Romney Won’t Say If He Supports Holding
Domestic Violence Victims Hostage To Spite Gay Victims And Immigrants

post from ThinkProgress on 19 April 2012 03:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

Earlier this year, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) led a Republican effort to block renewal of the Violence Against Women Act because he objected to the fact that the reauthorization bill includes certain protections for LGBT individuals, undocumented immigrants and Native Americans. Grassley said that he would abandon this effort last night, however — likely because the reauthorization now has the supermajority of supporters it needs to defeat a Republican filibuster. Nevertheless, the bill must still survive the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, where it faces a much rougher ride, before its longstanding protections for domestic violence victims can be continued.

In light of these recent Republican efforts to hold some domestic violence survivors hostage to block protections for others, formerGov. Mitt Romney’s campaign was recently asked whether he supports including the protections for gay people, undocumented immigrants and Native Americans or not. Team Romney would not answer the question:

Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for Mr. Romney, said in an e-mail, “Gov. Romney supports the Violence Against Women Act and hopes it can be reauthorized without turning it into a political football.” But she declined to specify which version he supported.

As Attorney General Eric Holder said yesterday, it is “inconceivable” that there is actually a debate over whether to protect domestic violence victims or not. It is equally inconceivable that anyone could deem some victims more worthy of protection than others. Romney, however, doesn’t seem willing to even go that far. He won’t even tell us which people caught in a horrific spiral of domestic violence deserve the law’s full protection against domestic violence.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/19/467591/romney-wont-say-whether-he-sup
ports-holding-domestic-violence-victims-hostage-to-spite-gay-victims-and-immigrants/

Digg this

NRA Removes YouTube Video Of Ted Nugent’s
Threatening Remarks Toward Obama

post from ThinkProgress on 19 April 2012 03:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

(Photo: Getty)

New York Magazine’s Daily Intel blog reported this week that the U.S. Secret Service said it would be talking to Ted Nugent about threatening remarks he made toward President Obama on a radio program at the National Rifle Association conference in St. Louis last weekend. ?If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year,? Nugent said.

Nugent — who is on the NRA’s board — has since stood by his comments, likening himself to “a black Jew at a Nazi-Klan rally,” adding, “there are some power-abusing, corrupt monsters in our federal government that despise me because I have the audacity to speak the truth.”

But it doesn’t seem that the NRA is too comfortable with what Nugent said. The gun lobby scrubbed the entire 26 minute video from its YouTube page. A Google search shows that on April 15, “NRAVideos,” the NRA’s official YouTube page, uploaded the full video of the interview in which Nugent made the remarks about Obama:

But now the YouTube URL associated with that video no longer works, reading: “This video has been removed by the user”:

Right Wing Watch still has video of Nugent’s remarks here.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/04/19/467771/nra-removes-nugent-video/

Digg this

Midday open thread

post from Daily Kos on 19 April 2012 03:00:04 PM. © Daily Kos

Today's comic is The Jesus Budget by Mark Fiore:
Steve Singiser and I are doing an interactive webcast today at 6 PM ET/3 PM PT previewing the panel we're running at Netroots Nation. (Full details on our panel here.) We'll be talking about Senate races and also taking questions, so come check us out. ? David Nir
Ouch:
Newt Gingrich has gotten noticeably fatter over the course of his campaign. His belly bulged onto his lap as he sat on a yellow couch in the basement of a Lancaster, Penn., Marriott one recent night; he had fastened only one of the two buttons on his black suit jacket, and even it appeared to be straining. In this sense, and perhaps this sense only, Gingrich has not been diminished by his ongoing quest for the presidency.
Janet Jackson's nipple is still a federal case.
Good:
The police chief who oversaw the University of California, Davis, police department during its notorious pepper-spraying of Occupy protesters said Wednesday that she is stepping down.
Are you ready to get your fourth season of Arrested Development on? It'll be available on Netflix early next year.
Here is a video of a guy getting tattooed in a very private place. In case you're into that sort of thing.
Eh, it's all just a hoax:
Global warming has raised global sea level about 8 inches since 1880, and the rate of rise is accelerating. [...] A Climate Central analysis finds the odds of ?century? or worse floods occurring by 2030 are on track to double or more, over widespread areas of the U.S.
Like:
A Mensa reject named Michael Baker was arrested earlier this week after he posted a photo on Facebook of himself siphoning gas from a cop car.
I did not know we needed this:
Libertarian techie nerds take heed! A Ron Paul video game is coming to your PC. Since the status-quo-loving political system makes it near-impossible for the Good Doctor to shake things up in Washington, you can finally put down that ?End the Fed? poster and kick some virtual ass.
Smoking regulations are JUST LIKE HITLER!
I don?t want government telling me what I can do and what I can?t do because I?m an American. But in Monongalia County you can?t smoke a cigarette, you can?t smoke a cigar, you can?t do anything. And I oppose that because I believe in everybody?s individual freedoms and everybody?s individual rights to do what they want to do and I?m a conservative and that?s the way that goes. [...]
Remember Hitler used to put Star of David on everybody?s lapel, remember that? Same thing.?
Well, thank the lord that Pope "I was a teenage Nazi" Benedict XVI is taking time out from covering up priests raping children to finally do something about those radical, gay-lovin', feminazi sluts:
The Vatican has launched a crackdown on the umbrella group that represents most of America's 55,000 Catholic nuns, saying that the group was not speaking out strongly enough against gay marriage, abortion and women's ordination.
Rome also chided the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) for sponsoring conferences that featured "a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."
Speaking of the pope and things that are just like Hitler:
Just in time for Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Vatican is reportedly considering allowing the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) back into its fold. The Society, noted for its virulent anti-Semitism, had been excommunicated, but Pope Benedict XVI lifted the order in 2009. Now, the Pope once again has reached out to the group to attempt "reconciliation," and has requested that it sign a "doctrinal preamble." [...]
In 2009, when the Pope first lifted the group's ex-communication, Haaretz reported that a team of journalists from Joods Actueel, a Jewish publication based in Antwerp, had documented a large amount of anti-Semitic material on the SSPX society websites, in five languages. [...]
The Vatican may get the SSPX back into communion with the Catholic Church, but they will not be able to scrub the mouth of Bishop Richard Williamson, a member of the society, who in 2009 denied the Holocaust. The "good" Bishop is also somewhat of a 9/11 truther.
Happy (gulp) 25th birthday to The Simpsons.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/pl4laaFOeT4/-Midday-open-thread

Digg this

House Republicans Serve The Banks By Voting To
Repeal Key Anti-Bailout Provision

post from ThinkProgress on 19 April 2012 03:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

When Republicans first took back the House of Representatives in 2010, the new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), said that he feels Washington’s role is to “serve the banks.” And his committee certainly followed through on that directive yesterday, voting to repeal a key provision of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that is aimed at preventing a repeat of the ad-hoc bank bailouts that occurred in 2008:

The House Financial Services Committee voted along party lines to repeal the section of the law that allows the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp to liquidate large, failing financial institutions seized by the government.
This authority was included in the law in an attempt to avoid the type of market chaos and government bailouts that followed the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 by giving the government a mechanism for better controlling the breakup of a financial giant.

As I explained here, this provision corrected a key flaw in the nation’s regulatory structure by giving the government the power to seize and wind down a failing financial firm, recouping any losses to the taxpayer by selling off the failed firm’s assets. In 2008, due to not having this power, the government was left in the unenviable position of either bailing out banks or potentially allowing the financial system to implode.

House Republicans justified repealing the provision by claiming that it would reduce deficits by $22 billion over the next ten years. This was based on a rather bizarre score from the Congressional Budget Office, which said the provisions “costs” $22 billion because, in the event that the government needs to unwind a failing firm, it might not recoup all of the money spent unwinding it within a ten-year budget window; therefore, CBO said, the provision “costs” money (though no money is actually being spent). As financial analyst Brian Gardner said, “it’s tough to understand where the $22 billion comes from — it’s a wild assumption since there are currently no cash flows involved with this part of Dodd-Frank.”

Financial Services Committee Republicans also voted to gut the budget of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and to eliminate a key foreclosure prevention program (that, admittedly, has been underwhelming). If their goal is to “serve the banks,” they could barely have done more to accomplish that yesterday, short of just giving them more free government money.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/04/19/467404/republicans-repeal-anti-bailou
t/

Digg this

CHART: How Obama And Romney Compare On Energy
Issues

post from ThinkProgress on 19 April 2012 03:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

Mitt Romney?s campaign has benefited from Big Oil and Big Coal?s backing, which have poured more than $16 million into ads attacking President Barack Obama?s energy policies. As a favor, Romney says he plans to open public lands and water to drilling while undoing safety and environmental protections.

Below, we take a side-by-side look at Obama and Romney’s policies and their divisions on fossil fuels, clean energy, public health, and pollution. Beneath the chart is a more detailed comparison of the candidates? energy proposals and rhetoric.

Oil and gas production

Obama:

Oil production reached its highest level in eight years last year. Between oil and gas drilling rigs, the United States now has more rigs at work than the rest of the world combined. Imports fell to lowest level in 16 years, under 50 percent of oil consumption. [White House, 3/12/12]
Raised safety standards for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, strengthening well design, testing, control equipment and workplace safety. The region was not hurt economically by a temporary moratorium, which has the same unemployment as two years ago and had rising personal income in 2011. [White House,3/30/12, NOLA, 4/15/12 ]
Crude oil production from federal lands and waters was higher in 2011 than any of the last three years of the Bush Administration. [Energy Information Administration, 3/14/12]

Romney

Opens up the Florida portion of the Gulf of Mexico to new drilling, the Atlantic and Pacific Outer Continental Shelves, public lands, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Accelerates drilling permits. [MittRomney.com, 2011]
Called the temporary moratorium on drilling in the Gulf following the Deepwater Horizon disaster ?illegal.? [CBS News,3/9/12]

Big Oil Subsidies

Obama:

Calls on Congress to end oil subsidies and to double down on clean energy investments. [White House, 3/28/2012]
Pledged to cut subsidies for oil, coal, and natural gas internationally, among G20 nations. [Economist,10/1/09

Romney:

Romney?s plan cuts the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, but does not make specific mention of oil and gas loopholes which let oil companies pay much lower effective federal rates. [Mitt Romney.com, 2011]
Romney has blasted Obama for wanting to close these loopholes for the industry, saying the president is increasing taxes. [MittRomney.com, 3/4/12]
Asked directly in an interview about whether he is for or against subsidizing Big Oil, Romney responded: ?I’m not sure precisely what big tax breaks we’re talking about.? [Fox News, 4/3/2012]
Romney supports the House Republican budget, which preserves the $40 billion in subsidies for the oil and gas industry. [Center for American Progress, 3/20/12]

Gas Prices

Obama:

?There?s no silver bullet. Anybody who tells you otherwise isn?t really looking for a solution; they?re trying to ride the political wave of the moment.? [LA Times, 3/16/12]
Domestic oil production is at its highest level in eight years, but drilling has no correlation to gas prices, the Associated Press confirms. [AP, 3/22/12]
Rein in market oil speculators with more funding for market oversight and CFTC, increased penalties for illegal activity. Dodd-Frank financial reform includes rules on speculation [CNN, 4/17/12; Media Matters, 4/18/12]

Romney

?He?s now decided that gasoline prices should come down. The gas hike trio has been going in the other direction. Time for them to go, probably hand in their resignations if he?s really serious about that.? [Boston Globe, 3/19/12]
Calls to repeal Dodd Frank and opposes reining in Wall Street speculators, calling Obama?s move ?gimmickry? [MittRomney.com, 4/17/12]

Energy Efficiency

Obama:

Finalizing new modern standards requiring cars and light-duty trucks to achieve an average fuel economy rating of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 ? double the rate in 2010. These savings will cut U.S. oil use by 2.2 million barrels per day by 2025?a move that will save drivers $8,000 per vehicle due to fewer gasoline purchases compared to a 2010 car. [White House, 3/12/12]
Began the Better Buildings Initiative, which makes commercial facilities 20 percent more efficient by 2020. [NYT, 12/3/11]
Directed federal agencies to make $2 billion worth of energy efficiency upgrades in two years. [NYT,12/3/11]

Romney

Against raising standards for energy-efficient lighting, which was coauthored by Republicans and signed into law by President George W. Bush. “The government would have banned Thomas Edison?s light bulb,” Romney said. “Oh yeah, Obama?s regulators actually did.” [Huffington Post, 3/19/12]
Supports the House GOP Ryan budget, which would cut investments in energy efficiency by 20 percent in 2013. [House.gov, 3/19/12]

Public lands

Obama:

Announced he would ?allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power 3 million homes.? [1/24/12]
Signed a sweeping public lands bill in 2009 that designated two million acres of wilderness and three national parks. [AP,3/31/09]
Created a national monument of a Civil War-era Fort Monroe, Virginia, embracing the 1906 Antiquities Act. [National Trust For Historic Preservation, 11/1/11]

Romney:

Romney said ?I haven?t studied [?] what the purpose is of? public lands. But he finds it unacceptable when conservation is ?designed to satisfy, let?s say, the most extreme environmentalists, from keeping a population from developing their coal, their gold, their other resources for the benefit of the state.? [McClatchy, 2/16/12]
Fully embraced the House Republican budget from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), calling it ?bold and brilliant.? It sells off 3.3 millions of acres of national parks and public lands. [ThinkProgress, 3/21/12]

Global Warming

Obama:

?I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change. But here’s the thing — even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy-efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future -? because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy.? [White House, 1/27/10]
State Department is leading a group of countries in a program that cuts global warming pollutants like soot, methane and hydrofluorocarbons. [NYT, 2/16/2012]
Issued the first ever carbon pollution rules for power plants, affecting new coal-fired power plants. [NPR, 3/27/12]

Romney:

Doesn?t believe carbon pollution is a threat, reversing his stance as governor: ?I don?t think carbon is a pollutant in the sense of harming our bodies.” [Politico, 7/18/11]
My view is that we don?t know what?s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.? [CBS, 10/28/2011]
Says the Clean Air Act doesn’t apply to carbon emissions: “My view is that the EPA in getting into carbon and regulating carbon has gone beyond the original intent of that legislation, and I would not take it there,” [Politico, 7/18/11]

Air Pollution From Power Plants

Obama:

Unveiled historic rules that limit harmful mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants. The initiative prevents 11,000 premature deaths and 4,700 heart attacks a year, and 130,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms [EPA, 12/21/11]

Romney

?Aggressively? develop all our coal sources. ?Coal is America?s most abundant energy source. We have reserves that?at current rates of uses?will last for the next 200 years of electricity production in an industry that directly employs perhaps 200,000 workers. [NYT, 4/3/12]
Against new EPA regulations of harmful mercury and air pollutants from coal: ?I think the EPA has gotten completely out of control for a very simple reason. It is a tool in the hands of the president to crush the private enterprise system, to crush our ability to have energy, whether it’s oil, gas, coal, nuclear.? [The Hill, 12/5/11]

Fuel efficient cars

Obama:

New modern standards require cars and some trucks to achieve an average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. This cuts U.S. oil consumption by 2.2 million barrels of oil per day by 2025, saving Americans $1.7 trillion and cuts carbon pollution. [White House, 11/17/11]
Set a goal that by 2015 there would be 1 million electric vehicles on the road. [White House, 3/12/12]

Romney:

Disparaged the Chevrolet Volt as ?an idea whose time has not come” and ?I?m not sure America was ready for the Chevy Volt.? [Michigan Live, 12/23/11, MSNBC 4/5/12]
Against fuel efficiency standards, calling it ?disadvantageous for domestic manufacturers.? [WJR Radio, 2/23/12]
Advocates ending federal loan program helping companies develop and produce efficient cars. [Orange Country Register, 10/24/11]

Clean energy

Obama:

?I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here.? [State of the Union, 1/24/12]
Transforming the Pentagon into a clean energy operation, reducing the military?s dependence on fossil fuels that cost the Pentagon up to $20 billion annually. Investing in hybrid batteries. [National Journal, 4/11/12]

Romney:

?You can?t drive a car with a windmill on it.? [ThinkProgress,3/6/2012]
Endorses the Ryan House Republican budget, which gives a 60 percent funding increase to coal, oil, and natural gas, while it decreases funding for research on vehicle batteries and solar projects, and loans for fuel-efficient cars. [Politico, 4/17/12]
Against the government promoting clean energy, though supports tax loopholes for oil: ?Let’s pretend for a moment that [Solyndra] didn’t go bankrupt. Let’s just pretend it was successful ? When he picks one [business] that the government gets behind with $500 million, the investments in all the others disappear, because no one wants to compete with the government.? [The Hill, 12/20/11]

Green Jobs

Obama:

Historic level of investment in clean energy, a sector now with 3.1 million Americans employed. In 2008, Obama promised to create 5 million green jobs. [AP, 3/22/12]

Romney:

Repeatedly called green jobs fake, for example calling them ?illusory? in an op-ed. ?[Obama] keeps talking about green jobs, where are they?? [OC Register, 10/11, League of Conservation Voters, 9/15/11]
Against renewable energy production credits, which risks the end of 37,000 jobs, according to a figure from Navigant Consulting [Chicago Tribune, 2/17/12]

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/19/466477/chart-how-obama-and-romney-com
pare-on-energy-issues/

Digg this

Bachmann: Obama 'Waving a Tar Baby in the Air'

post from Crooks and Liars on 19 April 2012 03:00:04 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Bachmann: Obama 'waving a tar baby in the air'

Click here to view this media

The Hill catches Michele Bachmann making another of her unforced errors with an unfortunate choice of words, or just absent-mindedly using a racially-loaded Republican dog whistle? Whatever the case, offensive as usual.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) blasted President Obama following his proposed "crackdown" on firms found to be manipulating the oil market, saying he is "waving a tar baby in the air" as a distraction from high gas prices.
"This is just about waving a tar baby in the air and saying that something else is a problem," Bachmann said in an interview Wednesday with The Shark Tank, a conservative news organization that covers Florida politics. "I have never seen a more irresponsible president who is infantile in the way that he continually blames everyone else for his failure to first diagnose the problem and second to address the problem. It's always everyone else's fault."
She said her message for the president is, "Get over it," and stop blaming everyone else.
The term "tar baby" is a racially loaded phrase coined in the "Brer Rabbit" tales. The term generally means a "sticky situation," but has also been used as a derogatory term for a black person.
Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado, apologized last year after he said associating with Obama was "like touching a tar baby."

Ever classy, Bachmann ends with this:

"The president is a complete and under fraud and a hypocrite on this issue, with all due respect to the presidency."

The Republican candidates for President were a series of sick jokes perpetrated on the American public but none more so that Michele Bachmann.

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/scarce/bachmann-obama-waving-tar-baby-air

Digg this

Five companies stockpiled nearly $60 billion
while cutting 64,000 jobs worldwide from 2007 to 2011

corporate cash hoarders (Paywatch)

One frequently cited rationale for corporate tax breaks is that companies will use the extra money to create jobs. They'd love to create jobs, we're told, if only they could afford to do so, and one more tax break will make that possible. Instead, we see that many companies are sitting on giant piles of cash and cutting jobs anyway. The AFL-CIO's Paywatch includes some data on major corporate cash hoarders?five companies that added $57.8 billion to their cash stockpiles between 2007 and 2011 while cutting more than 64,000 jobs worldwide. (We can't know how many of those jobs were in the United States, because companies aren't required to tell us that.)

Verizon, which leads the pack, having cut 41,100 jobs while its "cash holdings and short-term investments grew 311 percent to $14 billion at the end of 2011, from $3.4 billion at the end of 2007," is also a major corporate tax avoider. Verizon paid a negative effective federal income tax rate from 2008 to 2011 while chasing after more and more tax breaks and trying to force its unionized workers into taking cuts to health care and benefits and job security.

Verizon may be the worst, cutting jobs, trying to make jobs worse, and accumulating a Scrooge McDuck-style cash hoard, but it's not just Verizon. Nonfinancial corporate businesses had $2.2 trillion in liquid assets at the end of 2011, and the fact that they're just sitting on that is hurting the American economy:

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), if U.S. nonfinancial corporations invested $508 billion of their excess cash holdings, U.S. GDP would grow an additional 1 percent to 1.6 percent a year between 2012 and 2014 and 2.4 million new jobs would be created.
Another study by the Political Economy Research Institute found that if corporations and banks invested $1.4 billion in cash into productive investments and job creation, unemployment would fall below 5 percent by the end of 2014.

We know that helping these corporations accumulate more money doesn't create jobs or help the working economy. And if lower corporate taxes created jobs, the United States would be at full employment and looking into making second jobs mandatory, given our effective corporate tax rate. If corporations are going to act only in their own shortest-term self-interest, our policies and politics should at least reflect that, and make it mandatory for them to pay something approaching their share.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/_d25A27jlEc/-Five-companies-stockp
iled-nearly-60-billion-while-cutting-64-000-jobs-worldwide-from-2007-to-2011

Digg this

A New Kind of Gold Standard

In the latest issue of the magazine, I have a piece examining a strange and growing trend in some conservative circles?pushing states to adopt alternative currencies to the federal dollar. The basic concern is one you've probably heard from Ron Paul: The Federal Reserve can't be trusted, the national debt is out of control, so the U.S. dollar, backed only by faith in the government, may become worthless. (The story outlines some of the more obvious economic problems with this theory.)

To deal with the concern, problem-solving state lawmakers have started introducing bills to create a second currency, one of gold and silver. Sounds like a fringe concept right?

Well, not entirely. In the 2011-2012 legislative cycle, 17 states saw some form of the legislation introduced, either implmenting a second currency or at least prompting a study of one. The famous (and failed) "doomsday bill" in Wyoming included one such study. Utah already passed its version last year, so you can now start paying taxes in gold eagles?if you have any that is.

And now it looks like Missouri may join Utah in the ranks of the bimetallic. Through just a voice vote, the AP reports that the state House passed a measure to recognize gold and silver as legal tender in the state. That means, much like Utah, states would have to accept the metal as tax payments, though no one else has to accept anything besides the dollar. The bill must pass the House once more before it can head to the Senate. You might call it the yellow brick road to becoming a law.

Read The Full Article:
http://prospect.org/article/new-kind-gold-standard

Digg this

The Real Foreclosure Fraud Story: Corruption of
the Land Title System

We're talking about massive, massive fraud. And this is what the state Attorneys General and the federal regulators gave up, in exchange for their non-investigatory investigation.[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/YhpixyvZSrg/

Digg this

Republicans Keeping Anti-Gay Views in the Closet

As polls in favor of marriage equality trend upward, politicians are pushed into an awkward corner. The Prospect's Paul Waldman explained earlier this morning how the incentives just aren't there yet for Democrats to go out on a limb and support same-sex marriage; favoring civil unions probably captures enough of the vote. But at the same time, Republicans have to struggle with the divide between their base, which wants constitutional amendments barring any legal recognition for LGBT couples, and the wider public, whose views soften each passing month. As I noted earlier this week, it's already created a divide between Romney and some of his high-dollar donors.

Now it looks like an issue state-level Republicans will have to grapple with as well. North Carolinians will vote next month on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. The Charlotte Observer reports that one major candidate has done his best to duck the issue:

He?d rather talk about something else ? say, the economy or education.
But press Pat McCrory about gay marriage, and the presumptive Republican nominee for governor will say this much ? and little more: On May 8, he plans to vote for the proposed N.C. constitutional amendment reaffirming the state?s ban on same-sex marriage.
That puts him in line with evangelical Christians and other parts of the GOP?s conservative base, who back the so-called marriage amendment by large margins.
But it sets him apart from some leaders in Charlotte?s business community and from many moderate voters ? the very groups that formed McCrory?s base during his many years as mayor of Charlotte.

The article goes on to note several prominent local business Republicans who have been vocal opponents of the measure, while McCrory largely stays silent except for affirming his support for the amendment when questioned by reporters.

So far, the divide between the conservative base and business Republicans hasn't translated into a new policy direction for the party, but the cracks are beginning to show. Republican candidates still have to nominally align themselves with anti-LBGT measures, but as time goes on, pressure from their major funders should eventually push more and more Republicans away from stumping against LGBT civil rights.

Read The Full Article:
http://prospect.org/article/republicans-keeping-anti-gay-views-closet

Digg this