May 7, 2015

Senator on Islamic State fight: 3,300 bombing runs — and Congress still won’t call a war a war

Source: Reuters

REUTERS
07 MAY 2015 AT 10:40 ET

Congress’ failure to even debate U.S. military action against Islamic State nine months after air strikes began is scandalous and disrespectful to Americans fighting an undeclared war, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine said on Thursday.

Kaine, a Democratic member of the Foreign Relations Committee, has been an unrelenting critic of Congress’ failure to authorize military force against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, even as a U.S.-led bombing campaign has been in effect since Aug. 8.

In media interviews before a Senate speech on Thursday, Kaine outlined reasons for the delay, including congressional reluctance to take up the matter before elections last November.

“American service members have lost their lives, we’ve spent over $2 billion, 3,300 bombing runs and Congress hasn’t even been willing to talk about this or authorize the military action,” Kaine said on CNN. “This is a big scandal in my view.” He said it was disrespectful to ask American service members to risk their lives when Congress would not even debate the mission.

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Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/senator-on-islamic-state-fight-3300-bombing-runs-and-congress-still-wont-call-a-war-a-war/

May 7, 2015

Snyder Won’t Make Presidential Bid After All

Snyder Won’t Make Presidential Bid After All

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) “will not run for president in 2016, according to two sources familiar with his planning,” Politico reports.

“Snyder, a Republican who was first elected in 2010, has been traveling across the country in recent weeks but has decided against a White House bid. One source close Snyder said he’d expressed concern about the time commitment needed for a national campaign.”

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http://p.feedblitz.com/r3.asp?l=104924890&f=17571&u=37190363&c=4942155

May 7, 2015

Christie Achievement About to be Dismantled

Gov. Chris Christie’s “signature achievement as New Jersey governor may be going up in smoke,” Politico reports.

“The potential presidential candidate has said his ‘biggest governmental victory’ was a 2011 law meant to fix once and for all New Jersey’s notoriously bloated and insolvent public pension system by imposing deep cuts. But on Wednesday Christie’s administration argued before the state Supreme Court that the law was unconstitutional, in a complex maneuver to defend $1.57 billion in additional pension cuts that appear to have violated its terms. If the court upholds a February lower-court judgment against Christie, as seems likely, the cash-strapped state must scramble to find the money before July 1.”

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http://p.feedblitz.com/r3.asp?l=104924092&f=17571&u=37190363&c=4942155

May 7, 2015

GOP’s gay marriage dilemma: Concede to reality, or go all in on bigotry?

Fight? Flee? Go crazy? 2016 Republicans are struggling with how to respond to the end of same-sex marriage bans

SIMON MALOY

Next month, the Supreme Court will hand down a ruling on whether state-level same-sex marriage bans are constitutional, and whether states must recognize same-sex marriages from other states. Predicting how the justices will rule is an uncertain and ultimately pointless endeavor, but after oral arguments last week, it appears likely that the high court will end up striking down the gay marriage bans. That would represent a huge step forward for gay rights, and the 2016 Republican candidates are split on how they’d react to such a ruling.

Right now there are a few factions within the group of Republican presidential wannabes that are jockeying for position. The first is the “respect the rule of law” faction represented by presumptive candidates John Kasich and Lindsey Graham. Neither seem particularly enthused at the prospect of fighting yet another drawn-out battle over gay marriage, probably because public opinion has swung overwhelmingly in favor of marriage equality over the last decade. And so rather than dig in and make a last stand, they’re encouraging Republicans and conservatives to accept the court’s decision if they strike down the bans.

“I’m for marriage being defined as between a man and a woman,” Kasich said last week, “if the Supreme Court changes that, those changes have to be respected.” Graham was even more direct, saying that this is just where society is going and that it’s pointless to fight the inevitable. “Things are changing, so at the end of the day, being for traditional marriage without animosity is where I stand,” he said on Monday. “If the Supreme Court rules sometime this year that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional, then that will be a defining moment in that debate. It will be time for us to move forward as a society.”

Representing the more activist strain of 2016 Republican thinking is Sen. Ted Cruz. If the justices do strike down the gay marriage bans, Cruz wants Republicans and conservatives to use every tool at their disposal to fight back against the “lawless” and “fundamentally illegitimate” actions of the high court. This includes a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would leave all marriage decisions exclusively to the states, and a more exotic proposal to have Congress “strip federal courts of jurisdiction” over same-sex marriage issues.

And then there are the aimless dead-enders – the candidates who think that the Supreme Court can just be ignored if it rules that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional. This faction is represented by two of the newest entrants to the race: Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson.

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/07/gops_gay_marriage_dilemma_concede_to_reality_or_go_all_in_on_bigotry/

May 7, 2015

Goodbye to all that: Hillary ditches the caution that helped doom her 2008 campaign - By Joan Walsh

Clinton isn’t obsessed with working class whites, though she won’t ignore them. She’s expanding the Obama coalition

JOAN WALSH

One of Hillary Clinton’s first ominous stumbles in the 2008 presidential race came during an October 2007 debate, when she waffled on a question about New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to issue drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants. The plan “makes a lot of sense,” she told moderator Tim Russert, but she also expressed rambling reservations. It wasn’t Clinton’s stance but her waffling that got her into trouble – a three-minute YouTube clip went viral, and not in a good way. The erstwhile-frontrunner seemed to be trying to have it both ways on a divisive issue.

That cautious Hillary Clinton is gone, especially on immigration issues. Her bold promise to expand President Obama’s executive actions on immigration (she already came out for drivers’ licenses last month), combined with her speech calling for an “end to the era of mass incarceration,” shows that Clinton plans to embrace two of the movements that have emerged in the Obama years, on immigration and criminal justice reform.

There’s also an obvious political calculation: in 2016, Clinton will be less worried about reassuring and winning over skeptical white working class voters than in 2008. That’s because she’s no longer trying to reassemble the (Bill) Clinton coalition, but hold together and expand the Obama coalition. She hopes years from now people will call it the Hillary coalition.

I wrote yesterday that Clinton’s mass incarceration speech, plus her immigration stand, told me that she’d rejected the wisdom of advisors who’d theorized that she could “expand the map” in 2016 by winning working class whites, especially in places like Arkansas, Indiana and Missouri. It was widely dismissed as a pipe dream, and her moves on immigration and criminal justice show that she agrees: She’s not going to pander to white voters with cautious stands on immigration and crime.

Her earlier embrace of gay marriage was a sign she knew Democrats had won the culture wars, and that she shouldn’t worry about reassuring older white evangelical voters she shared their notion of family values. She’s now making the same move on immigration and criminal justice.

-snip-

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/07/goodbye_to_all_that_hillary_ditches_the_caution_that_helped_doom_her_2008_campaign/

May 7, 2015

Megyn Kelly declares jihad on everyone who isn’t kissing Pam Geller’s butt for saving freedom

In a sneery snarling fangs-bared lip-curled blood-shooting-from-the-eyes performance the likes of which we haven’t seen since Andrea Tantaros was forced to speak to a non-white person, Megyn Kelly of Fox News said that anyone who isn’t praising hate-harpy Pam Geller for teaching us the true meaning of freedom of speech might as well be a goddam terrorist.

And I am not overstating this.

According to Kelly, Geller and her American Freedom Defense Initiative hate group worked very hard to give the lovely people in Texas a private event where they could do freedom things like draw funny pictures of the Prophet Muhammad. That is because freedom’s just another word for the right to be a mouth-breathing moronic asshole with nothing better to do but draw racist cartoons in the company of other mouth-breathing moronic assholes — as was promised in the Federalist Papers.

I mean, it doesn’t say that in so many words, but that’s the general idea if you read between the lines.

“They were trying to make a point about intolerance by some in the Muslim world,” Kelly snarled as she hated the entire world for forcing her to explain this to everyone because they’re so damned stupid and not smart and pretty like her. “And about principles on which the USA is supposed to stand firm. Namely that, no matter how abhorrent one might find another’s words, in this country we defend their right to say them.”

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May 7, 2015

Activists linked to James O’Keefe secretly recording GOP lawmakers to push Texas further right

Conservative activists linked to prank filmmaker James O’Keefe have secretly recorded video they plan to use against Texas lawmakers in upcoming elections.

John Beria, spokesman for the American Phoenix Foundation, recorded more than 800 hours of covert footage as conservatives plan to target incumbent Republicans and shift the Texas Legislature further to the right, reported the Houston Chronicle.

Several House Republicans said they were approached aggressively last week inside and outside the Capitol by the Austin-based group’s staffers wielding hidden cameras. Lawmakers said the activists attempted to provoke them on hot-button issues and peppered them with questions about Republican House Speaker Joe Straus – a frequent target of Tea Party activists.

“It’s like they were almost stalking us,” said Rep. Patricia Harless (R-Spring).

Beria said his nonprofit group’s 16 staffers are targeting lawmakers who are “notorious” for their “shady business deals,” but he declined to be specific about which “nefarious” acts he meant.

more
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/activists-linked-to-james-okeefe-secretly-recording-gop-lawmakers-to-push-texas-further-right/

May 7, 2015

Study: Anti-abortion views linked to sexist attitudes towards women

Source: RawStory/Affilia

Research in the feminist journal Affilia suggests that opposition to abortion is driven in part by sexist attitudes towards women.

The study examines the relationship between sexism and abortion through the lens of the Ambivalent Sexism Theory. The psychological theory holds that sexist attitudes about women come in two main forms: a hostile version and a benevolent version.

Benevolent sexism describes the belief that women are nurturing, caring and gentle, but cannot function properly without protection from a strong male partner. Kathleen Connelly of the University of Florida has summarized benevolent sexism as the belief that “women are wonderful, but weak.” Hostile sexism, on the other hand, represents overt antipathy or dislike of women. Both forms of sexism maintain that women should be subordinate to men.

“While women have been shown to endorse forms of hostile sexism somewhat infrequently, women’s endorsements of benevolent sexist beliefs are quite common,” the researchers noted.

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Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/study-anti-abortion-views-linked-to-sexist-attitudes-towards-women/

May 7, 2015

Report: No Direct Link Yet Found Between ISIL And Garland Shooting

Source: TPM

Investigators have not yet found a direct link between the Islamic State and the gunmen who opened fire on officers outside a Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, on Sunday, according to a Los Angeles Times report.

Law enforcement officials told the LA Times that although it appears that the suspects, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, were influenced by foreign terrorist groups, investigators do "not at this point" believe that the Islamic State or another group directed the gunmen to carry out the attack.

Simpson communicated with Somalian and Syrian jihadi fighters over social media, but law enforcement officials have not found any link between those interactions and the attack in Garland. Simpson reportedly communicated with an individual who goes by the name Mujahid Miski through Twitter. Earlier this week, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on the Muhammad cartoon contest.

On Tuesday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest called the shooting an "act of terror," but said it was "too early to say" whether ISIL was involved in the attack.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/islamic-state-garland-carton-contest

May 7, 2015

Huckabee: Don't Blame Pam Geller For 'Radical Islamic Savages' In Texas

Presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) on Wednesday scolded some of his former colleagues at Fox News for denouncing Pam Geller and the Muhammad cartoon contest she held in Garland, Texas.

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly criticized Geller for holding such a provocative event and said he would have done it "another way." And Fox host Greta Van Susteren said the cartoon contest "recklessly" put police lives in danger.

"I understand why they would come to that conclusion, but I disagree with it because you do not blame the victim of a crime for the crime committed by a murdering criminal," Huckabee told Newsmax TV's Steve Malzberg. "I’m a Christian, Steve. I get offended every day by things people say about me and my faith. I don’t want to murder anyone over it."

Instead, Huckabee said that the gunmen who were killed when they opened fire on officers outside the cartoon contest should be blamed for the violence at the event. "I don’t blame organizers of a free speech event for the fact that some radical Islamic savages decided to just go and mow down a bunch of people. I find that just bizarre," he said.

Full article + Video
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mike-huckabee-pam-geller-cartoon-contest