A federal court on Thursday blocked a controversial new voter ID law in Texas, ruling that the state failed to show that the law would not harm the voting rights of minorities. The three-judge panel in the historic case said that evidence also showed that costs of obtaining a voter ID would fall most heavily on poor African Americans and Hispanics in Texas. Evidence submitted by Texas to prove that its law did not discriminate was “unpersuasive, invalid, or both,” wrote David. S. Tatel, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in the panel’s 56-page opinion.
So I guess facts and evidence do outweigh outraged anecdotes in some arenas.
… Is this the night when the Republicans announce their bold, innovative new ideas like cutting taxes for the rich, cutting social programs, and spending more on the military?
Obama, July 13: There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.
So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That’s how we funded the GI Bill. That’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That’s how we invented the Internet. That’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for President — because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.
Arctic sea ice is thawing at a historic rate, scientists say. In fact, a recent analysis of satellite data “utterly obliterates” the previous record, set in 2007.
The chief culprit? Global warming. The potential upshot? Longer and more intense extreme-weather events such as heat waves, cold spells, and droughts.
On Monday, researchers at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said the rate of Arctic sea ice decline is now the highest that has ever been observed. In August, the sea ice disappeared at an average rate of about 39 square miles (a hundred square kilometers)—or about twice as normal, NSIDC scientists say.
Moreover, the area of Arctic sea ice around the North Pole had shrunk to 1.58 million square miles (4.1 million square kilometers)—the smallest measurement since 1979, when satellite observations began.
It’s a sick situation when science predicts something will happen, gets it wrong….but gets slammed because they were too conservative in their predictions.
Double irony…”conservatives” actually reject the entire notion this happening at all.
After that I learned to appreciate Obama in a different way. I appreciated that he inhabited a world in which idealism — and ideology — could never by sheer force of will overcome objective reality, and the hard compromises, uneasy truces, and constant errors that must be made to live in that world. I especially felt better about this position when I learned that John McCain carried an indian feather around FOR LUCK. This was not how I wanted my country run. By myth and superstition and magic tokens.
It just makes a whole more sense that trying to paint him as a radical. Unfortunately for many on the left, that’s not good enough, and appears to be the same as Romney. As Hodgman notes, that’s generally loser talk.
And make no mistake, the rational folks are losing this country…one little election at a time.
Those on the right who began wishing in 1980 to dismantle the Great Society, de-regulate and de-unionize business, and starve the beast of the federal government are, you may have noticed, very close to succeeding. I am not saying this to scare you; maybe you agree with them. But the point is that it happened because they endured the compromises, hypocrisies, and retreats needed to get the wins, and profoundly change policy in ways we barely noticed — the repeal of Glass-Steagall; the massive tax cuts; the empowerment of corporations as political donors. These things did not happen because conservatives who believed in them kicked Reagan out of office in 1984 for failing to outlaw abortion immediately. It happened because they won elections.
Mitt Romney, sitting alongside his wife, appeared taken aback by the story, leading CBS interviewer Scott Pelley to ask if he’d heard that story before.
“I hadn’t heard the story about Craig coming home from school that day and being so devastated,” said the presumptive GOP nominee. “I’m not surprised. He’s a very tender heart and a wonderful father today himself.”
As to the title…if abortion is murder…miscarriage is manslaughter. If this was a real person that died, as the Republicans want to change the law to say it was, there should be an investigation.
Was it irresponsible actions that led to the death? An absent father? My guess is that conservatives will whine more about the tone of this post than the obvious and impssible legal situations their own policies would create (of which the post title is one).
Philip Klein: “All credentialed media checking into the Republican National Convention are being given a swag bag featuring brochures and items from various sponsors such as sunglasses and a pocket fan. But the bag also contains a copy of the original hardcover version of Mitt Romney’s book No Apology, in which he suggested his approach to health care in Massachusetts could be accomplished in the rest of the country.”
The paperback version, which came out early last year, completely revised the section on his health care plan.
McDonnell: We’re affirming that we’re a pro-life party.The details certainly are left to Congress and, ultimately, to the states and the people on how they ratify such an amendment. More importantly, what they do at the state level.
Stephanapoulous: So is the party for a rape exception or not?
McDonnell: The party didn’t make any judgment on that. It’s a general proposition to say we support human life. The rest of the details are up to the states and the people respectively, George. That’s simply not covered.
On top of that we also get this wonderful euphemism for rape from none other than Paul Ryan.
Here’s the problem…Republicans want to somehow claim that giving into religious extremists on birth control, outlawing all abortion (even in the case of “illegitimate methods of conception”), and bashing Obama’s achievements in gender equality is somehow *in support* of women, and it’s really the Democrats who are waging a “war on women”.
(As a quick aside, I find it hilarious that the champions of the annual TV-event, the “War on Christmas”, take such umbrage about the usage of the term “War on Women” to describe the methodical nature of Republican’s attempts to limit the rights and freedoms of women. It’d be more funny if it wasn’t so blatantly hypocritical…but I guess that’s why it *is* funny…so I’m left in something of a pickle in my not-so-quick aside.)
So, yea…there you have it. Sure, publicly Republicans denounce Todd Akin as an outlier…but the reality of the party’s platform is that it is 100% aligned with the heart of Akin’s comments; “Rape ain’t no excuse, no abortions for anyone…life for all.”
Yes, folks, for a little while in Florida this week, as bizarro universe melds with ours as religious leaders keeping secular employees from getting birth control is called “religious freedom” (as is banning the building of non-Christian places of worship), and “small government” is all about controlling what the majority of the population can and can’t do with their reproductive organs.
States have cut more than $1.6 billion in general funds from their state mental health agency budgets for mental health services since FY2009, a period during which demand for such services increased significantly. These cuts translate into loss of vital services such as housing, Assertive Community Treatment, access to psychiatric medications and crisis services.
Modest increases in state general fund mental health spending fail to compensate for the loss in federal Medicaid revenues that hit states due to reductions in federal Medicaid rates implemented at the end of June 2011. Moreover, to make up for these lost federal Medicaid revenues, states such as Arizona and Ohio have shifted state general fund mental health dollars to Medicaid recipients, leaving many non-Medicaid recipients with serious mental illness without services.
This has been a fairly consistent theme by Republicans. It’s a political move, built on rhetoric and repetition, designed to push the indredibly destructive idea that Obama isn’t really American and secretly hates the country. The entire birther movement is predicated on this assumption about the current President.
The sad part is how well it resonates with low-information and low-intelligence voters who have no functioning political memory (I.e. Obama is European for passing a stimulus…but Bush’s stimuli were all fine and dandy...just like Paul Ryan said at the time). Further to this point, if anyone brings up something Bush did in the context of Obama, it’s always about “blaming Bush”…even if one is simply pointing out what happened and what was said sometime during history.
Many of the idiot brigade now openly claim that Obama was trying to hide his birth certificate and didn’t release it until 2011. That’s because they ignored him releasing it before the election in 2008.
One has to wonder if idiots, racists and Mormons will be enough to carry Romney in November. We shall see.
That’s how bad it is…the point man for the GOP has a go to point…which is a lie…yet somehow it’s the guy pointing out he’s a liar that is the bad guy. That’s a broken culture, right there.
LiveLeak.com – [LEAKED VIDEO] Mitt Romney talks about using Chinese slave labor to profit Bain Capital http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1c5_1345869646 This is pretty over the top. Just another job creator job creatin’.
2:00 p.m. | Updated COMMERCE, Mich. —Mitt Romney, who has decried the nasty personal tone of the presidential campaign, seemed to make a joke about President Obama’s birth certificate while speaking to voters here Friday, re-injecting the issue of the president’s birthplace into the campaign.
“Now I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born,” Mr. Romney said, standing alongside his wife, Ann, and his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan. “Ann was born in Henry Ford Hospital. I was born in Harper Hospital. No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”
Robot Pirate Ninja 