May 30, 2014

Shinseki apologizes for VA health-care scandal, proposes changes

Source: Washington Post

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki apologized publicly Friday for what he called an “indefensible” lack of integrity among some senior leaders of the VA health-care system, and he announced several remedial steps, including a process to remove top officials at the troubled VA medical center in Phoenix.

Shinseki gave no indication that he intends to resign, despite growing calls for him to step down because of the scandal.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/shinseki-apologizes-for-va-health-care-scandal/2014/05/30/e605885a-e7f0-11e3-8f90-73e071f3d637_story.html

May 30, 2014

GOP Senate Candidate: UCSB Shooting An 'Unfortunate Accident'

CATHERINE THOMPSON – MAY 30, 2014, 8:58 AM EDT

Iowa state Sen. Joni Ernst (R), a candidate for U.S. Senate, said Thursday that the recent mass shooting near the University of California, Santa Barbara was an "unfortunate accident."

During a televised primary debate, a moderator asked Ernst about the shooting because of an ad she ran that shows her firing in a shooting range and promising to "unload" on Obamacare.

"Mrs. Ernst, a viewer wrote us saying in light of the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, the shootings at the Aurora, Colo., theater, and most recently at the UC Santa Barbara campus, 'we have a Joni Ernst in the television ad that is running continuously on all local television stations that contains violent imagery pointing a gun directly at the viewer and vowing to quote ‘shoot them down’ and hateful language directed toward their opponents. Is this really what politics has become in this country?'" the moderator said. "Mrs. Ernst, what do you say to this viewer?"

"Yes, I would say to this viewer that what happened in that shooting and that stabbing is an absolute tragedy," Ernst said. "However, I remain firm in my commitment to the Second Amendment. I have been endorsed by the NRA in this race, and again, just because of a horrible, horrible tragedy, I don’t believe we should be infringing upon people’s Second Amendment rights."

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joni-ernst-ucsb-shooting-accident

May 30, 2014

Duck Dynasty Star Praises Monogamy To Republicans

David Freedlander

Phil Robertson, the star of Duck Dynasty, delivered a speech to a rapt audience at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans on Thursday.

Holy Hell.

That is what Phil Robertson, the star of the hit reality TV show “Duck Dynasty” gave to an audience of otherwise content convention goers at the 2014 Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans.

In an address that was not so much a speech as a jeremiad, Robertson, the marquee speaker at this year’s confab, harangued his audience to return to biblical values, reminded them that they will one day die—“Obamacare will not save you from the grave”—and told the gathered, “GOP, you can’t be right for America if you are wrong with God.”

In a wide-ranging, thirty minute address, Robertson quoted widely—from the Bible he brought on stage, from Madison, Jefferson, and Washington and from Edmund Burke. He even read from a congressional resolution that authorized 1983 to be “The Year of the Bible.”

Not that he was putting on airs. Robertson came out in his customary camo, and told the audience that it was the best suit of clothes he owns. He said he had rings, no watch, no cell phone, but insisted he kept a firearm at arms length at all times (not, presumably however, while on stage).

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/29/duck-dynasty-star-praises-monogamy-to-republicans.html

May 30, 2014

Inside California's Crazy Race For The GOP Gubernatorial Nomination

Olivia Nuzzi

Will California's GOP nominate a vigilante, busted boarding an airplane with a loaded gun for the gubernatorial ticket??

To defeat a popular incumbent Democratic governor this November, who will the California GOP turn to?

A social libertarian responsible for helping avert the worst of the financial crisis - or a former vigilante on the Mexican border who got busted trying to board an airplane with a loaded gun two years ago? It seems likely that GOP primary voters will go with the latter on Tuesday.

Jerry Brown, 76, is the well-liked three-term incumbent (though those terms have been staggered - he was first elected in 1975, reelected in 1978, and elected again in 2011) who guided the Golden State out of the fiscal doom of the Arnold Schwarzenegger years (Mr. Schwarzenegger declined a request for comment from The Daily Beast) and into a budget surplus. Brown's approval rating is currently at 59 percent.

A Republican governor in California becomes an instant national star and possible presidential contender. Nixon, Reagan and, if he had been born on American soil, Schwarzenegger. Who the CA GOP nominates says a lot about what they want for the future of not just the state, but the country. As the CA GOP struggles to find its footing amidst demographic changes and a national GOP grappling with its own identity crisis, you would think becoming competitive again would be a top priority. And you would, apparently, be wrong.

Brown's likely Republican challenger is Tim Donnelly, a far-right Republican Assemblyman from Twin Peaks, who is currently on probation.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/30/inside-california-s-crazy-race-for-the-gop-gubernatorial-nomination.html

May 30, 2014

The First Modern School Shooter Feels Responsible for the Rest

Michael Daly

She uttered the infamous ‘I don’t like Mondays.’ Some 35 years after she killed two and wounded eight in a California schoolyard, Brenda Ann Spencer faced her victims in a parole hearing.

In a prison two-and-a-half hours from the scene of the UCSB murders sits the killer who started it all, with the first high-profile school shooting more than three decades ago.

“With every school shooting, I feel I’m partially responsible,” Brenda Ann Spencer told the parole board back in 2001. “What if they got the idea from what I did?”

Spencer was 16 on Jan. 29, 1979, when she opened fire with a .22 rifle on Grover Cleveland Elementary School across from her home in San Diego, killing the principal and the custodian while wounding eight youngsters and a police officer.

“I don’t like Mondays,” she famously replied when asked her motive.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/30/the-first-modern-school-shooter-feels-responsible-for-the-rest.html

May 30, 2014

Hillary Defends Not Going On Sunday TV After Benghazi: It's Not 'Jury Duty'

CATHERINE THOMPSON – MAY 30, 2014, 6:54 AM EDT

In her forthcoming memoir, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton slams critics who lashed out at her for not speaking to the American people about the Benghazi attacks through Sunday TV shows.

Politico obtained a chapter of Clinton's new book, "Hard Choices," that deals at length with the 2012 attacks in Libya and published excerpts on Friday. In the chapter, Clinton responded strongly to those who "fixate on the question of why I didn’t go on TV that morning," writing that to those detractors, an appearance on Sunday shows was "the equivalent of jury duty, where one has to have a compelling reason to get out of it."

"I don’t see appearing on Sunday-morning television as any more of a responsibility than appearing on late-night TV," she wrote, as quoted by Politico. "Only in Washington is the definition of talking to Americans confined to 9 a.m. on Sunday mornings.”

Clinton also offered a full-throated defense of National Security Adviser Susan Rice's disputed talking points about the attacks. Rice, who was the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. at the time of the attacks, was heavily criticized by Republicans for going on TV just days afterward and saying the attackers were motivated by an anti-Islamic video.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/hillary-clinton-defends-susan-rice-benghazi

May 30, 2014

Obama’s leadership is right for today - by Fareed Zakaria

“Because of his unsure and indecisive leadership in the field of foreign policy, questions are being raised on all sides,” the writer declared, adding that the administration was “plagued by a Hamlet-like psychosis which seems to paralyze it every time decisive action is required.” Is the writer one of the many recent critics of Barack Obama’s foreign policy? Actually, it’s Richard Nixon, writing in 1961 about President John F. Kennedy. Criticizing presidents for weakness is a standard practice in Washington because the world is a messy place and, when bad things happen, Washington can be blamed for them. But to determine what the United States — and Obama — should be doing, we have to first understand the nature of the world and the dangers within it.

From 1947 until 1990, the United States faced a mortal threat, an enemy that was strategic, political, military and ideological. Washington had to keep together an alliance that faced up to the foe and persuaded countries in the middle not to give in. This meant that concerns about resolve and credibility were paramount. In this context, presidents had to continually reassure allies. This is why Dean Acheson is said to have remarked in exasperation about Europe’s persistent doubts about America’s resolve, “NATO is an alliance, not a psychiatrist’s couch!”

But the world today looks very different — far more peaceful and stable than at any point in decades and, by some measures, centuries. The United States faces no enemy anywhere on the scale of Soviet Russia. Its military spending is about that of the next 14 countries combined, most of which are treaty allies of Washington. The number of democracies around the world has grown by more than 50 percent in the past quarter-century. The countries that recently have been aggressive or acted as Washington’s adversaries are getting significant pushback. Russia has alienated Ukraine, Eastern Europe and Western Europe with its recent aggression, for which the short-term costs have grown and the long-term costs — energy diversification in Europe — have only begun to build. China has scared and angered almost all of its maritime neighbors, with each clamoring for greater U.S. involvement in Asia. Even a regional foe such as Iran has found that the costs of its aggressive foreign policy have mounted. In 2006, Iran’s favorability rating in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia was in the 75 percent to 85 percent range, according to Zogby Research. By 2012, it had fallen to about 30 percent.

In this context, what is needed from Washington is not a heroic exertion of American military power but rather a sustained effort to engage with allies, isolate enemies, support free markets and democratic values and push these positive trends forward. The Obama administration is, in fact, deeply internationalist — building on alliances in Europe and Asia, working with institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations, isolating adversaries and strengthening the global order that has proved so beneficial to the United States and the world since 1945.

more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-obamas-disciplined-leadership-is-right-for-today/2014/05/29/7b4eb460-e76d-11e3-afc6-a1dd9407abcf_story.html?

May 29, 2014

GOP Michigan Guv Backs LGBT Workplace Protections

Source: TPM

CAITLIN MACNEAL – MAY 29, 2014, 6:50 PM EDT

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) on Thursday urged the legislature to amend state civil rights law to include protections for gays and lesbians, according to Detroit News.

State law prohibits discrimination based on "religion, race, color, national origin, age, sex, height, weight, familial status or marital status," but not sexual orientation or gender identity, according to the Huffington Post.

"I don’t believe in discrimination," Snyder told Crain's Detroit Business. "I hope that’s something the Legislature will take up sometime this year."

He did not say whether he would sign a bill if it passed in the legislature, according to Crain's.

-snip-



Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/snyder-backs-lgbt-protections

May 29, 2014

Joe The Plumber: 'Guns Are Mostly For Hunting Down Politicians'

ERIC LACH – MAY 29, 2014, 5:39 PM EDT

Samuel Wurzelbacher -- better known as Joe the Plumber -- likes guns. And he wants everyone to know why.

"Guns are mostly for hunting down politicians who would actively seek to take your freedoms and liberty away from you," Wurzelbacher wrote on Thursday in a blog post on his website. "Google 'Hitler, Mao, Kim Jung Il, Castro, Stalin' just for starters."

The post was a kind of follow-up to the "open letter" Wurzelbacher published Tuesday addressing the parents of the victims of last week's mass shooting near the University of California, Santa Barbara. Following the shooting, Richard Martinez, whose son Chris was among the victims, blamed "craven, irresponsible politicians" and the National Rifle Association for his son's death. Wurzelbacher responded by writing that "[a]s harsh as this sounds – your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights."

In his latest post, Wurzelbacher said his pro-gun arguments also had something to do with Memorial Day.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joe-the-plumber-guns-politicians

May 29, 2014

If Republicans Have Bad Candidates, It’s the Democrats’ Fault

By David Weigel

Earlier this week the National Republican Senatorial Committee crowed about an Oregon Democratic Party that was clearly panicking. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, one of the most popular figures in the party, was heading to the state to raise funds for Sen. Jeff Merkley—or, in the NRSC's words, to "try and rescue the increasingly vulnerable Sen. Merkely (sic) and help stuff his campaign coffers."



I'm fond of campaign messaging that assumes reporters are deeply stupid. There's no mention here, for example, that Warren's "aggressive rhetoric" was aimed at bank lobbyists—those beloved tribunes of the people. No mention of why using metaphors for "fighting" was out of bounds. No logic at all, really. Warren was traveling to a state that gave Barack Obama a 12-point win in 2012 and had not gone Republican at the presidential level since 1984. Why was her appearance supposed to hurt Merkley? What was the evidence that Oregonians didn't like her?

And where was the evidence that Merkley was "increasingly vulnerable"? Good question. A new Public Policy Polling survey, the first since doctor Monica Wehby won the Republican primary to face Merkley, gives the first-term incumbent a 14-point lead. Every poll in the race, minus a Daily Caller survey that put Wehby out front by 4 points, has given Merkley a double-digit lead. Wehby was entering a five-and-a-half-month general election with a favorable rating of 26 points and unfavorable rating of 40 points. One problem is that most (59 percent) voters were aware of reports that an ex-boyfriend (now donor) of Wehby once accused her of "stalking" him.

more
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/05/29/if_republicans_have_bad_candidates_it_s_the_democrats_fault.html?