Month: September 2014
Most Americans Say It’s the Worst Congress Ever
83%
Of Americans say they disapprove of how Congress is handling its job, while 65% describe it as the “worst Congress of their lifetime,” a new CNN/ORC poll finds.
Colbert: Obama Stole Immigration Idea from GOP
He stole that idea from the Republicans. They’ve had the idea of putting off doing something about immigration reform for over a decade.
— Stephen Colbert, expressing mock anger over President Obama’s delay on immigration reform.
Lawmaker Equates Right to Fire Gays to Right to Smoke
You need to respect the autonomy of somebody running their business. It’s like smoking bans. Do you ban smoking or do people have the right to private property? I think people have the right to private property. In public spaces, absolutely, we can have smoking bans. But we don’t want to micromanage people’s lives and businesses. If you have a business, do you want the government to come in and tell you you need to hire somebody? Why should government be there to impose on the freedoms we enjoy?
— Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC), comparing the right to fire gay workers with the right to smoke cigarettes on private property, ThinkProgress reports.
Gov. Ultrasound’s Guilty Verdict and the End of the Era of Republican ‘Family Values’
With the guilty verdicts in the corruption trial of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, the GOP’s claim to be the party of “family values” — a political messaging tool that served it well in the 1980s and ’90s — may have finally met its end. McDonnell’s status as an icon of the theocratic virtue drove his ascendancy from the Virginia Legislature to the governor’s office and fueled speculation he might be picked as Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012.
He earned the nickname “Gov. Ultrasound” after he signed a law that forced women seeking abortions to undergo involuntary transvaginal ultrasounds with probes that opponents dubbed “shaming wands”
In his first months as governor, he restored the state’s ability to fire gay employees while earning the nickname “Gov. Ultrasound” after he signed a law that forced women seeking abortions to undergo involuntary transvaginal ultrasounds with probes that opponents dubbed “shaming wands.”
During McDonnell’s campaign for governor, a thesis came to light that he’d written at Regent University, a theocratic institution operated by televangelist Pat Robertson. In the thesis, written when McDonnell was 35, he opined that civil law should not apply to families because families are “God-ordained governments” that started with Adam and Eve and therefore predating the existence of society. Relying on this biblical premise, McDonnell suggested civil government “must restrain, punish, and deter” homosexuality, pornography and drug abuse and restrict the rights of gays and unwed mothers. He also criticized working women and no-fault divorce.
Beware of CongressCare
We’re watching the ebola epidemic,
To which Congress’ response is anemic.
Oh, they’ll toss a few million
To save a few children,
Long as it’s mostly just Africans getting sick.
