SunSeeker
SunSeeker's JournalUS judge temporarily blocks Miss. abortion law
Source: AP [AP.org]
A federal judge on Sunday temporarily blocked enforcement of a Mississippi law that could shut down the only abortion clinic in the state.
U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan in Jackson issued a temporary restraining order the day the new law took effect.
He set a July 11 hearing to determine whether to block the law for a longer time.
"Though the debate over abortion continues, there exists legal precedent the court must follow," Jordan wrote.
Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ABORTION_MISSISSIPPI?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-07-01-20-36-29
Exit poll: Obama bests Romney in Wisconsin by 12 points
Source: msnbc.com
With a third wave of exit poll data in, Wisconsin recall voters said they would pick President Obama over Republican Mitt Romney by a 54-42 percent margin in Wisconsin.
Caution, though, on the results -- 10 to 12 percent of the electorate voted absentee, and absentees are not included in the exit poll.
Exit polls show a tight race between incumbent Gov. Scott Walker (R) and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. If Walker is able to stave off the challenge and keeps his job, the Obama-Romney head-to-head numbers will throw cold water on analyses claiming the recall is a harbinger for this fall's presidential election.
Just 20 percent of Wisconsin voters said their personal financial situation had gotten better in the past two years; 45 percent said it was the same; 35 percent said it had gotten worse.
Despite that, voters didn't appear to blame President Obama. By a 45-36 percent margin, Wisconsin voters thought Obama would do a better job improving the economy than Romney, with 18 percent saying neither of them.
And by a 48-35 percent margin, voters said Obama would do a better job helping the middle class.
Read more: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/05/12073187-exit-poll-obama-bests-romney-in-wisconsin-by-12-points?lite
Gallup: Veterans Still Going Big For Romney And GOP
Source: TalkingPointsMemo.com
A new Gallup poll analysis released on Memorial Day shows that among veterans with a very clear preference in the presidential race, a majority supports Mitt Romney, corresponding with veterans’ Republican leanings.
Romney has 58 percent support among veterans, to Obama’s 34 percent. The data was collected from daily tracking polls between April 11 and May 24. During that same time frame, the two were tied overall at 46 percent among all registered voters; among non-veterans, Obama led with 48 percent to Romney’s 44 percent.
The Obama administration has has aggressively reached out to active and former military personnel. But the new numbers suggest winning over what has traditionally been a solidly Republican bloc might be a bridge too far.
The numbers are consistent with recent past performance. In the 2004 exit poll, George W. Bush carried voters who had served in the military, with 57 percent to John Kerry’s 41 percent, while Bush narrowly won the national election. In the 2008 exit poll, John McCain carried voters who had served in the military 54 percent to Barack Obama’s 44 percent, while Obama won the election by a wider margin than Bush had four years earlier.
Read more: http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/gallup-veterans-still-going-big-for-romney-and-gop.php
So much for Michelle Obama's campaign to help military families. Looks like the majority of vets will just continue to vote against their self-interest.
Standing Up on Veterans’ Issues: On issue after issue of importance to supporting our veterans, Democrats lead while most Republicans are nowhere to be found. For example, the 2010 Congressional Report Card from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America ranked the voting records of members of the U.S. House and Senate on issues such as full and advanced funding for the Veterans Administration health care system (so that the VA does not always have to stand by nervously to see if they are going to get enough funding), supporting improvements to the post-9/11 GI Bill, modernizing the VA claims system, and providing unemployment benefits to combat veterans just returning from war. All of the Senators earning an A+ or A ranking are Democrats, while almost all of the Senators who earned a D or lower grade are Republicans. On the House side, most of the representatives earning an A+ or A are Democrats, while most of the D or lower grades went to Republicans. Similar results can be seen in IAVA’s 2008 report, IAVA’s 2006 report, and a recent ranking from the Disabled American Veterans.
Dolan: White House is "strangling" Catholic church
Source: cbsnews.com
The spat between Catholic leaders and the Obama administration over its contraception policies is heating up again, with one of the nation's most prominent Catholic leaders charging that the White House is "strangling" the church over the matter.
Timothy Cardinal Dolan told "CBS This Morning" Tuesday that the compromise reached earlier this year is not sufficient because the exemptions made for churches are too restrictive.
"They tell us if you're really going be considered a church, if you're going to be really exempt from these demands of the government, well, you have to propagate your Catholic faith and everything you do, you can serve only Catholics and employ only Catholics," Dolan said.
"We're like, wait a minute, when did the government get in the business of defining for us the extent of our ministry," Dolan said.
More than 40 Catholic organizations sued the Obama administration Monday over a government requirement that most employers provide birth control coverage as part of their employee health plans.
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505267_162-57438959/dolan-white-house-is-strangling-catholic-church/?tag=cbsContent;cbsCarousel
So, if you work for this douchebag, you are welcome to die from ovarian cysts.
I need 4 to 6 kid-friendly Obama accomplishments....
Ok, so each kid in my son's 2nd grade class picked a famous person for a brief oral report. My kid (I'm so proud) was the only one who picked Barack Obama. As part of the report, each kid must give 4-6 examples of how the person they picked "made a difference." My son asked me for some more examples besides that he was really cool, a nice man, and played basketball really well. LOL
I started rattling off stuff like he saved General Motors and ended the Iraq War... and my son just gave me a blank stare. I realize half my problem is dumbing it down so kids can understand. Help!
P.S. I realize this is also good practice for discussions with Republicans.
Romney to appear with possible VP pick Ayotte in New Hampshire
(CNN) – GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney will return to the campaign trail on Monday after taking the weekend off, and for the second week in a row will appear alongside a figure who is likely on his vice presidential short list, his campaign said Saturday.
Romney will appear with U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a native of New Hampshire who has backed him and is seen as a rising star in the Republican party, at an event in Portsmouth.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/28/romney-to-appear-with-possible-vp-pick-ayotte-in-new-hampshire/
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You know, because it worked so well for McCain. 
Dog Seamus ‘Loved’ Trips Atop Family Car, Says Ann Romney
Source: ABCNews.com
Seamus, Mitt Romney’s Irish setter who traveled with his young family strapped to the roof of their station wagon, “loved” those trips, despite once getting ill, Ann Romney told ABC’s Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview. Seamus’ 1983 trip from Boston to a summer cottage in Ontario, Canada, inside a dog carrier lashed atop the family’s Chevrolet, has become a regular barb in Romney’s side and is routinely used by his critics to paint him as uncaring.
Mitt Romney told Sawyer that the Seamus attacks were the most wounding of the campaign “so far,” but Anne Romney insisted the dog loved traveling that way and looked forward to trips. “The dog loved it,” Ann Romney said. “He would see that crate and, you know, he would, like, go crazy because he was going with us on vacation. It was to me a kinder thing to bring him along than to leave him in the kennel for two weeks.”
Adding to the left’s narrative that Romney had little compassion for the animal is a detail from the 1983 trip that Ann Romney confirmed to Sawyer. The dog became sick, defecating all over itself and the windshield of the car, leading Romney to hose them both off before they continued on the drive to Canada. “Once, he — we traveled all the time — and he ate the turkey on the counter. I mean, he had the runs,” Ann Romney said, laughing as she explained how the dog got diarrhea.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/04/dog-seamus-loved-trips-atop-family-car-says-ann-romney
Well, now we know Ann Romney is clueless and a liar (yeah right, Seamus "loved" it, each and every time). Same old Mitt though: I'm running for office for Pete's sake, of course I wouldn't put the dog on the roof again!
California nuclear plant shut indefinitely amid hunt to find cause of problems
Source: CNN
A large Southern California nuclear plant is out of commission indefinitely, and will remain so until there is an understanding of what caused problems at two of its generators and an effective plan to address the issues, the nation's top nuclear regulator said Friday.
The power plant has been shut down since this winter, when a small amount of radioactive gas escaped from a steam generator during a water leak. At the time, federal regulators said there was no threat to public health, though they could not identify how much gas leaked or exactly why it had happened.
Each of the 65-foot-tall, 640-ton generators -- built by Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries -- are packed with thousands of narrow tubes that carry hot, pressurized water from the reactors. The heat produces steam in a separate loop that drives the plant's turbines and generators.
Located near San Clemente, the San Onofre nuclear plant's twin reactors are "Southern California's largest and most reliable sources of electricity," according to Southern California Edison's website. When operational, the facility -- which is owned by that utility, San Diego Gas and Electric, and the city of Riverside -- supplies power for 1.4 million households at any given time.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/06/us/california-nuclear-plant/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
I hope this blight on the most beautiful surf spot in So. Cal. is shut down forever. And this is the first I've heard mention of it being built by Japan's Mitsubishi. Gee, what could go wrong?
After Record Sales, Chevy Volt Production Will Resume One Week Early
Source: Talking Points Memo
Buoyed by record monthly sales of its Chevy Volt hybrid electric plug-in car in March, General Motors will resume production of the Volt at the Detroit Hamtramck plant one week early, the United Auto Workers told TPM on Tuesday night. “They’re adding a week of production back in,” said Don LaForest, the chairman of the UAW’s bargaining committee at the Detroit Hamtramck plant, where the Volt is manufactured, in a phone interview.
GM in early March startled observers by announcing a temporary hold on Volt production scheduled for five weeks, from March 19 to April 23, during which time employees would be temporarily laid-off but receive SUB pay. At the time, GM and the UAW told TPM that hold was “totally normal,” and put in place to “re-align” supply of the Volt with demand, following sluggish sales in January at just 603 units. But now, thanks to the GM’s news on Monday that the Volt sold a record 2,289 units in March, employees will be coming back to work a week early.
More to the point, LaForest said UAW workers remained confident in the Volt’s propensity for success, and that many at the plant were bewildered and angered by the verbal attacks on the American-made car by Republican Presidential candidates Mitt Romney on Tuesday and earlier, Newt Gingrich.
“Anybody who’s been in a Volt knows it’s not a boondoggle, they know it’s for real,” LaForest told TPM. “I don’t think Newt or Mitt have said a single negative thing about the Nissan Leaf,” (the Volt’s Japanese competitor).
“They’re attacking our car to get at the President,” LaForest told TPM. “But our car is going to change the way America does business. It’s a breath of fresh air.”
Read more: http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/gm-will-restart-chevy-volt-production-one-week-early-uaw-reveals.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
The Republicans having been working so hard at trying to make America fail, this news must hurt.
A boy to be sacrificed
A riveting opinion piece:
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"In the Morocco of the 1980s, where homosexuality did not, of course, exist, I was an effeminate little boy, a boy to be sacrificed, a humiliated body who bore upon himself every hypocrisy, everything left unsaid.
...
I was barely 12, and in my neighborhood they called me “the little girl.” Even those I persisted in playing soccer with used that nickname, that insult. Even the teenagers who’d once taken part with me in the same sexual games. I was no kid anymore. My body was changing, stretching out, becoming a man’s. But others did not see me as a man. The image of myself they reflected back at me was strange and incomprehensible. Attempts at rape and abuse multiplied.
...
It all came to a head one summer night in 1985. ... These men, whom we all knew quite well, cried out: “Abdellah, little girl, come down. Come down. Wake up and come down. We all want you. Come down, Abdellah. Don’t be afraid. We won’t hurt you. We just want to have sex with you.” ...But my brother, the absolute monarch of our family, did nothing. Everyone turned their back on me. Everyone killed me that night. ...To save my skin, I killed myself. And that was how I did it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/opinion/sunday/a-boy-to-be-sacrificed.html?_r=1&hp#
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It struck me that the vicious nickname they used was "the little girl." I am convinced that as long as there is sexism, there will be homophobia. They seem to be two sides of the same coin.
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Gender: Do not displayHome country: USA
Current location: Southern California
Member since: Sun Mar 20, 2011, 12:05 PM
Number of posts: 51,550
