Voter Fraud News: Indiana GOP Secretary of State
Ineligible to Serve

So here's a wild end-of-the-year situation: Charlie White, the Secretary of State of Indiana, has been ruled ineligible to serve by a judge in Marion County. White has been battling charges that he was illegally registered to vote at the wrong address. [...]

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

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Israeli Defense Minister: Israeli-U.S. Defense
Coordination Is ‘Absolutely Fine’

The GOP presidential field is quick to criticize President Barack Obama’s relationship with Israel. But concerns about Obama’s lack of support for the Jewish state are nowhere to be found in recent statements by Israeli officials. On Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak praised Obama’s commitment to Israel’s security. Barak, who last month characterized Obama as an “extremely strong supporter of Israel,” told Israel Radio:

We are asked, sometimes, whether Obama is really a soft appeaser. To that, I say: ‘Go ask Osama bin Laden.’

Earlier this week, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta emphasized that “there are no options off the table” in dealing with a potential Iranian nuclear weapons program and General Martin Dempsey sought to dispel concerns raised in an interview last month in which he suggested the Israel might not warn the U.S. before undertaking a unilateral attack against Iranian nuclear facilities. Yesterday, Dempsey told CNN:

We are trying to establish some confidence on the part of the Israelis that we recognize their concerns and are collaborating with them on addressing them.

Barak also emphasized that Israeli-U.S. defense coordination was “absolutely fine” and sought to downplay rumors of tensions between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

They don’t have to love each other. It’s enough that they respect and understand that no one works as if they were alone, in a bubble.

Barak’s comments come as Republicans seek to portray Obama as weakening Israel’s security. Earlier this month, Bill Kristol, speaking through a press release for his far-right-wing pressure group, the Emergency Committee for Israel, said the White House “keeps acting to weaken the security of the state of Israel.” And GOP presidential candidates speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s Candidates Forum took turns criticizing Obama’s handling of Iran and commitment to Israel’s security. Rick Perry accused the administration of a ?torrent of hostility? toward Israel and Mitt Romney claimed, “Over the last three years President Obama has… chastened Israel.”

But Barak’s praise of Obama’s relationship with Israel and Netanyahu’s appreciation for the White House’s “unprecedented” security cooperation would seem to stand in direct contradiction with the right-wing voices seeking to portray the administration as insufficiently committed to Israel’s security.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/12/22/394748/barak-israel-us-defense-coord
ination/

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Celebrate Human Light Dec. 23rd and All Year

By @KYYellowDog

Because 99 percent of the "Christmas" celebration was stolen by the freakazoids from the rest of us, so fuck 'em - this is ours.

Celebrate Human Light:

HumanLight illuminates Humanism's positive secular vision. In Western societies, late December is a season of good cheer and a time for gatherings of friends and families. During the winter holiday season, where the word "holiday" has taken on a more secular meaning, many events are observed. This tradition of celebrations, however, is grounded in supernatural religious beliefs that many people in modern society cannot accept. HumanLight presents an alternative reason to celebrate: a Humanist's vision of a good future. It is a future in which all people can identify with each other, behave with the highest moral standards, and work together toward a happy, just and peaceful world.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheyGaveUsARepublic-FrontPage/~3/AJh0W1PRvR8/celeb
rate-human-light-dec-23rd-and-all-year

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Hey, PolitiFact ... about that 'journalistic
research' of yours ...

Wisconsin Civil Justice Council President and National Federation of Independent Business State Director Bill G. Smith shake hands with Gov. Scott Walker, seated. (Photo from WCJC website.)

So what does that picture have to do with PolitiFact's latest whine about all the flack they've gotten for conducting "journalistic research"?

Just this:

Back in January, PolitiFact decided to check a business group's claim that Wisconsin's lawsuit rules make it one of the most anti-business states in the country:

The Wisconsin chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business portrayed mom-and-pop companies as easy prey when people sue over harm from defective products, negligent care, accidents and other injuries.

"Wisconsin has one of the most promiscuous tort systems in the country in which small businesses are easy targets for baseless lawsuits and civil penalties that are entirely disproportionate," said Bill Smith, state director of the group, in a Jan. 4 news release in support of Walker?s proposals [...]

Smith pointed to a 2010 Pacific Research Institute ranking of states that he said puts Wisconsin at 35th -- or 16th-worst in the United States -- for an anti-business lawsuit climate. The institute is a free-market think tank based in California.

He also pointed us to Andrew Cook, a lawyer working with the Wisconsin Civil Justice Council, a business coalition lobbying for tighter lawsuit controls.

Thankfully, PolitiFact found the claim to be unequivocally false.

But there's a bigger problem here. Yeah, and it has to do with the organization's vaunted "journalistic research."

See Bill Smith up there, the state director of the business group making the claim? And then see how he points to the Wisconsin Civil Justice Council as a source backing up his claims? And notice how PolitiFact actually treats the WCJC as a legitimate source of information to be investigated?

Yeah, well ? funny story.

Guess who's the president of the Wisconsin Civil Justice Council?

So Bill Smith of NFIB is making a claim that's backed up by ? another group headed by Bill Smith. Amazing!

This is kinda like me calling you up on my land line to make some crazy ass assertion and then me giving you my cell phone number so you can call my employee to verify it.

Remember now, you rogue bloggers: This is how real journalistic research is done.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/SdU8Sa-MZxA/-Hey,-PolitiFact--abou
t-that-journalistic-research-of-yours-

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

What We Won

If there's one thing liberals know about their representatives in Washington, it's that those Democrats are a bunch of wimps. All Republicans have to do is draw back their fists, and Democrats will flinch. "What if they criticize us???" they whine, as they cave in on progressive principles again and again. That's the story liberals tell, and much of the time it's true.

But nothing is true in politics one hundred percent of the time, and so yesterday we saw Republicans cave in on the payroll tax cut extension. There's a lot of technical parliamentary hoop-jumping involved, but basically the House is going to pass the two-month extension, and in exchange there will be a conference committee that attempts to work out a one-year extension. So we get to go through this all over again in two months.

Which is probably just fine with Democrats. After all, they finally found an issue on which they could make Republicans knuckle under. Republicans don't seem to like this tax cut, and it's hard to come to any conclusion other than that the reason is that the cut is directed at working people without doing all that much for the Republicans' traditional constituency of the wealthy. So they oppose it, thereby not only looking obstructionist but reinforcing every mean thing Democrats say about them. And Democrats hung tough for a change, extending out a debate defined by their desire to help working people and Republicans' desire to put coal in everyone's stocking. It was such a PR nightmare for the GOP that everyone from Karl Rove to the Wall Street Journal editorial page told House Republicans to suck it up and pass the damn thing to stop the political bleeding.

With ten and a half months until the election, Democrats (including President Obama) have finally figured out that economic populism is a winner for them. You're probably saying, "What the hell took them so long?" It's a good question, but we should remind ourselves that Democrats are not as feckless as they're often portrayed, and Republicans are not as ruthlessly unified as they're often portrayed. What looks like Democratic wimpiness is sometimes just reasonable people choosing the better of two bad options (but sometimes it is actual wimpiness). And whatever unity they've shown in the past, Republicans are now as divided as anyone has seen them in a long time. 

It's possible that one they have a presidential nominee, the GOP will get itself into shape in order to defeat the president they hate so much. But if this episode is any indication, that may be a tall order. Every Republican with a brain in his or her skull knew days ago that this was going very, very badly for them, but it took them an extraordinarily long time to do something about it. That could be an indication of what the fall campaign will look like. 

Read The Full Article:
http://blog.prospect.org/article/what-we-won

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Republicans Cave, Democrats Shocked

If there's one thing liberals know about their representatives in Washington, it's that those Democrats are a bunch of wimps. All Republicans have to do is draw back their fists, and Democrats will flinch. "What if they criticize us???" they whine, as they cave in on progressive principles again and again. That's the story liberals tell, and much of the time it's true.

But nothing is true in politics one hundred percent of the time, and so yesterday we saw Republicans cave in on the payroll tax cut extension. There's a lot of technical parliamentary hoop-jumping involved, but basically the House is going to pass the two-month extension, and in exchange there will be a conference committee that attempts to work out a one-year extension. So we get to go through this all over again in two months.

Which is probably just fine with Democrats. After all, they finally found an issue on which they could make Republicans knuckle under. Republicans don't seem to like this tax cut, and it's hard to come to any conclusion other than that the reason is that the cut is directed at working people without doing all that much for the Republicans' traditional constituency of the wealthy. So they oppose it, thereby not only looking obstructionist but reinforcing every mean thing Democrats say about them. And Democrats hung tough for a change, extending out a debate defined by their desire to help working people and Republicans' desire to put coal in everyone's stocking. It was such a PR nightmare for the GOP that everyone from Karl Rove to the Wall Street Journal editorial page told House Republicans to suck it up and pass the damn thing to stop the political bleeding.

With ten and a half months until the election, Democrats (including President Obama) have finally figured out that economic populism is a winner for them. You're probably saying, "What the hell took them so long?" It's a good question, but we should remind ourselves that Democrats are not as feckless as they're often portrayed, and Republicans are not as ruthlessly unified as they're often portrayed. What looks like Democratic wimpiness is sometimes just reasonable people choosing the better of two bad options (but sometimes it is actual wimpiness). And whatever unity they've shown in the past, Republicans are now as divided as anyone has seen them in a long time. 

It's possible that one they have a presidential nominee, the GOP will get itself into shape in order to defeat the president they hate so much. But if this episode is any indication, that may be a tall order. Every Republican with a brain in his or her skull knew days ago that this was going very, very badly for them, but it took them an extraordinarily long time to do something about it. That could be an indication of what the fall campaign will look like. 

Read The Full Article:
http://blog.prospect.org/article/republicans-cave-democrats-shocked

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

John Boehner holds press conference to announce
deal on payroll tax cut extension

Speaker John Boehner is holding a press conference to announce that, as previously reported, the Republicans have caved on the payroll tax cut extension standoff. (Okay, he probably won't use those exact words.) From his statement earlier today:

Senator Reid and I have reached an agreement that will ensure taxes do not increase for working families on January 1 while ensuring that a complex new reporting burden is not unintentionally imposed on small business job creators. Under the terms of our agreement, a new bill will be approved by the House that reflects the bipartisan agreement in the Senate along with new language that allows job creators to process and withhold payroll taxation under the same accounting structure that is currently in place. The Senate will join the House in immediately appointing conferees, with instructions to reach agreement in the weeks ahead on a full-year payroll tax extension. We will ask the House and Senate to approve this agreement by unanimous consent before Christmas.

Watch it live here.

2:35 PM PT: Boehner says he doesn't think this is "the time for celebration." Yeah, probably because all the headlines say Republicans caved.

2:36 PM PT: "It may not have been politically the smartest thing in the world." Gee, ya think?

2:39 PM PT: Boehner says, "Doing the right thing for the right reasons is always the right thing to do."

2:40 PM PT: And Boehner has left the room?presumably, to go cry. More.

2:42 PM PT: Here is the president's statement:

For the past several weeks, I?ve stated consistently that it was critical that Congress not go home without preventing a tax increase on 160 million working Americans. Today, I congratulate members of Congress for ending the partisan stalemate by reaching an agreement that meets that test.

Because of this agreement, every working American will keep his or her tax cut ? about $1,000 for the average family. That?s about $40 in every paycheck. Vital unemployment insurance will continue for millions of Americans who are looking for work. And when Congress returns, I urge them to keep working to reach an agreement that will extend this tax cut and unemployment insurance for all of 2012 without drama or delay.

This is good news, just in time for the holidays. This is the right thing to do to strengthen our families, grow our economy, and create new jobs. This is real money that will make a real difference in people?s lives. And I want to thank every American who raised your voice to remind folks in this town what this debate was all about. It was about you. And today, your voices made all the difference.

2:44 PM PT:

MSNBC, CNN carried Boehner live, Fox is doing piece on cost of Chevy Volt. Huh?

— Marty Kady (@mkady) December 22, 2011

2:48 PM PT:

One GOP member on the GOP conference call on the deal by Boehner: "He may have a hard time keeping his Speakership after this."

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) December 22, 2011

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/zVwliPELXFc/-John-Boehner-holds-pr
ess-conference-to-announce-deal-on-payroll-tax-cutextension

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Time for Plan B on Plan B

"Modest" restrictions on reproductive freedom don't ever work the way their centrist supporters intend. They always end up hurting women least capable of shouldering the burden. Two new studies underscore this point. First, Amanda Marcotte points out research in the Journal of the American Medical Association showing that the Plan B restrictions supported by the Obama administration?against the advice of its medical professionals?will have effects more far-reaching than keeping the emergency contraceptive out of the hands of 11- and 12-year-olds. The JAMA study shows that this decision not only requires 15- and 16-year-old young women to get a prescription to obtain Plan B; it makes it harder for adult women to obtain Plan B as well.

In theory, putting Plan B behind the counter allows access, but also incentivizes consultation with a pharmacist about proper use. But in practice, not making Plan B available over the counter because of regulations put in place without understanding the realities of Plan B usage means that some women (especially in less affluent neighborhoods) will be denied access. The same problems exist with parental-involvement laws. In both cases, some gatekeepers lack the necessary information to allow access even if they have the best intentions, and where the reproductive rights of women are concerned, many don't always have the best intentions.

At Salon, Irin Carmon discusses new research on women who obtain second-trimester abortions. Opponents of reproductive freedom are engaged in increasing efforts to ban abortions prior to viability, but after 16 weeks. Such laws would disproportionately affect young women and racial minorities. And while women who obtain second trimester abortions actually have more money than the typical women obtaining an abortion, this is because such abortions have become "so prohibitively expensive after 16 weeks that many lower-income women simply have to give up." And, of course, the movement to ban second-term abortions is even worse in context. The arbitrary regulations invented by the anti-choice lobby?and favored by "centrists"?make it harder to obtain abortions in a timely manner, forcing women to navigate the regulatory obstacle course which limits access to later-term abortions. Women need more access to reproductive services, and even "moderate" regulations punish poor women, rural women, and racial minorities. The Obama administration had the chance to make the situation better rather than worse?and it failed.

Read The Full Article:
http://blog.prospect.org/article/time-plan-b-plan-b

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Mitt v. Mitt on Osama bin Laden

Once again, Mittens loses track of when he's flipping and when he's flopping. (Orig. photo: Pool/Reuters)

"I do not concur in the words of Barack Obama in a plan to enter an ally of ours ... I don't think those kinds of comments help in this effort to draw more friends to our effort."

? Mitt Romney, in remarks on the campaign trail in Iowa, Aug. 3, 2007, regarding the United States entering Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden.

"I think other presidents and other candidates like myself would do exactly the same thing."

? Mitt Romney, in an interview on MSNBC Wednesday, giving President Obama no credit for ordering the Navy Seals raid on Pakistan that ended with Osama dead.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/p72s2hfFuPc/-Mitt-v-Mitt-on-Osama-
bin-Laden

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Late Night FDL: Invisible but still human

This morning, a friend sent me a link to this article from the Missoula, MT Independent I sat on the sidewalk outside the Wilma Theatre, where congregants of Lion’s Den Ministries were arriving for worship, and pretended to be someone I was not?a[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/RFCV25AwUno/

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!