecutor Angela Corey will make the announcement. There is no word yet on what charge Zimmerman[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/gWEUs7K1jrU/

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Romney's 'Empathy Gap'

post from FiveThirtyEight on 11 April 2012 03:12:07 PM. © FiveThirtyEight

Polls show Mitt Romney well behind President Obama on the empathy scale, but that might not matter come November: voters' perceptions of candidates as people are not necessarily consequential to presidential election outcomes.

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http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/11/romneys-empathy-gap/

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Midday open thread

post from Daily Kos on 11 April 2012 03:10:04 PM. © Daily Kos

Today's comic by Jen Sorensen is Coffee shop no-no's:
How sad. NRO had to fire another racist.
The porno industry says huzzah to Rick Santorum's exit from the Republican race:
To put it blunty, Rick Santorum and the adult film industry have never gotten along ...
So it should come as no surprise that Santorum?s Tuesday decision to suspend his presidential bid was received warmly by those in the skin business.
Santorum was ?bad for the country,? Steven Hirsch, the founder and co-chairman of Vivid, told POLITICO.
Vendors who worked for Newt Gingrich are worried that they won't get paid (and now toss in concern about bounced checks):
In interviews with HuffPost, many vendors listed in Gingrich's Federal Election Commission debt disclosures said they're still waiting to be paid, weeks or months after finishing work. Several said they've been given the runaround by campaign officials as they've tried to collect. Gingrich has vowed to slog on with his debt-ridden campaign, despite having won a mere 136 delegates, leaving some vendors to wonder when they can expect their checks.
Check out the winners from the Tales of the Freewayblogger contest.
Earlier today, Fox News claimed that they had uncovered the "Fox Mole." Doesn't look like it:
So Fox's PR team has been telling people that they have "found" me and are presently "exploring legal options." If Fox has smoked me out, it's news to me. I'm still here. Back to work.
George Bush, gone but not forgotten:
Lawsuit Claiming Viewpoint Discrimination Against Anti-President-Bush Protesters May Go Forward
So holds Moss v. United States Secret Service (9th Cir. Apr. 9, 2012). The protesters claim that the Secret Service required them to move further (on public streets) from where the President was staying, ostensibly for security reasons, but did not require this of a similar group of pro-President-Bush demonstrators. The Ninth Circuit holds that the lawsuit can go forward, because if the facts are as claimed, the Secret Service?s action would be unconstitutional.
Good news! John Edwards' campaign has paid back the more than $2 million owed for public matching funds from his 2008 presidential bid. Now he can focus his money on the next stage in his life:
He now faces a criminal trial set to begin Thursday in Greensboro over federal charges over campaign finance violations related to nearly $1 million paid by two wealthy donors to help hide his pregnant mistress as he sought the White House.
After reading this, I ordered two:
Paladone, makers of the controversial bath plug Tubtanic, have issued a rather glib non-apology to relatives of Titanic victims who found the toy "distateful."
"We're sorry if anyone is offended," said spokeswoman Fiona Parkinson. "It's meant as a harmless novelty item."
The plug, according to Paladone, allows users to "re-enact the famous sinking-ship scene in the comfort of your own bathtub!"
Earlier today, Charles Manson lost his 12th bid for parole for his role in the infamous 1969 Tate/LaBianca murders ... he'll be 92-years old when he's eligible for another hearing

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Planned Parenthood sues Texas over health
care exclusion

post from Daily Kos on 11 April 2012 03:08:09 PM. © Daily Kos

Gov. Rick Perry (Leschnyhan/Dreamstime.com)

Last month, the state of Texas lost Medicaid funding for the state's Women's Health Program, a Medicaid-waiver program. The federal government was forced to revoke the funding because Texas refused to comply with federal law in its insistence on cutting Planned Parenthood clinics out of the provider loop for the program.

Now, eight Planned Parenthood chapters are directly challenging the state. They have filed suit Wednesday to block the state from cutting off access to its clinics through the Women's Health Program.

The groups, none of which provide abortions, contend in the federal lawsuit that a new state law banning organizations affiliated with abortion providers from participating in the Women's Health Program has nothing to do with providing medical care and is simply intended to silence individuals or groups who support abortion rights. Texas law already requires that groups receiving federal or state funding be legally and financially separate from clinics that perform abortions.
"The government cannot condition your participation in the health services on giving up your free speech," said Pete Shenkken, the plaintiffs' attorney, citing past U.S. Supreme Court rulings. [...]
The Planned Parenthood groups have asked the federal court in Austin to block the state from enforcing the law before April 30, when those clinics would lose all funding under the new rule.

Planned Parenthood is the largest health care provider for women in the region, and expect some 6,500 women to be cut off immediately, by May 1, when the state's ban is to go into effect. They argue that there just aren't other providers available to take on those patients, and the potential 130,000 women who will be cut off from care long-term.

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es-Texas-over-health-care-nbsp-exclusion-

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George Zimmerman To Be Charged In Trayvon Martin
Killing: Reports

post from TPMMuckraker on 11 April 2012 03:00:58 PM. © TPMMuckraker

George Zimmerman, the Florida man accused of killing unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin will face charges brought by a special prosecutor investigating the matter, according to multiple reports.

Citing unnamed sources, both NBC News and the Washington Post have reported that Zimmerman will be charged. It's still unclear what those charges will be or when they will be announced by prosecutor Angela Corey.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TPMmuckraker/~3/k3wG-g4eD-Q/george_zimmerman_charg
es_trayvon_martin.php

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Walker flees Wisconsin people, Hides with Charlie
Sykes

post from MAL Contends . . . on 11 April 2012 03:00:43 PM. © MAL Contends . . .

The Smoking GunEven though everyone deserves to know exactly when Scott Walker first knew about the secret e-mail system run out of Walker's county executive office during his 2010 campaign for governor, don't look for a town hall question-and-answer session or a press conference on the topic.

No, Scott Walker is again coming home to ... GOP propagandist Charlie Sykes where he can rest assured that Sykes will not ask any questions about the corruption of Scott Walker.

Walker can hide; can run from the Wisconsin people; and stall the criminal investigation for only so long as Republican surrogates now attack the John Doe criminal probe daily since the Monday after Easter weekend.

But on June 5, the day of the historic recall election, Scott Walker can no longer hide from the Wisconsin people.

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people-hides.html

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Hacked

post from Talking Points Memo on 11 April 2012 03:00:34 PM. © Talking Points Memo

National Organization For Marriage has its Twitter account hacked. [...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/YVTtQP3tabc/hacked.php

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Getting Brutal

Romney surrogate Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R) praises support for 'pay equity' but voted against Ledbetter bill. [...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/wy0cPAvBxDg/getting_brutal.
php

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Washington Post Reporting: Zimmerman to be
Charged

**updated**

News breaking in the last hour…

Florida special prosecutor Angela Corey plans to announce as early as Wednesday afternoon that she is charging neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, according to a law enforcement official close to the investigation.
It was not immediately clear what charge Zimmerman will face.

From the New York Times:

Unless her investigation of the fatal shooting of Mr. Martin by a neighborhood watch coordinator, George Zimmerman, uncovers a great deal more solid evidence than has been disclosed, the case will remain a narrative Rorschach that each side will interpret as it wishes. Finding the criminal charges that can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, or deciding that Mr. Zimmerman?s account of defending himself in the face of deadly force places him within the protections of Florida?s Stand Your Ground law, Ms. Corey has undertaken an exercise that is unlikely to satisfy everyone.
?Factually, we know there was a killing,? said David LaBahn, the president of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. ?Now the question is: Is it a murder, or a manslaughter, or a justifiable homicide? Is it an involuntary manslaughter? Is it an assault??

I lived through the O.J. Simpson trial in Los Angeles. In fact, I saw Nicole Brown Simpson with her children at a trendy bistro in her neighborhood several times, once when she was wearing dark sunglasses, with her face obviously puffy from crying, though that doesn’t mean this particularly time it was from the obvious assumption. I followed that trial scrupulously, as did man women I knew.

When the verdict was announced, I was at work at the LA Weekly.

Beyond my world, it was absolutely true that opinion broke down along racial lines.

We often speculated what might have happened if there hadn’t been a change of venue and Simpson was tried by his true peers, the glamorous and wealthy set that inhabited Brentwood and the neighboring ritzy set.

As the Times mentions, the case could end up being a Rorschach.

I still maintain that without George Zimmerman’s pursuit of Trayvon Martin, with Stand Your Ground as a foundation, the young teen might not have died so needlessly.

Read The Full Article:
http://taylormarsh.com/blog/2012/04/washington-post-reporting-zimmerman-to-be-cha
rged/

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