April 30, 2015

Lefties, meet your candidate: Why Bernie is the only authentic alternative to Hillary Clinton

Lefties, meet your candidate: Why Bernie Sanders is the only authentic alternative to Hillary Clinton

Dissatisfied with Clinton's centrism? Well, Warren won't run and O'Malley's a poser. Embrace the blunt Brooklynite

JIM NEWELL

If the left flank of the Democratic Party is looking for an alternative to Hillary Clinton around whom to rally, there are no perfect figures.

When the Clintons led the centrist iteration of the Democratic Party in the 1990s, two of her potential Democratic challengers, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee, were actual Republicans. So, no.

Another of the men was a good DLC soldier within the Clinton Democratic Party when that suited the advancement of his career, and now he’s acting like Pete Seeger out there because an opportunity has arisen. I cannot think of a better image of Martin O’Malley’s career than him walking through the protests in Baltimore to get his picture taken. He was the one who turned Baltimore over to the wolves of “no tolerance,” broken-windows policing during his tenure as mayor from 1999 to 2007, using his get-tough approach as a stepping stone toward the governor’s mansion.

The only authentic guy on the Democratic side of the ledger is the one declaring his candidacy today. Bernie Sanders is an old leftist crank — we mean that in the best possible way — from Brooklyn. You can tell that he is from Brooklyn if you listen to any word that he says. We will be hearing a lot more about the MILLIONAYUHS AND BILLIONAYUHS over the next year or so, and we’ll be hearing it from someone who didn’t just arrive at his opinions yesterday after commissioning a few focus groups.

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http://www.salon.com/2015/04/30/lefties_meet_your_candidate_why_bernie_sanders_is_the_only_authentic_alternative_to_hillary_clinton/

April 30, 2015

Elijah Cummings Scolds Fox Reporter In Baltimore: 'Let's Go Home!'

During Fox News' "Hannity" on Wednesday night, Fox reporter Leland Vittert attempted to interview Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), only to have the congressman tell everyone to go home.

Vittert spoke briefly with Cummings and state Senate Majority Leader Catherine Pugh about the investigation into the death of Freddie Gray. But Cummings quickly began to walk away, telling people to go home in time for the 10 p.m. curfew.

At the request of the the show's host, Sean Hannity, Vittert asked Cummings if President Obama "rushed to judgement in this case," according to a clip highlighted by Mediaite.

Cummings responded that Obama did not, and told Vittert that he had spoken to Attorney General Loretta Lynch about the case.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/elijah-cummings-yells-fox-reporter

April 30, 2015

Jindal Supports Ginsburg, Kagan Recusal From Gay Marriage Decision

Source: TPM

By CAITLIN MACNEAL Published APRIL 30, 2015, 9:17 AM EDT

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) expressed support on Wednesday for a measure passed in the Louisiana state House calling on Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan to recuse themselves from the decision on state bans on same-sex marriage.

The state House on Monday passed a resolution claiming that Ginsburg and Kagan "have each engaged in public conduct suggestive of bias" regarding gay marriage and have "thus demonstrate(d) an inability to be objective."

Jindal said on Wednesday that it a "fair question" to ask if the two justices should recuse themselves from the Supreme Court case. "It’s a fair question in that they have officiated same-sex weddings, which is the subject of the decision," Jindal Spokeswoman Shannon Bates told Buzzfeed News. "If he had his way, they would both recuse themselves from every case because they are liberal activists who see the bench as a means of enacting their agenda."

Both Ginsburg and Kagan have officiated weddings for gay couples.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jindal-ginsburg-kagan-recusal-gay-marriage

April 29, 2015

Louisiana Republicans accuse Justices Ginsburg and Kagan of marriage equality bias

Democratic state House lawmakers in Louisiana were caught by surprise on Monday when their Republican counterparts pushed through a resolution calling for Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan to recuse themselves from a case involving same-sex marriage bans.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that Concurrent Resolution 85 went through without a single opposing vote. The non-binding resolution will now go to the state Senate. “I know I didn’t pay attention,” state Rep. Karen St. Germain said. “Usually somebody does.”

Louisiana’s law against marriage equality is one of the four state bans being considered by the high court in the Obergefell v. Hodges case. The resolution argued that Ginsburg and Kagan have “engaged in public conduct” suggesting that they would be likely to rule that such laws are unconstitutional.

“Justices Ginsberg and Kagan have each officiated highly publicized same-sex 19 marriages that would potentially be affected by the ruling in these cases,” it stated. “Therefore, justices thus may have a predisposition to vote in these cases to validate the marriages they have performed.”

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http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/louisiana-republicans-accuse-justices-ginsburg-and-kagan-of-marriage-equality-bias/

April 29, 2015

Texas GOP lawmaker: ‘What is going on in Baltimore’ is because of too many gay marriages

Republican U.S. House Representative Bill Flores of Texas argued this week that violence in Baltimore could be linked to the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States.

On the Wednesday edition of the Family Research Council’s Washington Watch radio program, Flores told FRC President Tony Perkins that crowds of conservatives were showing up at the U.S. Supreme Court to urge justices to support the “rights of tradition marriage.”

Perkins suggested that the government was just creating more problems for itself as courts throughout the nation continued to rule that LGBT people should have equal marriage rights.

“A lot of these problems are created by the breakdown of the family, which the redefinition of would only accelerate,” Perkins opined. “You’re exactly right, Tony,” Flores agreed. “Let’s talk about poverty for instance… The single best indicator of whether or not a child is going to be in poverty or not is whether or not they were raised by a two-parent household or a single-parent household. And so the breakdown of the family has contributed to poverty.”

“You look at what’s going on in Baltimore today, you know, you see issues that are raised there,” the congressman continued. “And healthy marriages are the ones between a man and a woman because they can have a healthy family and they can raise children in the way that’s best for their future, not only socially but psychologically, economically, from a health perspective.”

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http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/texas-gop-lawmaker-what-is-going-on-in-baltimore-is-because-of-too-many-gay-marriages/

April 29, 2015

Traditional marriage gets a SCOTUS smackdown: The incomprehensible right-wing logic that’s poised to

Traditional marriage gets a SCOTUS smackdown: The incomprehensible right-wing logic that’s poised to go down in flames

Even a typically conservative majority can't save gay-marriage opponents now. At least one of these men will break

ANDREW KOPPELMAN

Nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has gone. Yesterday’s Supreme Court argument showed as clearly as anything could have that same-sex marriage will prevail, not only because of the strength of its arguments, but because those arguments meet no resistance: The opposing view has become incomprehensible.

Justice Stephen Breyer, who usually has a lot of respect for legislative judgments, here found it difficult to find anything to defer to. When states try to justify denying same-sex couples the right to marry, “the answer we get is, well, people have always done it,” observed Breyer. That answer won’t do, because it was used to justify racial segregation. “Or, two, because certain religious groups do think it’s a sin.” That can’t justify a law either. “And then when I look for reasons three, four and five, I don’t find them. What are they?”

There was a time, not long ago, when same-sex marriage was unimaginable. But the meaning of marriage has changed. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg observed, traditionally, “marriage was a relationship of a dominant male to a subordinate female.” In recent decades, it has become less gender-specific, and sexual satisfaction has become a more important part of it — so it made less and less sense to try to force gay people into heterosexual marriages. It increasingly plausible for same-sex couples to claim that they were not distinct from heterosexual couples in any way that mattered. The older, gender-specific understanding of marriage has faded so far that it is not merely rejected. It is not even understood.

John Bursch, the attorney defending Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage before the court, argued that the purpose of marriage was “to encourage children to be bonded to their biological mother and father.” And that clearly is an important part of the historical justification for marriage. If our species did not reproduce sexually, we wouldn’t have the institution. But several of the justices pressed him on how same-sex marriage could possibly frustrate that purpose. Bursch explained that “changing the meaning of marriage from one where it’s based on that biological bond to one where it’s based on emotional commitment” would lead adults to think “that this relationship is more about adults and not about the kids.” But the causal connection here is doubtful.

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http://www.salon.com/2015/04/29/traditional_marriage_gets_a_scotus_smackdown_the_incomprehensible_right_wing_logic_thats_poised_to_go_down_in_flames/

April 29, 2015

David Simon: O’Malley ‘Destroyed’ Policing

David Simon, creator of The Wire and a former Baltimore journalist, slammed ex-mayor and current presidential candidate Martin O’Malley for “destroying police work in some real respects.” Simon claimed the loss of “all professional ethos” in the police force began with the war on drugs, but “whatever was left of it when [O’Malley] took over the police department, if there were two bricks together that were the suggestion of an edifice that you could have called meaningful police work, he found a way to pull them apart.” Simon did, however, say that if O’Malley wins the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, “I’m going to end up voting for him. It’s not personal and I admire some of his other stances on the death penalty and gay rights.”

Read it at The Marshall Project

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/04/29/david-simon-o-malley-destroyed-policing.html

April 29, 2015

University Finally Condemns White Freakout Over 'Problem Of Whiteness' Class

Arizona State University condemned the backlash to a course on the "problem of whiteness" for the first time in public on Monday, months after the class rose to national attention and its professor received threats from white supremacists.

ASU administrator James Rund criticized "hate speech" incidents that have occurred on campus this semester in a joint statement with Jake Bennett, the director of Arizona's Anti-Defamation League, and George Dean, the president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Urban League.

"There have been a series of hate speech incidents over recent weeks in Tempe and Mesa, orchestrated by Neo-Nazi groups and hate preachers," read the statement, published in The Arizona Republic. "This behavior and these sentiments do not reflect the values of our community."

The statement didn't specify which incidents the signers were referring to. But as TPM has previously reported, a white nationalist group called the National Youth Front launched a campaign against the class that involved flooding ASU President Michael Crow with emails, distributing fliers branding the course's professor, Lee Bebout, as "Anti-White," and protesting the course on campus.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/asu-condemns-white-nationalists

April 29, 2015

No, The Wild Theory About Freddie Gray's 'Pre-Existing' Spinal Injury Isn't True

As the streets of Baltimore quieted down Tuesday after a night of widespread looting and violence, the conservative blogosphere heated up with chatter that Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old black man who died after sustaining a severe spinal injury in police custody, may have actually injured himself before his arrest.

A rumor that Gray had a pre-existing spinal injury from a car accident appears to have originated Tuesday with a blog post on the conservative website thefourthestate.co and then spread to other conservative sites like the Free Republic.

The post on thefourthestate.co cited "sources who allege that Freddie Gray received spinal and neck surgery a week before we (sic) was arrested, and was allegedly receiving a large structured settlement from Allstate Insurance." The post also alleged that Gray received the surgery because he had been involved in a car accident.

By way of proof, the website cited Howard County, Maryland court records that showed Gray was recently involved in a civil case with Peachtree Settlement Funding. Allstate Life Insurance was listed as an interested party. Nothing in those records, which were publicly accessible online, indicated that Gray had been in a accident or had sustained a spinal injury.

The Baltimore Sun on Wednesday swiftly debunked the rumor by pulling the full court records related to the civil case. The newspaper reported that paperwork had been filed in December to pay out an $18,000 settlement each to Gray and his sister. Billy Murphy, an attorney for Gray's family, confirmed to the newspaper that those payouts stemmed from a 2008 lawsuit alleging that the two were exposed to dangerous levels of lead paint in their childhood home (the settlement in that suit was reached in 2010 and was not publicly disclosed).

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/freddie-gray-debunked-rumors-preexisting-injury

April 29, 2015

What Bernie Sanders Means to Hillary Clinton

Rick Klein: “Bernie Sanders has almost no realistic chance of becoming the Democratic nominee for president. But that’s not the most effective way to think about his candidacy. His presence in the race ensures that Hillary Clinton will be pressed continually and consistently from the left — and now potentially from across the debate stage. Interest in Sanders will be driven by many of the same activists and other Democratic faithful who wanted so desperately to see Elizabeth Warren in the race. And Sanders’ timing could hardly be better: the left is growing anxious over President Obama’s agenda and nervous that Hillary Clinton might be tempted to provide minimal amounts of daylight between her policy positions and his.”

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http://p.feedblitz.com/r3.asp?l=104678547&f=17571&u=37190363&c=4937614