Month: December 2011
Ron Paul Campaign Touts Endorsement by Pastor Who Calls for Executing Gays
Libertarians like Ayn Rand, writer of the teen novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” believe that Jesus’ philosophy is, as she put it, “evil.” Followers of Rand and the libertarian creed believe selfishness is the highest virtue, that we’re all in this alone — every man woman and child for him or herself.
Polling in advance of the Iowa caucuses suggest that Rep. Ron Paul, a Christian libertarian from Texas, will come in first or second there next Tuesday. Paul, who is also a physician, says that, as a libertarian, he believes that the government should not ever interfere with individual freedoms. But, as a Christian, he also believes the opposite: when the individual happens to be a pregnant woman, Big Government should intervene to countermand her free will to choose not to give birth.
Now the Paul campaign has proudly announced that Paul has received the endorsement of a hard-core right-wing Christianist whose views are so out of the mainstream that he advocates the updating U.S. law to reflect Old Testament law, starting with the punishment for homosexuality laid out in Leviticus:
Y2K-12 Starting Early? Prepare for Solar Flares This Week
Remember Y2K? Well, it’s back, but this time the looming disaster is cosmic, not a massive computer glitch. Let’s call it Y2K-12.
According to ancient Mayan calendars, Nostradamus and various other end timers, the world is going to end a little less than a year from now, in December 2012. Coincidentally, or not, in the video above from a Fox News broadcast in August, physicist Michio Kaku attempts to warn a panel of GOP know-nothings that sun will be erupting in solar flares over the next two years of an intensity unseen since the mid-19th century.
Compared with the solar flares we have experienced since then, the coming ones are tsunamis, Kaku says — massive bursts of energy that could take out power grids, cripple worldwide communications, disable satellites and send the world into chaos.
Not the end of the world in the biblical or Mayan calendar sense, just the end of the world as we know it. The Fox bubbleheads respond by cracking wise about looking for people to sue if Kaku’s predictions come true.
That was August. Here’s a headline from today’s Daily Mail in London:”Massive solar storm ‘could knock out radio signals’ over next three days, warn scientists“:
Right-Wing Boston Newspaper Calls GOP Presidential Field a ‘Clown Car’ Then Endorses Bozo
We have referred in the past to the clown car nature of the Republican field as ego-driven candidates like Donald Trump flirted with the process only to be followed by the often engaging but deeply flawed candidacies of Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul and finally Newt Gingrich.
It has been an entertaining several months, but really now, does anyone see even the remotest possibility of any of those folks taking the oath of office on the Capitol steps come Jan. 20, 2013?
So this is no longer a parlor game. Beginning Jan. 3 in Iowa this is very real indeed.
And there is only one candidate in the Republican field with the integrity, the experience, the organizational strength and the intelligence to beat Barack Obama and that man is Mitt Romney.
Fittingly, GOP Race in Iowa Becomes Contest for Third Place
The latest polling out of Iowa suggests that Ron Paul is in the lead, Mitt Romney is in second place and that any one of four losers could “win” third place. Here is analysis from Nate Silver:
One or more of the three who do not “win” third place in Iowa will likely drop out sometime next month, probably before they have to compete in the first expensive, big-state primary in Florida, on Tuesday, January 31.
The most interesting thing about the latest polls in Iowa … is that they essentially show a four-way tie for third place among the Republican presidential contenders, with Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry all projected to receive between 11 and 14 percent of the vote.
This is especially interesting because these candidates, with the partial exception of Mr. Gingrich, have very similar platforms to one another. They are hoping for support from many of the same demographic groups, especially evangelical voters, and have struck many of the same themes in their attempts to appeal to caucus-goers.
If these candidates could somehow combine forces, they could very easily win the caucuses. Even if you exclude Mr. Gingrich from the group, Mr. Santorum, Mrs. Bachmann and Mr. Perry collectively have about 34 percent of the vote, well above the projected figure for either Ron Paul or Mitt Romney, the candidates leading the polls.
I cannot recall another instance in which you had a configuration of candidates quite like this one. I’m sure there have been cases in the past where you had a multi-way tie for second or third place in advance of a primary or caucus. But probably not one in which the candidates involved in the deadlock were so similar, or when they were each within striking distance of first place.
Why do we care who comes in third in Iowa? Because one or more of the three who don’t “win” third place will likely drop out sometime next month, probably before they have to compete in the first expensive, big-state primary in Florida, on Tuesday, January 31.
Nate Silver is being polite when he refers to the voters these bottom-feeder candidates have been competing for as “evangelicals.” In reality, these voters are anti-democratic Christianist theocrats and adherents of hate groups like the Family Leader, the American Family Association, the Family Research Council and the rest of the racist, Republican Party front groups with deceptively homespun-sounding names.
None of these candidates will ever be president, not in a million years, so their being forced to drop out next month will abruptly shove them off of the national media soap box from which they have been spewing anti-gay rhetoric and racist dog whistle messaging for the past year.
Good riddance. It can’t come a minute too soon.
Gay Couples Paying Marriage Excise Tax Under DOMA
$6,000
The average amount higher that same-sex married couples pay in income taxes than their man-lady counterparts, even in states where same-sex marriage is legal. The problem is the federal government following the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), put in place under Pres. Bill Clinton and which defines marriage as an arrangement between one man and one woman. The Obama administration has declined to defend DOMA in court but Congress may defend do so and Speaker of the House John Boehner has announced intentions to continue to do exactly that.
DOJ Signals Fight against GOP’s Revival of Jim Crow Laws
The US Department of Justice took an important step in combating the epidemic of Republican vote suppression efforts on Friday. The Justice Department blocked a South Carolina law requiring voters to present photo identification, because the law would disproportionately disenfranchise minority voters. South Carolina is one of the states that under the Voting Rights Act (VRA), due to a history of discriminatory practices, must obtain pre-clearance from the Justice Department for new voting requirements. The Justice Department must certify that such laws are not discriminatory in their impact, not just in their intent.
According to South Carolina, 240,000 registered voters lack the requisite identification. That alone should be a cause for concern. But the legal problem for South Carolina arises from the fact that those without photo identification are more likely to be African-American than white. (They also tend to be younger, poorer and thus more Democratic-leaning.)…
Wisconsin and Indiana, which unlike South Carolina are swing states, have similar new laws on the books. They aren’t subject to pre-clearance, meaning the Justice Department cannot stop them on the front end. After the fact, it can challenge them in court, but under a more stringent legal standard than applies in South Carolina. There are also other potential legal objections besides racial discrimination. The ACLU filed suit on December 13 against Wisconsin over its new requirement that voters show photo identification, saying it amounts to a poll tax. And that’s not the only possible legal battle likely to come: South Carolina may challenge the Justice Department’s decision, ultimately requiring the Supreme Court to weigh in.
