GOP Health Care Attitude

post from jobsanger on 28 March 2012 01:05:00 AM. © jobsanger

Political Cartoon is by Pat Bagley in the Salt Lake Tribune.

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Romney's Super-PAC "Attack Dog"

post from jobsanger on 28 March 2012 01:04:00 AM. © jobsanger

(The image above is from the website of Vanity Fair.)

The ridiculous decision made by the Supreme Court in Citizens United vs. FEC has had a profound effect on the American electoral process already. It allows candidates to get around the campaign donation limits (and even allows those donors to remain secret). It has also given the candidates some deniability regarding negative advertising.

This is especially true of Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie). His super-PAC has been very successful at raising money (most of it from Wall Street and big corporations). And that super-PAC, Restore Our Future, has acted as the campaign's "attack dog". It is responsible for nearly all of the negative attack ads done on behalf of Romney.

The Romney campaign has spent about $11.8 million on broadcast ads (12,817 spots), and almost all of them have been positive spots promoting Romney. But that does not mean Romney has waged a positive campaign. His super-PAC has spent about $36.1 million, and $35 million (96.95%) of that has been spent on negative advertising attacking his GOP opponents (Santorum and Gingrich).

Of course the Romney campaign (and some right-wing apologists) will claim that Romney has no control over what his super-PAC does, since it is against federal law for the two entities to be combined. If any of you really believe that, please give me a call. I've got some ocean-front property here in Amarillo that I'll sell real cheap. It takes nothing more than a wink and a nod for the campaign to control super-PAC actions.

And you can bet this will continue if Romney is the nominee in the general election. He will try to act innocent, while his super-PAC viciously attacks the president.

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Recovering

post from jobsanger on 28 March 2012 01:03:00 AM. © jobsanger

Political Cartoon is by Mike Luckovich in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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Is The U.S. A Religious Nation

post from jobsanger on 28 March 2012 01:02:00 AM. © jobsanger

There is a fairly significant portion of the American electorate that claims America is a christian nation. They tell us that this country was founded as a christian nation and remains so today, and because of this they want to force all Americans to abide by their beliefs by passing laws requiring that.

The first part, that America was founded as a christian nation, is easily disproved. Not only does the Constitution guarantee freedom of religion (which encompasses all beliefs, and not just christianity), but a treaty ratified by the U.S. Senate in the early 1800s (only a few years after the nation was founded) verifies that the United States is a secular nation.

That leaves the second assertion -- that the United States is today a religious nation (i.e., a christian nation). Is that really true? Not so much. A recent Gallup Poll shows that less than half of all Americans consider themselves to be "very religious". This poll asked Americans to choose one of three categories:

VERY RELIGIOUS -- These people claim religion is important and attend religious services regularly (at least once a week).
NONRELIGIOUS -- These people say religion is not important and almost never attend religious services.
MODERATELY RELIGIOUS -- These people either claim religion is important but don't attend services, or claim it is not important but attend services anyway.

So how does this break down? It turns out that only four out of ten Americans consider themselves to be very religious. Here are the numbers:

VERY RELIGIOUS...............40%
NONRELIGIOUS...............32%
MODERATELY RELIGIOUS...............28%

So it turns out that those who would like to legislate religion into our American law are in the minority. And since many of that 40% who are in the "very religious" category are among those who believe the First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion (the freedom to believe in any religion, or none at all), that means those who wish to legislate their own religious morality are in an even smaller minority. It is time for decent Americans of all faiths (and no faith) to stand up to this tiny minority of religious bigots.

An interesting part of the Gallup Poll was a ranking of states according to their religiosity. This was done by ranking them according to the number of people in each state who claimed to be very religious. Here are the top ten states in both the "most religious" and least religious" categories:

LEAST RELIGIOUS
1. Vermont...............23%
1. NewHampshire...............23%
3. Maine...............25%
4. Massachusetts...............28%
4. Alaska...............28%
6. Oregon...............30%
6. Nevada...............30%
6. Washington...............30%
9. Connecticut...............31%
10. New York...............32%
10. Rhode Island...............32%

MOST RELIGIOUS
1. Mississippi...............59%
2. Utah...............57%
3. Alabama...............56%
4. Arkansas...............54%
4. Louisiana...............54%
4. South Carolina...............54%
7. Tennessee...............52%
8. North Carolina...............50%
9. Georgia...............48%
9. Oklahoma...............48%

If your state is not listed, you can go to the Gallup site (linked above) to see how it ranks (by just moving your computer icon to hover over the state in question).

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Irony

post from jobsanger on 28 March 2012 01:01:00 AM. © jobsanger

Political Cartoon is by Chan Lowe in the Florida Sun-Sentinel.

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Late Late Night FDL: Youve Got A Friend In Me

post from Firedoglake on 28 March 2012 01:00:25 AM. © Firedoglake

Randy Newman -- You've Got A Friend In Me, Jazz Open, Stuttgart, July 26, 2006.[...]

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The Nightowl Newswrap

post from They gave us a republic... - Front Page on 28 March 2012 01:00:00 AM. © They gave us a republic... - Front Page

By @BG & @YD

We fucking knew this would happen. They're trying the case in the press. The lead investigator into the killing of Trayvon Martin filed an affidavit the night of the shooting saying he wanted to arrest Zimmerman and charge him with manslaughter because he didn't believe Zimmerman's account of events, but the investigator was thwarted by prosecutors who didn't want to bring the case.

Of course it happened on JetBlue. Proving once again that the crew is just as capable of freaking out spectacularly on an airplane as any passenger, the Captain of a JetBlue flight on Tuesday had to be subdued by passengers after he started screaming about a bomb and had to be ejected from the cockpit and locked out.

General Clark calls out Romney for 'rehashing Cold War fears' Wesley Clark -- a former Democratic presidential candidate and one of the Generals who actually won the Cold War, accused Mittens of fearmongering about the Cold War in no uncertain terms on Tuesday after Rmoney actually said, out loud and on the record, that the former Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical threat the US faces today. We know. We were gobsmacked by the stupid, too.

Rand Paul is the kind of guy who comes across as a total shithead even when you agree with him, doesn't he? On Tuesday Rand Paul blocked a sanctions bill against Iran by denying it unanimous concent and attaching an amendment that would prohibit any use of force against the Islamic Republic of Iran without the express consent of the Congress. You know -- that body tasked with declaring war, as set forth by the owners manual to our republic, right there in Article 1, Section 8?

Of course, he comes off like a shithead 100% of the time, because he **is** a shithead. What else would you call someone who refuses to consider the position of the consumer getting screwed at the gas pumps. Those ingrates masquerading as consumers, you see, should be encouraging the oil companies and giving them perks, strokes and warm fuzzies to help them make more money, which they will totally pass on to their customers via lower gas prices. Or he's just a hopeless shithead.

We beg to differ. Leon Panetta was feeling his Geritol this morning, apparently, when he said that "polls cannot dictate Afghan war withdrawal." He must have forgotten about the ones that are held in November of even-numbered years. Those polls sure as hell can, and he would do well to remember it.

Someone needs a refresher course on what a small business actually is. Here's a hint -- an internet publishing company with 500 employees, a manufacturer of breakfast cereal with 1000 employees and a petroleum refinery -- ought not to qualify.

Geraldo apologizes for trying to save the lives of brown teenagers. In what is a strong contender for the worst apology of all time, ever, Geraldo Rivera apologized to "anyone offended by what one prominent black conservative called my 'very practical and potentially life-saving campaign urging black and Hispanic parents not to let their children go around wearing hoodies.'"

Meanwhile, at NRA headquarters, they're getting their gloat on and have rushed to market a brand new must-have item...a hoodie with a hidden pocket for your concealed firearm.

No, dumbass. There's not an app for that. Senator Ron Johnson (Seriously, Wisconsin, what the fuck were you thinking when you installed this guy over Feingold???) has a solution for women who can't afford birth control. They should google it. No, we're not kidding.

How many massacred citizens in a Syrian "peace plan"? "The Syrian government has agreed to accept the six-point plan by joint United Nations-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan on ending the violence in Syria, the former UN chief's spokesman has said. "The Syrian government has written to the joint special envoy Kofi Annan, accepting his six-point plan, endorsed by the United Nations Security Council," Ahmad Fawzi said in a statement on Tuesday."

His PopeyRapeyness has no business lecturing anybody on "reform" or a "better society." "A top Cuban official has said there are no prospects for political change on the communist-run island despite Pope Benedict XVI's appeals for "renewal" and "a better society". Marino Murillo, Cuba's economic czar and a vice president on President Raul Castro's council of ministers, said on Tuesday that while the country is shaking up its economy, "in Cuba there will not be political reform". Murillo's comments to a room full of journalists covering the papal visit were a quick and categorical response to comments by Benedict earlier in the day, when he made a highly symbolic prayer visit to the shrine of the nation's patron saint."

The situation in Mali is way more complicated than the news implies. "It's important to remember-- though the Western media doesn't ever report it-- that the Tuaregs who are now trying to carve out their own country there, only "gave up" widespread slavery a few years ago and only because of a catastrophic drought. To the Tuaregs this was a temporary imposition and they still hold tens of thousands of people in Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Burkina Faso in slavery. In Mali, the Bella are still slaves to the Tuareg in all but name. Keeping that in mind will help you understand why people are fleeing from the northern part of the country as the Tuaregs advance on cities like Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu. So the northern part of the country is engulfed in civil war with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing south to keep from falling into the clutches of the savage Tuaregs. And the government in Bamako has been incapable of any kind of effective response."

Democracy fighters aren't giving up in Egypt. "Egyptian liberals and leftists wary of Islamist dominance of the assembly drafting a new constitution have said they will write their own, deepening a row overshadowing a major element of the transition from former president Hosni Mubarak. Liberals who quit the 100-member assembly in protest at its make-up were among those who signed a statement that pledged to write an alternative constitution to the one being drafted by the official body, which was formed at the weekend."

And finally...

Cool Science News of the Week "The range of physical phenomena that scientists are trying to "cloak" objects from has a new entry - heat. French researchers have shown how to apply the ideas of "optical cloaking" - the endeavour to make a Harry Potter-style cloak - to the thermal world. The applications for the idea, outlined in Optics Express, stretch beyond hiding from thermal-imaging devices. It could also be used to direct and move heat around in temperature-sensitive electronics. There has been a tremendous amount of research into what is called transformation optics since it was first proposed as a means to an invisibility cloak in 2006. So far, all of the cloaking approaches have limitations that keep them well short of the invisibility promised in fiction. But more recently, similar ideas have been put to use to shield objects from magnetic fields or even from sound or seismic waves. All of these approaches aim to manipulate the peaks and troughs of waves to achieve their cloaking effects. But as Sebastien Guenneau of the Institut Fresnel in France explained, the transfer of heat is a subtly different business."

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Video: Greek guy and son got talent

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Conservatives Have Their Base-- Or, Rather, Bases

During the current long drawn out Republican primary season-- obviously planned down to the tea by David Plouffe-- a normal reaction would be to wonder, what serious person votes for any of these freaks? And that's not a frivolous question-- although going through all the pages and pages of shortcomings of these candidates would be. No doubt Plouffe selected all of them as well. Santorum just won-- pretty substantially-- three of the most backward (and backward by every conceivable measure) states in the Union, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana and there can be little doubt why he's winning states like that. Yes, it's the backwardness being drawn to his backward message. Makes sense. And Romney... he's basically winning all the non-Confederate states. In fact, Republicans are saying that if Romney beats him in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, it's all over and Romney's the winner. But why does he have a base? Or does he? Sure he does, rich people.

I remember when it was the people who make over $250,000 a year that saved him from red neck humiliation in Ohio. And even in Louisiana, where he was trounced-- you watched that Pelosi video linked above? Louisiana is next door to Mississippi... and they vie for the prize-- rich people were true to their school, even though Santorum won 63 of Louisiana's 64 parishes and kicked his butt by a startling 22 points. Romney, the putative GOP nominee lost every single demographic group except one-- people making over $200,000 a year. Steve Benen put this simple but extremely telling graph together:

Every single Republican with a car elevator in his or her home is voting for Willard. So, yes... Romney is the candidate of the one percent; period.

How about Democratic Party conservatives? Who's their base? Another good question, and one that was demonstrated at a live chat a few weeks ago at Blue NC featuring conservative Terry Bellamy. Bellamy, a very reactionary and small-minded Blue Dog-type who masks her disgusting bigotry in "religious convictions," tried-- unsuccessfully-- to play down her anti-LGBT prejudices. She also managed to make it clear that she stands with the Republicans on women's Choice.

She's against Choice and it sounds like she's be the perfect little stooge in the Republican War Against Women. Do Democrats really want to nominate a candidate who basically parrots Patrick McHenry? Will Democratic women feel enthusiastic about going out to vote for someone who says "I personally am opposed to abortion except in cases of rape, incest or where the life of the mother is at risk?" The DCCC seems to think so. They attack Republicans for saying the exact same thing and then push this shill against progressive state Rep. Patsy Keever. Very strange.

As for the politically active LGBT community (and their friends and relatives)... somehow I feel that between Bellamy's horribly anti-gay voting record on the City Council and statements like "My faith informs me that marriage is between one man and one woman," she's not going to be able to inspire much support. But, like Santorum and Romney, she does have a base-- small-minded bigots.

And here's where Terry Bellamy (D) and Rick Santorum (R) come together and meld into one hideous beast:

Evangelicals have cast a majority of the vote in the Republican presidential primaries so far in the 2012 cycle, the highest percentage recorded in a presidential nominating process in the modern era, according to an analysis of entrance and exit polls conducted by the Faith and Freedom Coalition.

Through March 12, an estimated total of 4.29 million evangelical Christian voters have gone to the polls in the 16 primaries and caucuses for which exit or entrance polls were conducted by news organizations, out of a total of 8.49 million total votes cast. This 50.53% evangelical turnout rate compares to a 44% turnout rate in the 2008.?Conservative people of faith are playing a larger role in shaping the contours and affecting the trajectory of the Republican presidential nomination contest than at any time since they began pouring out of the pews and into the precincts in the late 1970?s,? said Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. ?They are indispensable to any winning strategy for the eventual Republican presidential nominee in both the primaries and the general election. Any candidate who ignores these voters and the values that motivate them does so at their own peril.?

These are the people who have contorted Jesus Christ's message of love and peace into a satanic message of hatred and violence. These are very dangerous people with very dangerous beliefs, regardless of political party. As you probably know, Blue America is supporting Patsy Keever for Congress and we're asking people who think Congress has enough haters already to donate to her campaign and make sure Bellamy never gets into Congress with her primitive, mean-spirited and very backward ideas. You can contribute to Keever's campaign here.

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32 Flavors Of Embezzlement

What is California Democratic campaign treasurer Kinde Durkee alleged to have purchased with some of the more than $7 million stolen from her clients? Ice cream. [...]

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