More on the Boy Scouts

post from The American Prospect on 20 July 2012 12:44:42 PM. © The American Prospect

While I'm in shock over the Batman shootings (check out Garance Franke-Ruta's painfully accurate outline of how this will play out in public discourse), here are some further thoughts from around the web on the Boy Scouts' decision to keep out the homos:

The must-read, of course, is our own Gabriel Arana's Merit Badge of Silence.
Mitt Romney was against banning lesbians and gay men from the Boy Scouts before he was in favor of it. Check out the clip, at the beginning of Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC segment, of Romney promising Massachusetts voters that, as a Boy Scouts board member, he would work to end the ban.
Eagle Scout Zach Wahls, raised by two moms, says that a "secret cabal" can't stop the change that's gonna come, and notes that the Minnesota Boy Scouts just stuck out their tongues and said "nyaah-nyaah, we're going to include gay folks in our Scouts." (Snarky language is all mine.)
Neil Steinberg at the Chicago Sun-Times compares the Boy Scouts' exclusion of gay folks to their once-upon-a-time exclusion of "Negroes":

The Scouts seem to be saying: If gays are around, we can?t stop thinking about homosexuality. ...
As a former Scout, I have too much affection for the organization to take any pleasure in this latest embarrassment. ?They?re stuck in the Dark Ages,? my mother said, over the telephone, and she?s 76.

Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out says that Zach Wahls is dreaming, given that the Latter-Day Saints Church sponsors one-third of all Boy Scout troops, and would simpy pull out of the organization if the policy shifted to openness. In other words, that light bulb has to want to change, and it emphatically does not.

And yet somehow the Girl Scouts get by without LDS money. Check out why here at this LDS forum:

Read The Full Article:
http://prospect.org/article/more-boy-scouts

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Financial Services Industry Threatens Retaliation
at Municipalities Who Use Eminent Domain to Fix the Housing Crisis

post from Firedoglake on 20 July 2012 12:41:39 PM. © Firedoglake

The financial industry is taking another run at a plan to help homeowners, this time the proposed program in San Bernardino County that would use eminent domain laws to acquire underwater mortgages and then refinance them for borrowers at market rates.[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/bP_Ahjojds4/

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END THE BUSH TAX CUTS FOR THE RICHEST 2%

post from The Politics of Jamie Sanderson on 20 July 2012 12:01:44 PM. © The Politics of Jamie Sanderson

Did you know?

People who earn more than $1 million a year get an average tax break of $143,000 from the Bush-era tax cuts

People making about $50,000 a year get an average tax break of about $1,000

More than two dozen big corporations paid no federal income taxes in the last four years.

Americans are sick and tired of an unfair tax system that rewards the richest two percent, while sticking the middle class with the tab. According to a study released this week by the Pew Research Center, Americans agree by a 2-1 margin that scrapping the Bush tax cuts for the richest two percent will help improve the economy and create a fairer tax system.

Simply put ? the current system isn?t right. Our nation can?t afford to give more special tax breaks to the top two percent. To strengthen our economy and reduce the deficit, we need everyone to do his or her part, and that includes the richest two percent. We need to target tax cuts to the middle class, as President Obama has proposed, not to the richest in our nation.

We need you to speak up and tell Congress what is right! Educators and other members of the middle class need to make sure our voices are heard. Tell Congress ? no more special treatment for the top two percent; everyone has to play by the same rules.

The Senate could vote as early as next week on extending tax cuts for the middle class. The House is scheduled to vote the week of July 30 on extending all of the expiring tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest two percent.

Take Action Today:

E-mail your Senators and urge them to vote for the proposed extension of middle class tax cuts.
E-mail your Representative in the House and urge him/her to oppose tax cuts for the richest two percent.
Read NEA President Dennis Van Roekel?s Op-Ed on extending tax cuts for the middle class and making sure the richest two percent pay their fair share.
Learn more about the fight for tax fairness. Visit the Americans for Tax Fairness website.

Read The Full Article:
http://thepoliticsofjamiesanderson.blogspot.com/2012/07/end-bush-tax-cuts-for-ric
hest-2.html

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Willard's Secret Run for President

post from MAL Contends . . . on 20 July 2012 12:01:34 PM. © MAL Contends . . .

Planet Kolob through Romney for President Inc:
We will provide you monetary arrangements for elderly
humans, and repair your fiscal situation after we are elected.
War-fighting humans of Joseph Smith?s country will
receive generous coupons and discounts, out of our respect
for warrior humans. We love Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Iowa
and Michigan with their perfect trees.Intercepted Directive X-K6 to Willard Romney: RE monetary units aggregated in water-surrounded land masses outside of polity America. Explain Earth?s finances are not as simple as some humans would have you believe. Sometimes a foreign entity is formed to allow foreign investors to invest in the United States, which may well be the case with the entities that human Democrats are describing as foreign accounts. This will confuse human data-distributing outlets, and be met with approval from outlet named after the small carnivorous life-form. Avoid use of the term, ?alien.?
---
American Humans' Comeback Team

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MalContends/~3/5LXLM6zzdyU/willards-secret-run-for
-president.html

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Medicaid expansion good for Mississippi's economy

post from Cottonmouth on 20 July 2012 12:01:14 PM. © Cottonmouth

The Mississippi Economic Policy Center, to whom I have linked many times, has some excellent analysis of the effects of the proposed Medicaid expansion. Here are three posts to read to help combat the GOP hype machine, which is stuck in overdrive on this issue:

4 Reasons why Medicaid Expansion is Good for Mississippi?s Economy

Rejecting Medicaid Expansion would create coverage gap for Mississippi?s most Vulnerable Working Families

Health Care Jobs become Critical to Mississippi?s Economy

The bottom line is that the federal government is looking to pump money into a vital portion of Mississippi's economic equation, and we'd be foolish to refuse it.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/GsAJ/~3/jfdRQy64rBg/medicaid-expansion-go
od-for.html

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Standing up to GOP extremism

post from US Politics | AMERICAblog News on 20 July 2012 12:00:48 PM. © US Politics | AMERICAblog News

Check out what happens when a Republican stands up to the crazies in their party's midst. Read the comments below this post from Matt Lewis criticizing Michele Bachmann's racist attack on a top Hillary staffer simply because the woman is Muslim-American.Here are two samples of the comments - welcome to the modern Republican party:InRussetShadowsThe DC needs to fire Matt Lewis NOW. His...

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/1ObhvM_978U/standing-up-to-gop-extr
emism.html

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O'Reilly: Obama Wants to 'Restrain Capitalism'
Because of Slavery 'Grievances'

post from Crooks and Liars on 20 July 2012 12:00:41 PM. © Crooks and Liars

O'Reilly: Obama Wants to 'Restrain Capitalism' Because of Slavery 'Grievances'

Click here to view this media

Fox News opinion host Bill O'Reilly says that President Barack Obama's misguided disdain for capitalism is a reaction to "historical grievances" about slavery.

During his Thursday "Talking Points" segment, O'Reilly said that footage of president's comments about business, which critics say were deceptively edited by both Fox News and Mitt Romney's campaign, proved that "the real Barack Obama has finally stood up."

"What the president wants to do is restrain capitalism through taxation," the Fox News host explained. "If you score big, he wants a big piece of the action so he can give what you get to other people."

"Now I could be wrong about this, but I think Mr. Obama allows historical grievances -- things like slavery, bad treatment for Native Americans and U.S. exploitation of Third World countries -- to shape his economic thinking," O'Reilly continued. "Rather than seeing the U.S.A. as basically noble, he gives the bad things about America far too much weight, leading to his desire to redistribute wealth, thereby correcting historical grievance."

"Mr. Obama is not a communist, he's not a socialist," he conclued. "He's a social justice anti-capitalist. That's what he is."

(h/t: Media Matters)

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/david/oreilly-obama-wants-restrain-capitalism-beca

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Shots in the American Dark

Once again psychotic rage rises up to preempt our attention. Real blood splatters innocents enjoying movie mayhem and sets off another round of parsing a twisted soul?s life and motives.

In coming days, curiosity about the ?Batman? killer will sweep aside everyday anxieties to swamp us with unanswerable questions about mental illness, popular culture, gun control and the degradation of American life.
James Holmes will join Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in dominating the Google universe, leaving them--and us--helpless to do more than express shock and grief in a literally unspeakable situation.
As HBO?s ?Newsroom? ends its weekly installment of agitating us into reflection about our media diet with last year?s Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Arizona, our nerve endings are now in a Denver suburb.
Slowly, the victims will acquire names, faces and life histories to let us mourn themas real people rather than statistics, but what then?
In time, the unspeakable will exhaust its 15 minutes and we can go back to worrying about the presidential campaign and who is sleeping with whom in Aaron Sorkin?s fevered imagination.
The darkness will still be out there.

Read The Full Article:
http://ajliebling.blogspot.com/2012/07/shots-in-american-dark.html

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Members Of The Military Among The Victims In
Colorado Shooting

The Pentagon has announced that members of the military were among those shot overnight at the mass killing in a theater in Aurora, Colorado. In a press briefing, a Pentagon spokesperson provided little information, but confirmed that military members were either shot or killed.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/media/2012/07/20/556081/members-of-the-military-among-th
ose-killed-at-colorado-shooting/

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Indiana GOP Removes Punching Bag With Likeness Of
President Obama But Remains Unapologetic

The Delaware County, Indiana Republican Party is reconsidering its decision to display a punching bag with the likeness of President Obama with a black eye at the Delaware County State Fair.

On Wednesday, the fair hosted Democrat Night, and attendees offended by the caricature asked officials to remove it. At least one Republican was equally outraged with the display. Brad Oliver, who is running for a seat in the Indiana House of Representatives, had asked the individuals tasked with running the party’s tent to remove the punching bag, and when he was “overruled,” he instructed his supporters to leave the fair in protest.

The display was finally removed after a veteran approached Tom Bennington, a spokesman for the county GOP , and voiced his concerns:

Bennington confirmed reports that among the people objecting to the Obama punching bag was a local man who, like Bennington, was a military veteran. The man objected to the disrespectful image of the military commander-in-chief and Bennington agreed.
?My contention is that it is not racial,? Bennington said. ?Obama is somebody we want to defeat. It was all meant in fun. But in reality I considered it a little offensive myself. It?s taken down. It was taken down five minutes after the discussion.

Despite complying with visitors’ demands to remove the punching bag, so far Republicans have largely remained unapologetic. Even Bennington, who asked the party to remove the display, seemed oblivious to the truly offensive nature of it: ?It was what I consider mildly offensive,? he said initially. ?We had a lot of people having a good time with it.”

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/07/20/554331/indiana-gop-removes-punching-
bag-with-likeness-of-president-obama-but-remains-unapologetic/

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