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It’s quite the season for New Hampshire’s many legislators, though this is actually a ranking Democrat Republican, not a nonagenarian backbencher:
House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt this morning wrote on his Facebook page that Catholic Bishop John McCormack is a “pedophile pimp” with “absolutely no moral credibility to lecture anyone.”
McCormack spoke yesterday at a State House rally where thousands of demonstrators criticized the state budget proposed by the House of Representatives. McCormack criticized the budget for failing to protect people in need and called caring for the poor “the fundamental requirement of our religious heritage.”
This morning, Bettencourt posted on his personal Facebook page: “Bishop John McCormick (sic) of the Catholic Diocese of NH told the crowd, ‘It’s a moral concern (because) the vulnerable take priority in our society.’ Would the Bishop like to discuss his history of protecting the “vulnerable”? This man is a pedophile pimp who should have been led away from the State House in handcuffs with a rain coat over his head in disgrace. He has absolutely no moral credibility to lecture anyone.”
(h/t NH Journal)
Maverick.
Really irritating, and I say that knowing it’ll damage my cherished RINO cred. From his letter tonight to Reid and McConnell: I am disappointed that despite passing six different FY 2011 Continuing Resolutions, each with the understanding that passage would move bi-partisan negotiations further along, that we are once again faced with the likelihood of […]
Yesterday, Delaware’s Senate Administration and Elections Committee approved a bill that would allow same-sex couples to enter civil unions that grant all of the same state benefits and obligations of marriage. The measure, which will receive a vote on the Senate floor in the coming days, passed unopposed as the committee’s two Republicans did not take positions on the bill and few elected Republicans have publicly denounced it. The majority of the opposition is being organized by the Delaware Family Policy Council.
Advocates on the ground tell ThinkProgress that the group has conducted a push poll campaign, from a D.C. number, relentlessly bombarding the state with messages about the supposed harmful effects of recognizing same-sex relationships. One such call warns residents that civil unions are a Trojan horse for same-sex marriage and that the measure would use taxpayer dollars to teach children that “it’s okay to have two moms and two dads.” The group echoes the message in this pamphlet on its website:
A recent poll found that more than six out of 10 Delaware voters — 62% — “favor allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions, which is twice the number who oppose such a law (31%).” An identical bill is “currently making its way through Delaware’s House of Representatives. Delaware’s Governor Jack Markell has said he will sign the bill into law should it pass.”
Here’s the problem: Tom Coburn cares about the deficit. Grover Norquist doesn’t. People who care about the deficit know you’ll need more revenue to close it. Coburn, who’s trying to negotiate a deal on the deficit and who served on the Fiscal Commission, knows that better than most. His hope is to get the new revenue by closing expenditures rather than raising rates. Norquist opposes that — he opposes anything that produces one more dollar of revenue. And Coburn, after initially trying to accommodate Norquist’s views, has decided to fight. I’ll let Jon Chait take it from here:
Norquist and Coburn have been circling each other for months, trading barbs in the media. Now Coburn is using a test case to expose Norquist’s Pledge. That test case is the ethanol subsidy, which is pork that survives due to the strength of the agriculture lobby, but which the conservative movement at least putatively opposes. The ethanol subsidy, like many subsidies, comes in the form of a tax break. Eliminating it is, therefore, a tax increase. Therefore, eliminating the ethanol subsidy, without using the revenue for a tax cut, would violate the Pledge.
In other words, Coburn has set a trap for Norquist. He has proposed eliminating the ethanol subsidy. If Norquist supports it, he has to alter his pledge to allow for closing loopholes that raise revenue. If he opposes it, he has to admit that he opposes closing loopholes that even Norquist admits are unsupportable. Norquist’s response? He opposes closing the loophole. … So now the trap is sprung. Coburn can now paint Norquist’s pledge as un-conservative — it’s protecting pork and special interest subsidies that conservatives oppose. And Coburn is right! Assuming, of course, that you define conservative to mean a belief in low nominal tax rates and a tax code that doesn’t pick winners or losers, as opposed to a tax code that raises the smallest amount of revenue as possible from rich people.
Of course, the ultimate question isn’t whether Coburn can score on Norquist, but whether he can convince his colleagues in the House and Senate that he’s right. Violating something like the anti-tax pledge that Republicans sign has to be done en masse. If it’s only one heretic, he or she can be primaried and attacked. If it’s a whole party of heretics, there’s not much anyone can do about it.
MoveOn today joined with former Senator Russ Feingold’s group, Progressives United, to call on GE CEO Jeff Immelt to resign from the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. As Progressive United founder, Feingold said in an email, “Someone like Immelt,…
Political Punch
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was caught on a conference call referring to the Tea Party as “extreme” while speaking with three other Senate Democrats. I’m a tea partier, but I don’t feel extreme. Specifically, Schumer is trying to paint the Republicans as beholden to the Tea Party as a possible government shutdown looms. It’s important to remember that had the Democrats passed a 2011 budget last year, the American people would not be facing this dilemma.
Schumer’s comments aren’t surprising. On political talk shows, Dem spokespersons have been pushing the talking point that the “extreme” Tea Party runs the GOP. And the Democrats seem to be rooting for a government shutdown-so they can blame both of them.
The Tea Party stands for smaller, constitutionally based government. What’s so extreme about that?
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news chuck schumer politics tea party current affairs
The travel section of the New York Times gives us this gem:
I had eagerly gone to every new Indiana Jones movie, but had never longed to venture on an archaeological dig. Nor had I been to Israel. So when my wife and I were invited by a friend to tag along for a week last summer, we more or less leaped at the opportunity. (Any lingering doubts were dispelled when we were told that the hotel room reserved for us in Ashkelon faced north, which meant that it was less likely to incur a direct hit by errant missiles occasionally fired from Gaza, about a dozen miles to the south.)
Errant? You mean, Hamas and Islamic Jihad aren’t aiming these missiles at people, but they just occasionally fire them accidentally towards civilian targets?
Now it is true that there were not many missiles last summer when the author went to Ashkelon, but characterizing the Qassams and Grads (which have better targeting capabilities) as “errant” is outrageous.
(h/t Steele Street)
Gov. Rick Snyder tried to put a positive spin on the new Michigan law that reduces the length of state unemployment benefits from 26 to 20 weeks — the lowest in the nation.
As he signed the bill into law this week he focused on a provision that will allow those who receive extended unemployment benefits through the federal government to continue receiving them through the end of the year.
“These benefits are a lifeline for many Michigan families who are struggling in this challenging economy,” Snyder said. “Cutting them off so abruptly would have jeopardized the well-being of those who are trying hard to find work. Now that we have continued this safety net, we must renew our focus on improving Michigan’s economic climate.”
According to the governor’s office 35,000 residents will continue receiving extended unemployment benefits under the legislation.
Snyder made no mention of the fact that the new law makes Michigan the only state where, starting next year, jobless people will only have access to the ‘lifeline’ of unemployment benefits for 20 weeks.
“We have a temporary change to help some jobless workers that is imposing an indefinite or permanent cost on future jobless workers,” Rick McHugh, a staff lawyer for the National Employment Law Project, told the New York Times. “And that does seem doubly unfair when the temporary help for current jobless workers is almost totally paid for by the federal government.”
The Times reports that the cut came as a surprise to advocates for the unemployed because it was slipped into a bill that was promoted as a way to preserve benefits.
Michigan’s current official unemployment rate is 10.4 percent.
(CNN) – Donald Trump should quit questioning President Obama’s birthplace, says Tim Pawlenty, a potential future opponent of Trump’s for the Republican presidential nomination.
Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Pawlenty said he doesn’t doubt Obama was, in fact, born in Hawaii and says members of his party should stop pushing the issue.
“I, for one, do not believe we should be raising that issue,” the ex-Minnesota governor said. “I think President Obama was born in the United States.”
As for his thoughts on a seemingly improbable Trump presidential candidacy, Pawlently said, “I think he’s talented. I think he’s funny. I think he’s interesting.”
The comments come a day after Trump pushed the issue farther down the road, telling Fox News he is “really concerned” the president was not born in the United States.
“All of the sudden a lot of facts are emerging, and I am starting to wonder myself whether he was born in this country,” he said.
Trump followed those comments up by releasing what he said was his own birth certificate to the conservative website Newsmax.com. The certificate Trump released however is not an official one, according to Politico.
It should be noted that CNN and other news organizations have thoroughly debunked the rumors about the president’s birthplace. Hawaii has released a copy of the president’s birth certificate – officially called a “certificate of live birth” – and the hospital where he was born took out ads in two Hawaiian newspapers in 1961 announcing the birth.
After comedian Bill Maher referred to Sarah Palin as a derogatory term for a vagina a little over week a ago, NewsBusters asked, "Can the dreaded C-word be far behind?"
According to the Dallas Voice, this happened on Sunday while Maher was "performing" at the Winspear Opera House (photo courtesy Reuters):
It’s that fearlessness — he acknowledged that some people would probably be uncomfortable with some of his remarks about religion, not to mention calling Sarah Palin a “cunt” (“there’s just no other word for her”) — that makes Maher the most dangerous person in comedy.
For those unfamiliar, the Winspear Opera House is indeed where the Dallas Opera performs.
Seems a metaphysical certitude that word isn't uttered on that stage very often.
The reviewer – writing at the self-described "Premier Media Source For LGBT Texas" – noted:
Maher spoke the truth for a nearly two-hour set, and, in my mind, established himself as the pre-eminent political commentator of a generation. He’s a comedian, too, of course. But really, he’s a voice.
And that's what makes him dangerous, not just to the right but to all Americans.
Maher is indeed doing political commentary. When he gets interviewed by CNN, MSNBC, or any of the broadcast network news programs, it's not to do one-liners.
It is instead for him to offer his political views about current events in a venue made for such a thing.
Yet, when he makes a comment that crosses the line, he'll conveniently hide behind the comedian veil and folks on the Left will wittingly give him a pass.
On Saturday's "Fox News Watch," liberal New York Post commentator Kirsten Powers said, "I have to say, he's a comedian and it's hard for me to get up in arms about comedians on cable shows saying things. It's not as if it happens — it's not Chris Matthews that said it, for example, I would have a problem with it or somebody — a member of Congress, maybe, but I really, I feel like this kind of stuff just gets a little out of control. He is a comedian who says a lot of crazy stuff."
In fairness, Powers walked this back a bit Monday night when Fox's Greta Van Susteren told her that Maher has defended women's rights.
In a recent "Real Time" installment after the riots began in Egypt, the host said that for lasting political change to occur in this region, there's going to have to be a sexual revolution that improves the treatment of women.
But apparently to Maher, such equality doesn't begin at home, for he has in the past eleven days called Palin a t-t, a bimbo along with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), and now the dreaded C-word which to women is like the N-word to African-Americans.
Once again, I point my finger at the National Organization for Women.
By not specifically admonishing Maher, "Real Time," and HBO in its weak defense of Palin last week, this hypocritically self-described women's organization was implicitly telling this so-called comedian and the network he represents it's just fine to make sexist attacks on this woman – and conceivably all conservative women – no matter how vulgar.
Welcome to the new and NOW-approved feminism, America – where liberal women's rights are to be defended while conservative women's rights are to be trampled on like a restaurant door mat.
(H/T Daily Caller via NB's motherbelt)
It’s back to business on our investigation of the Pigford story – the ongoing fraud that needs your help and attention to make it stop. The mainstream – with a few exceptions like John Stossel – are ignoring the story of the one of the biggest frauds in U.S. history because it doesn’t fit their narrative. The good guys are the real farmers who faced discrimination at the hands of the UsDA and the people, mostly conservative at this point, trying to bring their story to light. The bad guys are the trial lawyers, politicians, race hustlers and those inside the USDA who profit by lying to the public about how the Pigford settlement is a ‘victory’ for black farmers.
In this video, we introduce you to Lucious Abrams, a Georgia farmer who was one of the seven original claimants. Abrams has spent years working for justice only to be betrayed by people like the Congressional Black Caucus. Now Lucious is speaking out and speaking truth to the power structure that doesn’t speak for him.
When a group like Color of Change wants to silence investigation into Pigford, it’s farmers like Lucious Abrams they are silencing.
When liberals on sites like DailyKos try to bully Rep. Steve King and Rep. Michele Bachmann with charges of racism, it’s really farmers like Lucious Abrams they are bullying.
When supposed advocates for black farmers like John Boyd ignore the plight of real black farmers and keep the Pigford fraud going, it’s famers like Lucious Abrams they ignore.
It’s back to business on our investigation of the Pigford story – the ongoing fraud that needs your help and attention to make it stop. The mainstream – with a few exceptions like John Stossel – are ignoring the story of the one of the biggest frauds in U.S. history because it doesn’t fit their narrative. The good guys are the real farmers who faced discrimination at the hands of the UsDA and the people, mostly conservative at this point, trying to bring their story to light. The bad guys are the trial lawyers, politicians, race hustlers and those inside the USDA who profit by lying to the public about how the Pigford settlement is a ‘victory’ for black farmers.
In this video, we introduce you to Lucious Abrams, a Georgia farmer who was one of the seven original claimants. Abrams has spent years working for justice only to be betrayed by people like the Congressional Black Caucus. Now Lucious is speaking out and speaking truth to the power structure that doesn’t speak for him.
When a group like Color of Change wants to silence investigation into Pigford, it’s farmers like Lucious Abrams they are silencing.
When liberals on sites like DailyKos try to bully Rep. Steve King and Rep. Michele Bachmann with charges of racism, it’s really farmers like Lucious Abrams they are bullying.
When supposed advocates for black farmers like John Boyd ignore the plight of real black farmers and keep the Pigford fraud going, it’s famers like Lucious Abrams they ignore.
Sen. Kirk (R-IL) speaks at a Caterpillar rental facility.
Gov. Pat Quinn (D-IL), unlike so many other governors across the country, decided to responsibly deal with his state’s budget gap by raising revenue to offset some of the impact of severe budget cuts. Amongst the tax increases Quinn and the Illinois legislature approved was an increase in the state corporate income tax rate from 4.8 percent to 7 percent.
In response to the tax change, the multinational corporation Caterpillar has threatened to move jobs out of Illinois. CEO Doug Oberhelman — who has hosted Republican fundraisers in his home that featured former First Lady Laura Bush — told Quinn in a letter that “the direction that this state is headed in is not favorable to business, and I’d like to work with you to change that.”
Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), rather than defending the choices made by the elected officials of his home state, then piled on, claiming that because of the tax increases, Illinois now has “the highest corporate taxes in the industrialized world“:
In comments before and within his address to a formal gathering of Tazewell County Republicans, however, U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., blasted Gov. Patrick Quinn specifically for the increases.
Because of Quinn’s “grievous error,” Kirk said, Illinois now has “the highest corporate taxes in the industrialized world.”
Even with the increase, Illinois doesn’t have the highest corporate tax rate in the United States, much less the entire world. By increasing its corporate income tax rate to 7 percent (which is coupled with a 2.5 percent property tax), Illinois still has a lower rate than Iowa, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and Minnesota, and has a rate roughly equal to that of Alaska.
But, more importantly, Illinois’ rate is only that high on paper. Much like the federal corporate income tax, Illinois’ corporate tax is riddled with loopholes and giveaways, which allow Caterpillar to drive its effective tax rate all the way down to just 1.4 percent.
Kirk has taken the side of corporations against the middle class before, but this is a particularly egregious case of going to bat for a corporation that’s holding people’s livelihoods hostage in order to preserve tax giveaways. During the 2010 campaign, Caterpillar gave Kirk $ 24,000 and the endorsement of its chairman, Jim Owens.
(HT: ThinkProgress reader Mitch)
The new Democratic Party leader for Weston, Davie, Cooper City and Southwest Ranches is trying to mobilize the party faithful into an army to combat the opposition, which he views as an army of hate.
“As it is clear that our values, education and livelihoods are under attack in Tallahassee and DC, we must organize to GOTV [get out the vote] protect the seats we have left. The 2012 election will be vital,” area leader Randy Fleischer e-mailed to Democrats in his West Broward territory. “As we under attack, we need an army to GOTV.”
Here’s more of Fleischer’s thinking:
“We need an army, because we are fighting an army.
“They have an army based on hate. They hate Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
“We need an army of love – love of country, love of life, love for each other.
“They believe that the best of life should be stockpiled at the top, claiming that it will trickle down to those who they are certain exist below them.
“We know that the high tide lifts all boats.”
As a first step, he’s trying to get Democrats to a bar happy hour featuring half price drinks, food and political talk Monday night.
The event is from 5 to 7 p.m. at Gatsby’s at University Drive and Interstate 595.
Below, on the continuation, read Fleischer’s call for mobilization on the new website for the Broward Democratic Party’s Area 10 organization.
From Norway, Israel and the Jews blog (h/t Tundra Tabloids)
The SV annual convention goes to vote. The deranged junior partner in the current government coalition will among other proposals vote on a motion to use armed force against Israel should it attack Gaza.The motion is the blood money required to pay off SV card carrying members who find it hard to accept that they have taken the nation to war, again. Last time it did so was back in 1999, when the party backed the NATO bombing of Serbia. As a result, we got ourselves involved in a war crimes probe because of high number of civilian casualties and bombing illegal targets.Therefore, the only way it can be palatable to bomb Libya for these morally deranged people is if Israel can be bombed too.Here is the less than lucid reasoning behind the motion:– The credibility of the world community in its confrontation with the Gadafi regime is undermined when there is no reaction against other states in the region who commit injustices against civil population. The greater world community must therefore also react against Israeli air attacks on the Gaza strip.
Wow, a declaration of war from the governments very junior partner! And not to mention that thus Israel has become the only country in the world who will be denied the right to defend itself in the face of constant terrorism, rocket attacks against its own population. With a stroke of the pen, the entire body of international Law must be changed to accommodate for this perverse view, and taken to its logical conclusion, Norway would be unable to defend itself from attacks. Or maybe, we ought to bomb ourselves for bombing the Libyans?But at least now we don’t have to deal with the lies and hypocrisy of this lunatic fringe group, at least they have come clean and admit that they hate the guts of every living Jew to the extent that they would gladly help to blow the country to pieces.Roll over Ahmadinejad, even your antics look comical in comparison.I wonder if this kind of extreme agitation and war mongering is even legal?Please somebody, come and help us, we are in the hands of very evil people.Prof. M. McGonagall
The good news is that the comments to an Aftenblodet article about this shows universal derision for the SV party.
Still, I’ve seen some people mention that the coalition decision to bomb Libya would lead to absurd ideas like this, and it appears that they are right.These so-called pacifists turn into warmongers when it comes to the idea of Jews defending themselves.
