Saturday, April 13, 2013
Paul Ryan says that on abortion, no rebranding is needed
Dreamy, Dreamerson dreaming about forcing women to give him children.
by Hunter:
by Hunter:
Rep. Paul Ryan, who I will always momentarily confuse with Sen. Rand Paul because inexplicably elevated, suspiciously unaccomplished faux-freedom-loving mathematically challenged lily-white conservative dunderheads of a certain age who nevertheless get all sorts of Beltway praise for their bold and courageous and fantastically unworkable ideas and who have "Paul" in their name all sort of look alike to me, gave a speech to the Susan B. Anthony List boldly proclaiming that when it comes to obsessive anti-abortion stances, Republicans have nothing that needs moderation:
Ryan, the former GOP vice presidential nominee, acknowledged that a "careless remark or an ugly sign" can damage the cause against abortion rights "in an instant."
But he challenged the view that Republicans should soften their approach in order to attract centrist or female voters, who favored President Obama by more than 10 points in November.
"Our critics say we should abandon our pro-life beliefs. But that would only demoralize our voters," Ryan said. "It’s an odd strategy, I think: the cynical ploy followed by the thumping defeat."Here's the full speech, for anyone who cares. Abraham Lincoln and slavery features prominently. Ryan is an anti-abortion hardliner, which didn't come up much in the Romney campaign because they did their level best to make him shut the effing hell up already; now he doesn't have to, so I expect we'll be seeing more of it as Ryan tests out his future career opportunities in venues like this one.
Ryan, the former GOP vice presidential nominee, acknowledged that a "careless remark or an ugly sign" can damage the cause against abortion rights "in an instant."
But he challenged the view that Republicans should soften their approach in order to attract centrist or female voters, who favored President Obama by more than 10 points in November.
"Our critics say we should abandon our pro-life beliefs. But that would only demoralize our voters," Ryan said. "It’s an odd strategy, I think: the cynical ploy followed by the thumping defeat."Here's the full speech, for anyone who cares. Abraham Lincoln and slavery features prominently. Ryan is an anti-abortion hardliner, which didn't come up much in the Romney campaign because they did their level best to make him shut the effing hell up already; now he doesn't have to, so I expect we'll be seeing more of it as Ryan tests out his future career opportunities in venues like this one.
7 Ways North Carolina Republicans are Trying to Make it Harder to Vote
By Ari Berman:
The voter suppression efforts that spread nationwide during the last election have continued in 2013. Seventy-five new voting restrictions have been introduced in thirty states so far in 2013, according to theBrennan Center for Justice. Among all the states, North Carolina, which elected a Republican legislature in 2010 for the first time since the McKinley administration and a Republican governor in 2012, is currently taking voter suppression to brazen new extreme.
North Carolina Republicans have introduced a series of bills in the legislature that would require state-issued photo ID to cast a ballot, drastically cut early voting, eliminate same-day voter registration, end straight-ticket voting, penalize families of students who register to vote where they go to college, rescind the automatic restoration of voting rights for ex-felons, and ban “incompetent” voters from the polls. The legislation has been dubbed the "Screw the Voter Act of 2013” and "The Longer Lines to Vote Bill." The goal is to make this racially integrated swing state a solidly red bastion for the next decade and beyond.
Here are the seven ways that North Carolina Republicans are trying to make it harder to vote:
1. Requiring state-issued photo ID to cast ballot. Under legislation introduced yesterday, a government-issued photo ID, a state employee photo ID or a student ID from a public university would be required to vote. The strict voter ID law would go into effect in January 2016, just in time for the next presidential election. Voters over the age of 70 would be able to use the ID they had when they turned 70, even if it’s expired, which brings to mind the days of the “grandfather clause” that was used to disenfranchise blacks following the end of Reconstruction.
Other states with strict voter ID laws provide a free state ID (even though the underlying documents needed to obtain the ID, like a birth certificate, cost money), but in North Carolina the voter ID would cost $10, which is eerily reminiscent of a poll tax. A free ID can only be obtained by signing an affidavit, under the penalty of perjury, citing financial hardship. “How is somebody going to know they are signing an affidavit that is going to open them up to possible perjury convictions?” asks Anita Earls, executive director of the Durham-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice and a prominent civil rights attorney. Twenty-eight percent of African-Americans and 34 percent of Latinos live in poverty in North Carolina.
Over 7 percent of registered voters in North Carolina, 481,109 to be exact, don’t have a driver’s license or a state-issued photo ID, according to the state’s own data. Fifty-five percent of registered voters without photo ID are Democrats. African-Americans make up 22 percent of registered voters in the state, but a third of all registered voters without ID. Exit polling conducted by Southern Coalition for Social Justice in six counties in 2012 found that 8.8 percent of voters had no form of photo ID and that a majority of those who lacked any photo ID were African-American.
In North Carolina, as in the rest of the country, voter impersonation fraud, which the ID law is supposedly designed to stop, is incredibly rare. There were just two cases of voter impersonation prosecuted between 2000 and 2010. In the 2008 election, “out of 4.35 million votes cast, only one case of in-person voter fraud was identified,” writes Allison Riggs of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. “That’s a rate of 0.00000023 percent.”
2. Cutting early voting. New legislation would reduce the early voting period in North Carolina from two-and-a-half weeks to just one week and would eliminate voting on the last Sunday of early voting, when African-American churches hold “Souls to the Polls” get-out-the-vote drives. The legislation would also limit early voting locations to one site per county, which is a recipe for much longer lines. In Charlotte’s Mecklenburg County, for example, there were 22 early voting locations in 2012.
Fifty-six percent of North Carolinians voted early during the 2012 election. Blacks used early voting at a higher rate than whites, comprising a majority of those who voted absentee or early. According to Public Policy Polling, 78 percent of North Carolinians support the current early voting system and 75 percent have used it in the past.
3. Ending same day registration during early voting. Over 155,000 voters registered to vote and voted on the same day during the early voting period in 2012. “Voters expressed their satisfaction and gratitude that North Carolina had a process that afforded citizens with more opportunities to register and vote,” said a 2009 report from the state board of elections. Ending same-day registration will almost certainly decrease voter turnout in North Carolina and make voting more inconvenient.
4. Penalizing parents of students who register to vote where they go to college. The most extreme proposalof all the new voting restrictions would eliminate the $2,500 child dependency tax deduction for parents of college students who vote where they attend school. “This would mean that voter drives, marches to the polls (i.e. anything that inspires a young person to exercise their constitutional right in their college town) will carry a hefty tax penalty for their parents,” writes Rob Schofield, policy director of NC Policy Watch. This harsh penalty for student political activity is likely unconstitutional.
5. Disenfranchising ex-felons. New legislation would prevent ex-felons from receiving their voting rights after serving their time and would instead force them to wait five years, apply to the board of elections and receive unanimous approval in order to re-enter the political process. “Approval depends on the unanimous consent of local board of elections members and two affidavits from local voters about your ‘upstanding moral character,’” writes Bob Hall of Democracy North Carolina. Five times as many blacks as whites have a criminal record in North Carolina and could be disenfranchised for years under this new proposal.
6. Banning “incompetent” voters from the polls. Anyone given such a designation from the state will be unable to cast a ballot, “even if the person’s mental health issues have nothing to do with their abilities to understand voting,” writes Rob Schofield.
7. Ending straight-ticket voting. In 2012, 1.4 million Democrats and 1.1 million Republicans in North Carolina voted a straight-party ticket. Eliminating this convenient form of voting will likely hurt Democrats in down-ballot races.
These restrictions amount to nothing less than an old-fashioned power grab from North Carolina Republicans. As House Majority Leader Edgar Starnes put it, “The Republicans won the election. We are in control. We intend to elect Republicans and appoint Republicans, and we make no apology for it.”
Yet North Carolina is becoming increasingly diverse and more competitive in presidential elections. People of color accounted for 61 percent of the state’s 1.5 million new residents over the past decade. Since 2008, the black and Hispanic share of eligible voters in North Carolina has grown by 2.5 percent, while the percentage of the white vote has decreased by a similar margin. North Carolina has the largest population of African-Americans of any swing state. The aim of the new voting restrictions is to dampen the turnout of young and minority voters in order to consolidate power for conservative big-money interests. “Following the 2012 election, the Republican strategy is ‘if we can’t win national elections, we’re going to sew up everything at the state and local level,’’’ says Anita Earls.
The takeover of the North Carolina legislature is a case in point. The Republican State Leadership Committee, a conservative 527 funded by groups like the Chamber of Commerce, the Koch brothers and Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, spent $1.2 million on state legislative races in North Carolina in 2010. One of the group’s largest funders in North Carolina was Art Pope, a furniture magnate who has bankrolled much of the state’s conservative movement and is close allies with Charles and David Koch. Pope and Pope-supported entities spent $2.2 million on twenty-two state legislative races in 2010, winning eighteen. After the election, the GOP redistricting committees hired the RSLC’s redistricting expert, Tom Hofeller, togerrymander North Carolina’s districts. “The new North Carolina legislative lines take the cake for the most grotesquely drawn districts I’ve ever seen,” said Jeff Wice, a Democratic redistricting lawyer in Washington. (The racially discriminatory maps are now being challenged in state court.)
As a result, Republicans control a hefty majority in the legislature, and Pope is deputy budget director under GOP Governor Pat McCrory. One of the key sponsors of the new voting restrictions, freshman Sen. Bill Cook, received $104,836 from Pope and Pope-allied groups during his 2012 election race. Moreover, “the John W. Pope Civitas Institute, which receives more than 90 percent of its funding from Pope's family foundation, has been the state's leading policy advocate for voter ID restrictions and dismantling the state's clean elections programs,” writes Chris Kromm, director of the Institute for Southern Studies. Thirty-three members of the North Carolina general assembly are also members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has distributed draft voter ID legislation for GOP legislators. ALEC named North Carolina Speaker of the House Thom Tillis a “Legislator of the Year” in 2011.
Forty of one hundred counties in North Carolina are subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and must have their voting changes approved by the federal government. The central contention of opponents of Section 5 is that the South has changed to the point where constitutional protections for minority voters are no longer needed. But recent evidence, like the flurry of legislation introduced in North Carolina this week, shows that past remains present to a disturbing degree in the South. Eight of eleven states in the Old South have now passed voter ID laws that disproportionately impact voters of color. The first states to pass new voter ID laws in 2013 were Virginia and Arkansas. North Carolina is likely to soon follow suit. It would be particularly ironic if the Supreme Court overturned Section 5 at a time when voter suppression efforts are spreading throughout the South in ways unseen since the Jim Crow era.
Just this week, North Carolina Republicans proposed adopting an official religion for the state, counties and towns. Soon enough, they’ll once again be limiting the franchise to white male Christian property owners.
Elizabeth Warren deliciously grills bank regulators on illegal foreclosures
by John Aravosis
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, yesterday at a Senate Banking Committee hearing, grilling federal officials about illegal bank foreclosures:
ELIZABETH WARREN: Would it be helpful, if you’re going against one of these big banks, would it be helpful to these families to have the information about their case that’s in your files?
RICHARD ASHTON, DPTY GEN COUNSEL, FEDERAL RESERVE: It would be helpful, obviously, to have information related to the injury – yes it would.
ELIZABETH WARREN: So do you plan to give the families this information? That is, those families that have been victims of illegal foreclosures, will you be giving them the information that’s in your possession about how the banks illegally foreclosed against them?
RICHARD ASHTON, DPTY GEN COUNSEL, FEDERAL RESERVE: I think that’s a decision that we’re still considering making. We haven’t made a final decision yet.
ELIZABETH WARREN: So you have made a decision to protect the banks, but not a decision to tell the families who were illegally foreclosed against?
Here’s the video. She’s good.
I love her. I lover her so much and I hope she runs for President some day.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, yesterday at a Senate Banking Committee hearing, grilling federal officials about illegal bank foreclosures:
ELIZABETH WARREN: Would it be helpful, if you’re going against one of these big banks, would it be helpful to these families to have the information about their case that’s in your files?
RICHARD ASHTON, DPTY GEN COUNSEL, FEDERAL RESERVE: It would be helpful, obviously, to have information related to the injury – yes it would.
ELIZABETH WARREN: So do you plan to give the families this information? That is, those families that have been victims of illegal foreclosures, will you be giving them the information that’s in your possession about how the banks illegally foreclosed against them?
RICHARD ASHTON, DPTY GEN COUNSEL, FEDERAL RESERVE: I think that’s a decision that we’re still considering making. We haven’t made a final decision yet.
ELIZABETH WARREN: So you have made a decision to protect the banks, but not a decision to tell the families who were illegally foreclosed against?
Here’s the video. She’s good.
I love her. I lover her so much and I hope she runs for President some day.
Lust for Gold
By PAUL KRUGMAN
News flash: Recent declines in the price of gold, which is off about 17 percent from its peak, show that this price can go down as well as up. You may consider this an obvious point, but, as an article in The Times on Thursday reports, it has come as a rude shock to many small gold investors, who imagined that they were buying the safest of all assets.
And thereby hangs a tale. One of the central facts about modern America is that everything is political; on the right, in particular, people choose their views about everything, from environmental science to gun safety, to suit their political prejudices. And the remarkable recent rise of “goldbuggism,” in the teeth of all the evidence, shows that this politicization can influence investments as well as voting.
What do I mean by goldbuggism? Not the notion that buying gold sometimes makes sense. Gold has been a very good investment since the early 2000s, and it’s probably not all bubble. One way to think about this is that gold is like a very long-term bond that’s protected from inflation; and actual long-term inflation-protected bonds have also seen big price increases, reflecting a general perception that there aren’t enough alternative good investments.
No, being a goldbug means asserting that gold offers unique security in troubled times; it also means asserting that all would be well if we abolished the Federal Reserve and returned to the good old gold standard, in which the value of the dollar was fixed in terms of gold and that was that. And both forms of goldbuggism soared after 2008.
In the wake of the financial crisis — and to a considerable extent even now — to watch business news on TV, especially on Fox, was to see a lot of talking heads touting gold, not to mention many, many ads from the likes of Goldline. Many Americans were convinced: A third of those polled by Gallup in 2011 declared that gold was the best long-term investment.
At the same time, calls for a return to the gold standard proliferated, and not just among marginal figures. Indeed, the 2012 Republican platformeffectively demanded a return to gold, calling for a commission to “investigate possible ways to set a fixed value for the dollar” (which it took as self-evidently desirable), and making it clear that the preferred route involved a “metallic basis” for the currency.
So the financial crisis of 2008 brought a surge in gold fever (although that surge has abated a bit since 2011). But why?
After all, historically, gold has been anything but a safe investment. Sometimes it yields big gains, as it did in the late 1970s and again between 2001 and 2011. But that 1970s run-up was followed by an epic plunge, with the real value of gold falling by more than two-thirds.
Meanwhile, the modern world’s closest equivalent to the classical gold standard is the euro, which puts European countries back under more or less the same constraints they faced when gold ruled. It’s true that the European Central Bank can print money if it chooses to, but individual countries, like nations on the gold standard, can’t. And who would hold up these countries’ recent experience as an example of something we’d like to emulate?
So how can we rationalize the modern goldbug position? Basically, it depends on the claim that runaway inflation is just around the corner.
Why have so many people found this claim persuasive? John Maynard Keynes famously dismissed the gold standard as a “barbarous relic,” noting the absurdity of yoking the fortunes of a modern industrial society to the supply of a decorative metal. But he also acknowledged that “gold has become part of the apparatus of conservatism and is one of the matters which we cannot expect to see handled without prejudice.”
And so it remains to this day. Conservative-minded people tend to support a gold standard — and to buy gold — because they’re very easily persuaded that “fiat money,” money created on a discretionary basis in an attempt to stabilize the economy, is really just part of the larger plot to take away their hard-earned wealth and give it to you-know-who.
But the runaway inflation that was supposed to follow reckless money-printing — inflation that the usual suspects have been declaring imminent for four years and more — keeps not happening. For a while, rising gold prices helped create some credibility for the goldbugs even as their predictions about everything else proved wrong, but now gold as an investment has turned sour, too. So will we be seeing prominent goldbugs change their views, or at least lose a lot of their followers?
I wouldn’t bet on it. In modern America, as I suggested at the beginning, everything is political; and goldbuggism, which fits so perfectly with common political prejudices, will probably continue to flourish no matter how wrong it proves.
What do I mean by goldbuggism? Not the notion that buying gold sometimes makes sense. Gold has been a very good investment since the early 2000s, and it’s probably not all bubble. One way to think about this is that gold is like a very long-term bond that’s protected from inflation; and actual long-term inflation-protected bonds have also seen big price increases, reflecting a general perception that there aren’t enough alternative good investments.
No, being a goldbug means asserting that gold offers unique security in troubled times; it also means asserting that all would be well if we abolished the Federal Reserve and returned to the good old gold standard, in which the value of the dollar was fixed in terms of gold and that was that. And both forms of goldbuggism soared after 2008.
In the wake of the financial crisis — and to a considerable extent even now — to watch business news on TV, especially on Fox, was to see a lot of talking heads touting gold, not to mention many, many ads from the likes of Goldline. Many Americans were convinced: A third of those polled by Gallup in 2011 declared that gold was the best long-term investment.
At the same time, calls for a return to the gold standard proliferated, and not just among marginal figures. Indeed, the 2012 Republican platformeffectively demanded a return to gold, calling for a commission to “investigate possible ways to set a fixed value for the dollar” (which it took as self-evidently desirable), and making it clear that the preferred route involved a “metallic basis” for the currency.
So the financial crisis of 2008 brought a surge in gold fever (although that surge has abated a bit since 2011). But why?
After all, historically, gold has been anything but a safe investment. Sometimes it yields big gains, as it did in the late 1970s and again between 2001 and 2011. But that 1970s run-up was followed by an epic plunge, with the real value of gold falling by more than two-thirds.
Meanwhile, the modern world’s closest equivalent to the classical gold standard is the euro, which puts European countries back under more or less the same constraints they faced when gold ruled. It’s true that the European Central Bank can print money if it chooses to, but individual countries, like nations on the gold standard, can’t. And who would hold up these countries’ recent experience as an example of something we’d like to emulate?
So how can we rationalize the modern goldbug position? Basically, it depends on the claim that runaway inflation is just around the corner.
Why have so many people found this claim persuasive? John Maynard Keynes famously dismissed the gold standard as a “barbarous relic,” noting the absurdity of yoking the fortunes of a modern industrial society to the supply of a decorative metal. But he also acknowledged that “gold has become part of the apparatus of conservatism and is one of the matters which we cannot expect to see handled without prejudice.”
And so it remains to this day. Conservative-minded people tend to support a gold standard — and to buy gold — because they’re very easily persuaded that “fiat money,” money created on a discretionary basis in an attempt to stabilize the economy, is really just part of the larger plot to take away their hard-earned wealth and give it to you-know-who.
But the runaway inflation that was supposed to follow reckless money-printing — inflation that the usual suspects have been declaring imminent for four years and more — keeps not happening. For a while, rising gold prices helped create some credibility for the goldbugs even as their predictions about everything else proved wrong, but now gold as an investment has turned sour, too. So will we be seeing prominent goldbugs change their views, or at least lose a lot of their followers?
I wouldn’t bet on it. In modern America, as I suggested at the beginning, everything is political; and goldbuggism, which fits so perfectly with common political prejudices, will probably continue to flourish no matter how wrong it proves.
Did you know...
Did you know that Martin Luther King Jr. voted Republican in 1952?
Did you know that Democratic Senator Robert Byrd was a klansman?
Therefore, the actions of the Republican Party of the last 50 years don't matter. Reinstating poll taxes don't matter. The Southern Strategy doesn't matter. Reagan's Welfare Queen myth doesn't matter.
It's the Democrats that are a bunch of racists.
We'll see this topic again...
Which Governors Are Most Vulnerable in 2014?
By MICAH COHEN
A lot can change before Election Day next year, when 36 states will vote for governor. But at this early stage — when decisions on whether to run or retire are considered and made — 10 of the 32 governors who are eligible to run for re-election have net negative approval ratings in their states.
The two most unpopular governors up for re-election in 2014 are Gov. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, an independent, and Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois, a Democrat. But the remaining eight governors with net negative job approval ratings are Republicans, including four who rode the Tea Party wave to power in blue and purple states in 2010 and now appear to be in some danger: Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, Gov. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, Gov. Paul LePage of Maine and Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan.
The chart below includes the three most recent job approval polls for each incumbent eligible for re-election in 2014. (The four states where term limits prevent the governor from running again — Arizona, Maryland, Nebraska and Arkansas — and Massachusetts, where Gov. Deval Patrick has announced he will not seek another term, are not included.) Surveys conducted before 2012 are not figured into the averages.
In Rhode Island, just 28 percent of residents approve of the job performance of Mr. Chafee, their Republican-turned-independent governor. The chief reason for Mr. Chafee’s troubles appears to be Rhode Island’s dismal economy. The state is tied with California for the highest unemployment rate in the nation, at 9.8 percent.
According to reports, Mr. Chafee is considering becoming a Democrat. That might not help him much. Roughly half of Rhode Island voters areunaffiliated with either major party, and their political allegiances are often fickle. If the economy remains bad, Mr. Chafee will have difficulty winning their votes again.
Although Mr. Quinn is the second most unpopular governor up for re-election in 2014, he is a Democrat in deep blue Illinois. If he runs, he is still considered a favorite to win re-election: the Cook Political Report, Sabato’s Crystal Ball and The Rothenberg Political Report rate the Illinois governor’s race, respectively, as leaning Democratic, likely Democratic and likely Democratic.
In other words, being unpopular does not necessarily make an incumbent vulnerable to defeat. The eight other governors up for re-election in 2014 who are under water in their job approval ratings are Republicans, but four of those Republicans — Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas, Gov. Nathan Deal of Georgia, Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas — are in solidly Republican states and are likely to have an easier road to re-election if they run.
But the remaining four — Mr. Scott, Mr. Corbett, Mr. LePage and Mr. Snyder — lead states that were carried by President Obama in both 2008 and 2012. All were helped by favorable political winds in 2010 that no longer blow so hard.
Mr. Scott appears to be in the most trouble. A recent Quinnipiac surveyshowed former Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican-turned-Democrat and a possible candidate in 2014, beating Mr. Scott, 50 percent to 34 percent.
Mr. Scott has been stocking up campaign contributions, but currently only 32 percent of voters say he deserves a second term.
Mr. Corbett is in a similar position. Sensing weakness, Pennsylvania Democrats are lining up to challenge him.
Both Pennsylvania and Florida are rated as “tossups” by the Cook, Rothenberg and Crystal Ball reports, the only states — along with Rhode Island — to be rated tossups in all three sets of ratings.
In Maine, Mr. LePage’s best chance of winning re-election may be to repeat his 2010 route to victory: winning a three-way race where the left-leaning and moderate votes are split. A recent survey by the Pan Atlantic SMS Group showed Mr. LePage leading all three-way matchups but losing by eight percentage points to an independent, Eliot Cutler, in a two-way race.
Mr. Snyder is in a slightly less precarious position in Michigan. His net job approval rating is negative, but in the single digits. The Rothenberg report rates the race as a tossup, but Michigan is rated as leaning Republican by Sabato’s Crystal Ball and as likely Republican by the Cook report. Part of the reason for Mr. Snyder’s relative strength is the lack of significant opposition. No prominent Democrat has announced an intention to run, but if one did, Mr. Snyder’s chances could certainly diminish.
Mr. Snyder, Mr. LePage, Mr. Corbett and Mr. Scott may find hope in the fortunes of another Republican governor of a swing state who was elected in 2010: Gov. John Kasich of Ohio. Mr. Kasich’s job approval rating was in the 30s in 2011. As Ohio’s economy turned around, so did Mr. Kasich’s image. The percentage of Ohio residents who approved of his job performance climbed into the 40s in 2012, and recent surveys have shown his numbersrebounding into the 50s.
Those numbers do not guarantee that Mr. Kasich will be re-elected, but he is in much better shape than his Republican colleagues. Not surprisingly, an incumbent governor’s job approval ratings have been shown to be strongly correlated with how constituents vote.
A lot can change before Election Day next year, when 36 states will vote for governor. But at this early stage — when decisions on whether to run or retire are considered and made — 10 of the 32 governors who are eligible to run for re-election have net negative approval ratings in their states.
The two most unpopular governors up for re-election in 2014 are Gov. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, an independent, and Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois, a Democrat. But the remaining eight governors with net negative job approval ratings are Republicans, including four who rode the Tea Party wave to power in blue and purple states in 2010 and now appear to be in some danger: Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, Gov. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, Gov. Paul LePage of Maine and Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan.
The chart below includes the three most recent job approval polls for each incumbent eligible for re-election in 2014. (The four states where term limits prevent the governor from running again — Arizona, Maryland, Nebraska and Arkansas — and Massachusetts, where Gov. Deval Patrick has announced he will not seek another term, are not included.) Surveys conducted before 2012 are not figured into the averages.
In Rhode Island, just 28 percent of residents approve of the job performance of Mr. Chafee, their Republican-turned-independent governor. The chief reason for Mr. Chafee’s troubles appears to be Rhode Island’s dismal economy. The state is tied with California for the highest unemployment rate in the nation, at 9.8 percent.
According to reports, Mr. Chafee is considering becoming a Democrat. That might not help him much. Roughly half of Rhode Island voters areunaffiliated with either major party, and their political allegiances are often fickle. If the economy remains bad, Mr. Chafee will have difficulty winning their votes again.
Although Mr. Quinn is the second most unpopular governor up for re-election in 2014, he is a Democrat in deep blue Illinois. If he runs, he is still considered a favorite to win re-election: the Cook Political Report, Sabato’s Crystal Ball and The Rothenberg Political Report rate the Illinois governor’s race, respectively, as leaning Democratic, likely Democratic and likely Democratic.
In other words, being unpopular does not necessarily make an incumbent vulnerable to defeat. The eight other governors up for re-election in 2014 who are under water in their job approval ratings are Republicans, but four of those Republicans — Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas, Gov. Nathan Deal of Georgia, Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas — are in solidly Republican states and are likely to have an easier road to re-election if they run.
But the remaining four — Mr. Scott, Mr. Corbett, Mr. LePage and Mr. Snyder — lead states that were carried by President Obama in both 2008 and 2012. All were helped by favorable political winds in 2010 that no longer blow so hard.
Mr. Scott appears to be in the most trouble. A recent Quinnipiac surveyshowed former Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican-turned-Democrat and a possible candidate in 2014, beating Mr. Scott, 50 percent to 34 percent.
Mr. Scott has been stocking up campaign contributions, but currently only 32 percent of voters say he deserves a second term.
Mr. Corbett is in a similar position. Sensing weakness, Pennsylvania Democrats are lining up to challenge him.
Both Pennsylvania and Florida are rated as “tossups” by the Cook, Rothenberg and Crystal Ball reports, the only states — along with Rhode Island — to be rated tossups in all three sets of ratings.
In Maine, Mr. LePage’s best chance of winning re-election may be to repeat his 2010 route to victory: winning a three-way race where the left-leaning and moderate votes are split. A recent survey by the Pan Atlantic SMS Group showed Mr. LePage leading all three-way matchups but losing by eight percentage points to an independent, Eliot Cutler, in a two-way race.
Mr. Snyder is in a slightly less precarious position in Michigan. His net job approval rating is negative, but in the single digits. The Rothenberg report rates the race as a tossup, but Michigan is rated as leaning Republican by Sabato’s Crystal Ball and as likely Republican by the Cook report. Part of the reason for Mr. Snyder’s relative strength is the lack of significant opposition. No prominent Democrat has announced an intention to run, but if one did, Mr. Snyder’s chances could certainly diminish.
Mr. Snyder, Mr. LePage, Mr. Corbett and Mr. Scott may find hope in the fortunes of another Republican governor of a swing state who was elected in 2010: Gov. John Kasich of Ohio. Mr. Kasich’s job approval rating was in the 30s in 2011. As Ohio’s economy turned around, so did Mr. Kasich’s image. The percentage of Ohio residents who approved of his job performance climbed into the 40s in 2012, and recent surveys have shown his numbersrebounding into the 50s.
Those numbers do not guarantee that Mr. Kasich will be re-elected, but he is in much better shape than his Republican colleagues. Not surprisingly, an incumbent governor’s job approval ratings have been shown to be strongly correlated with how constituents vote.
Teen Girl Claims New Gun Laws Could Deprive Her of College Education
Posted by: Samuel Warde
The 15 year old from Maryland, Sarah Merkle, claimed in a speech before Maryland legislators back in March that proposed gun laws could deprive her options for college stating in her prepared remarks:
A teenage girl skyrocketed to the center of the gun control debate when a YouTube video of her three-minute pro-gun speech went viral, acquiring more than 2.3 million views.
A teenage girl skyrocketed to the center of the gun control debate when a YouTube video of her three-minute pro-gun speech went viral, acquiring more than 2.3 million views.
“I have become eligible for various shooting scholarships around the country to a wide array of even the most prestigious colleges that have shooting teams. Achieving stricter gun control laws would obliterate any opportunity that I could have had to attend a decent college on a shooting scholarship.”
Now a sophomore in high school, Merkle tollater admitted to the media that she had not been offered a scholarship and had only recently learned through the NRA that such opportunities existed.
While Merkle’s speech was praised by gun rights advocates, the Maryland Senate went on to pass sweeping gun control reform last week. The bill, expected to be signed into law by Gov. Martin O’Malley, bans the sale of 45 different semi-automatic weapons, to include Merkle’s favorite - the Bushmaster.
“Basically, I wouldn’t be able to buy another semi-automatic weapon [if the bill becomes law],” Merkle said.
Here is an interview this week on Fox & Friends, followed by the video of her talk before Maryland legislators:
Personally, I love her bringing up the stabbing of kids in China the same day as the Sandy Hook shooting. The fact that the guy in China used a knife and ALL of his victims lived is completely lost on this special, young girl.
Why Can’t We Admit That Religion Is F***ing Crazy?
The quote of the day comes from a Facebook commenter to a story that’s making the rounds on the internet right now. It concerns an ultra-orthodox Jewish rabbi who covered himself head-to-toe in clear plastic during a recent commercial flight and apparently remained that way for the entire trip. Speculation is that the self-Saran Wrapping was done to uphold the orthodox tenet requiring men to keep themselves completely separated from women.
The very simple quote in response to the image of a man sitting on a crowded airplane, covered entirely in transparent plastic?
“Respect his beliefs.”
Now I want you to join me in a little thought experiment. I want you to imagine that the guy under the plastic isn’t dressed in the familiar vestures of an orthodox Jew but is instead wearing soiled, beat-up jeans and a dirty shirt while sporting a ratty, unkempt beard and long hair. In other words, what if the man on the plane hadn’t been expressing an extremist religious belief but was just, you know, nuts? Would anyone really be cavalierly demanding that people, particularly the people stuck next to this guy on the plane, “respect his beliefs” and not regard him as a run-of-the-mill whack-job?
I’ve made the argument plenty of times but this is such a perfect example of what I often complain about that I just couldn’t let it pass without saying something. Basically what I’d like to know is this: Why are we expected to respect beliefs that are clearly outlandish and completely divorced from reality simply because those beliefs happen to be the foundation of one faith or another? The simple answer, of course, is that as a society we’ve decided that certain kinds of crazy aren’t crazy at all, and that there’s sanity in numbers. You can get away with just about any kind of behavior that would otherwise be considered unacceptable in civilized society as long as you’re doing it in the name of your god and absolutely if your god happens to be one of the three or four most popular gods on the planet, the ones who won a few rounds of the Mr. Universe Pageant a couple of millennia ago.
But again, why is it necessary, even in the opinion of some self-professed nonbelievers, that the general public show respect and deference to the thought processes that would lead a man to wrap himself in plastic, presumably to avoid touching women and therefore offending God? How about this for a change: It’s not. It’s not necessary at all.
With the exception of the those who allow their faith to lead them to do despicable things — those whose behavior isn’t simply eccentric but dangerous — I do my best to respect people who claim to be religious. I respect the people themselves. That doesn’t mean I respect their beliefs, because I don’t. I don’t feel the need to show one ounce of deference to the beliefs of someone who thinks that God listens to his entreaties any more than I would feel the need to show deference to the beliefs of a guy talking to a telephone pole on a street corner who thinks the same thing. Neither of the two has evidence to back up his claims and the only difference between them, really, is that one probably has a roof over his head and isn’tconsidered crazy by most of society.
The fact is that when you peel away the culturally sanctioned rationale for not eating meat on a Friday, or sitting on a box and covering the mirrors after someone dies, or making sure that a woman’s body is clothed almost completely, what you’re left with is just plain old nuts. And what’s worse is that the rules and restrictions adhered to by the faithful all too often negatively affect people who should be well beyond the jurisdiction of any one particular religion. It’s one thing for someone to make a personal decision not to work on Sunday because he believes his god demands it — it’s another thing entirely for a pharmacist not to dispense the morning after pill for the same reason.
I quite frankly don’t give a damn what your god wants; the rights, privileges, and even whims of living, breathing human beings supersede the requirement you’ve imposed upon yourself not to offend the imaginary friend you talk to before you go to bed every night. The rights of a gay person to get married or of a woman to have an abortion should at no point be considered equal to the “rights” of the faithful to adhere to the regulations imposed by Jesus, Yahweh, Muhammad and so on. Yes, you’re allowed to believe what you want, but when that belief collides with reality, reality shouldn’t be the one forced to submit. In the game of chicken between what’s proven and what can’t be, guess which one has to veer off?
No, a religious belief doesn’t need to be respected just because it’s a religious belief.
Because if you stripped away the religion, guess what a guy wrapped head-to-toe in plastic on an airplane would be?
Just plain, old crazy.
Update: Apparently it’s possible the rabbi had wrapped himself in plastic because the plane was going to be flying over a cemetery. That obviously changes everything. My sincerest apologies.
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