How the Supreme Court Removed the Republican Party's Best Obama Hate Disguise. The Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act served a purpose that the Justices may not have considered in their landmark decision. Human beings often conceal their true motivation for a particular position whether it is out of regard for political correctness or proper decorum, but given time, the true rationale of a particular agenda is eventually exposed once the false arguments are stripped away.
By removing the last legitimate challenge to the healthcare reform law, the Supreme Court effectively removed the shroud that conservatives hid behind to expose what is obvious to any semi-intelligent human being, and it is that their opposition to the healthcare law was not based on political ideology, economic principles, or what is best for the American people, but because it was championed by an African American President. About Rmuse (1,226 Posts) Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist. Colorado Governor Calls Special Session For Civil Unions Consideration. 2012 Candidates on Twitter - 2012Twit.com.
Revisiting a Key Legal Basis for Obama’s Anti-Terror Drone Strikes. After I wrote a short piece for last week’s magazine that, among other things, chastised the Obama Administration for not doing more to discuss the pros and cons of its heavy reliance on drone strikes against suspected terrorists, an Administration official groused that I hadn’t credited public comments on the subject by various Obama officials. He specifically cited an April 30 speech by the White House’s counterterrorism point man, John Brennan, outlining the laws, rules and ethics that guide the drone campaign.
It’s a pretty good speech and definitely worth reading if you care about these issues. But Brennan doesn’t really address the point of my article, which is the danger that drone strikes could have a counterproductive effect. The civilian casualties and general resentment they breed in places like Pakistan and Yemen clearly threaten to undermine long-term American interests in those countries, even if we are nailing some top al-Qaeda figures in the short term.
Voters don't care enough about the issue to make their decisions based on gay marriage. Pete Souza/White House Photo via Getty Images. President Obama's announcement yesterday that he personally supports same-sex marriage immediately launched a thousand wishing-makes-it-true political analysis stories arguing that the president just killed his re-election chances by supporting a position over half the country holds. Politico was particularly excited to doomsay on this question, arguing that gay marriage is going to kill Obama's chances in prominent swing states and taking the dubious position that black voters could abandon the first black president and decades of strong Democratic affiliation to stick it to the gays. Of course, writer Joseph Williams admits in the article that black opposition to same-sex marriage isn't meaningfully higher than opposition in general, calling into question why such an article even needed to be written. But the polling data isn't even the biggest problem with arguments that this can or will hurt Obama's chances at re-election.
California tobacco tax vote down to the wire. Romney's Supposed 'Liberal Republican' Father Attacked Women's Rights Advocates as 'Moral Perverts' October 4, 2012 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. While researching my ongoing series of articles for Not Safe for Work Corporation on the relationship between the Romney family and the Mormon Church and their reactionary politics, I came across a shocker.
In 1979 and 1980, at the height of the battle to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, Mitt Romney’s father, former Gov. George Romney is Mitt’s “inspiration” for his campaign, and it has been widely repeated to that point of uncontested truth that Mitt’s father was a “liberal” Republican and “champion” of civil rights. First, a little background: In 1979-80, just before Ronald Reagan was elected president, ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution was all but assured. The years 1979-80 were crucial in the battle to kill the Equal Rights Amendment and turn the momentum. From “ Romney: ERA home for ‘moral perverts’” published by the AP on December 17, 1979: Politics - Garance Franke-Ruta - Obama Announces End of Iraq War, All Troops Gone by 2012. "Today I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over. " Updated 1:44 p.m. President Obama announced the complete withdrawal of all remaining troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.
"As a candidate for president I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to an end," the president said Friday, speaking from the White House. "Today I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops will come home by the end of the year. Pledging that troops stationed in Iraq will "definitely be home for the holidays," the president praised the more than one million men and women who have served in Iraq since war was declared there in 2003. "The last American soldiers will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high...that is how American military efforts in Iraq will end," the president said. He also noted that the end of the war in Iraq would reflect a transition in America's military priorities. Romney Supporter Wears 'Put The White Back In The White House' T-Shirt At Ohio Campaign Event (PHOTO) Mitt Romney Presidential App Misspells America at Slide To Play.
Mitt Romney’s Presidential campaign has now updated their official With Mitt app. Version 1.0.1 offers “bug fixes”, but the only one we can see is that the misspelled “A Better Amercia” image has been removed. But the question remains– who actually made Romney’s app? Putting aside the false App Store update description (it’s a typo, not a bug), we’re left wondering who it was that let the app go live with such a critical misspelling. After all, this is a campaign that holds images and expressions of Americana sacrosanct.
We may not cover politics very often on Slide To Play, but we do cover the ways apps are used to market products, people, and ideas. In other Typogate news, last night Stephen Colbert took a few digs at the Romney team’s big goof. This week, Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign released an official iPhone app called With Mitt that allows users to take a photo and add a custom frame expressing their support. [Via TPM] Obama Pot-Smoking Details Revealed In David Maraniss Book. The meticulous biographer David Maraniss revealed President Barack Obama's early girlfriends in an excerpt of his forthcoming biography, and now the Internet is seizing upon new details of the president smoking marijuana with his buddies at the Punahou School in Hawaii.
Politico's Playbook teased the following excerpt from "Barack Obama: The Story," which will be published in June but is already viewable on Google Books. "When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted 'Intercepted! ' and took an extra hit," Maraniss writes. But Obama's buddies, who called themselves the "Choom Gang," didn't mind him messing up the rotation. That's not all. "When you were with Barry and his pals, if you exhaled precious pakalolo (Hawaiian slang for marijuana, meaning "numbing tobacco") instead of absorbing it fully into your lungs, you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around.
Junkie. Loading Slideshow Related on HuffPost: Ohio Could Decide 2012 Election. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has a three-day bus trip planned through Ohio this week, and it comes none too soon: Ohio, with its 18 electoral votes in the nation’s industrial heartland, looms as the quintessential battleground state, and right now President Obama holds a seven percentage point lead. Obama has swung through Ohio more than any other state, except for Virginia, and experts say that if the election were held today, the president would likely win there and in other blue collar states, including Pennsylvania and Michigan. With the auto industry humming again in Ohio after the administration bailed out General Motors and Chrysler, Obama has repeatedly made the case to Ohioans that he pulled their economic chestnuts out of the fire while Romney attacked the plan. Ultimately, both companies did file for bankruptcy, but fewer jobs were lost than expected under the potential disaster scenarios and their recovery was accelerated by the government intervention..
Young Voters: Fewer Are Registered, Most Are Not Following The Election, Pew Research Center Finds. Young voters turned out in droves to help propel Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008. While Obama still holds a huge chunk of support from young people, fewer are registered and they're less engaged than older demographics, according to new polling from the Pew Research Center. Only 50 percent of people ages 18-29 are registered to vote -- a full 11 percent lower than in 2008 and the lowest number in the past 16 years of Pew's polling. The number of young people registered to vote hasn't been this low since 1999. The Pew Research Center noted young adults are at their "lowest registration rate of the last five presidential elections. " The overall voter registration number currently sits at 72 percent.
Young adults are still mostly backing Obama, with a relatively small shift overall, at 59-35 in the president's favor. Obama has been courting the youth vote heavily this year with TV ads just about the paying for college, and at least 130 visits to college campuses since taking office. Independent Voter Network (IVN) - Non-Profit Unfiltered Political News. Ash_femmefatale : A Drinking Game for TONIGHT's... Foreign policy debate: Mitt Romney was weak, so why is he polling so well?
Photo by Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images. At last night's foreign policy debate, Mitt Romney sought to obscure differences rather than clarify them, even going so far as to etch-a-sketch away his most hawkish language on Afghanistan and Iran. But why? At this stage of the race, with candidates as smart as President Obama and Gov. Romney, it is safe to say that nothing happens by accident. He realized that beyond the bellicose words that had carried him through the primaries and into contention for the presidency, there were no policies that made sense.
With the three debates now complete, the campaigns running on vapors and adrenaline until Nov. 6, and only one jobs report left to help frame the outcome, where are we? So why its appeal? Endorsements. Ron Paul to End Active Campaigning. Little Progress on Key Bills After Leaders Meet. By John Stanton and Daniel Newhauser Roll Call Staff Dec. 14, 2011, 8:24 p.m. Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid angrily left a meeting tonight with Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to discuss an impasse on end-of-year legislation. Democratic and Republican lawmakers retreated to their respective corners tonight after an early evening meeting among top leaders failed to produce a deal to avoid a government shutdown and extend a popular payroll tax cut. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) met for more than 40 minutes in McConnell’s Capitol office today in an attempt to end a days-long standoff between the two parties that threatens to force a government shutdown and derail an end-of-the-year package of tax cuts and extensions.
“I think our Members are united behind the fact that we’re going to do our work. Police fire tear gas as Occupy Oakland marchers near convention center. By Matthias Gafni, Chris De Benedetti and Rick HurdOakland Tribune Posted: 01/28/2012 03:34:18 PM PST | Updated: 2 years ago OAKLAND -- Occupy Oakland protesters broke into City Hall, stole an American flag from the City Council chamber and set it on fire Saturday night, punctuating a wild day in which police deployed tear gas, arrested more than 400 marchers and dodged hurling objects. Demonstrators spent the day trying to break into a convention center and temporarily occupying City Hall and a YMCA, all the while snaking around lines of riot-clad police periodically shooting bean bag projectiles, among other uses of nonlethal force. Saturday marked the first major clashes between protesters and police since November and left three officers with minor injuries, as protesters threw bottles, metal pipes, rocks, spray cans and "improvised explosive devices," police said.
Late Saturday, paramedics wheeled a pregnant protester away from Frank H. Report: More US Teens Are Getting High, Less Are Getting Drunk. Dozens arrested as Oakland police, Occupy protesters clash. NEW: City's police chief says protesters aimed to "further criminal acts, confront police"NEW: He says about 400 have been arrested, while admitting that number "could go up"NEW: 3 police officers and 2 protesters are confirmed to have been injured, he saysOakland City Hall is full of debris and damaged items after protesters got in Are the Occupy protests taking place where you live?
Let us know. (CNN) -- Municipal employees in Oakland worked Sunday to clean up damage they said was caused hours earlier by Occupy protesters, about 400 of whom were arrested for breaking into a YMCA and City Hall and challenging police. Oakland Police Officer Johnna Watson described what transpired as "one of the largest mass arrests that we have seen in the city.
" Police Chief Howard Jordan said the current estimate of 400 people arrested "could go up. " The police chief accused the protesters of deliberately provoking authorities and flaunting their criminal behavior. EarthRights International. ACTA Copyright Treaty Sparks Protests In Latest Anti-Piracy Battle. In the United States, a massive Internet protest last week led by Wikipedia and Google drove congressional leaders to place controversial anti-piracy legislation on hold. But in other parts of the world, another proposal to increase copyright enforcement is gaining momentum, despite protests from opponents concerned about Internet censorship. On Thursday, the European Union and 22 of its member states signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA -- a major step toward enforcement of the copyright treaty. Eight countries, including the United States, had signed the agreement this past fall. ACTA has always been controversial because the international negotiations that began in 2007 took place in secret.
But now, opponents of the treaty have developed new muscle after witnessing the success of the Internet outcry against the two U.S. bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). But U.S. But other experts argue that ACTA is still problematic. California budget deficit has swelled to $16 billion, governor says. Feb. 26, 2012: California Gov. Jerry Brown speaks with reporters during the National Governors Association winter meeting in Washington.AP SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California's budget deficit has swelled to a projected $16 billion -- much larger than had been predicted just months ago -- and will force severe cuts to schools and public safety if voters fail to approve tax increases in November, Gov.
Jerry Brown said Saturday. The Democratic governor said the shortfall grew from $9.2 billion in January in part because tax collections have not come in as high as expected and the economy isn't growing as fast as hoped for. The deficit has also risen because lawsuits and federal requirements have blocked billions of dollars in state cuts. "This means we will have to go much farther and make cuts far greater than I asked for at the beginning of the year," Brown said in an online video. Democrats, who control the Legislature, have resisted Brown's proposed cuts so far this year. Dear Mr. President. In good news for Obama, housing markets improve in key states. Soapy: Can This Plug-In Kill SOPA? Ten things you should know about Romney’s extreme stance on women’s rights. Obama's Fundraiser At George Clooney's Home Nets Record $15 Million : The Two-Way. Joseph Kony On The Move As Manhunt Steps Up, UN Envoy Says.