July 31, 2015

Ted Cruz denies his dad is a birther while admitting his father said Obama should go ‘back to Kenya’

Ted Cruz, a Republican presidential candidate and Texas senator, says his father doesn’t believe in birther conspiracies about President Barack Obama despite comments he made on camera.

His father, conservative pastor Rafael Cruz, has frequently made headlines for controversial comments about the president, LGBT rights, the nation’s founding, Common Core education standards, and other topics. But Ted Cruz denies his father is a liability in his quest for the White House.

“I’ll tell you there has been an effort in the media and among some Democrats to try to paint a scary picture of my father,” Cruz told Fox News Radio host Alan Colmes on Thursday. “My father is an extraordinary man. He is a pastor, he is the most loving person I’ve ever known and listen, his personal narrative poses a real threat to many on the left because many on the left like to portray big government as the only solution for those who are struggling who want to achieve the American dream.”

“And the caricature they painted of him is simply false and I’ll give you an example,” he continued. “I’m not familiar with what you just mentioned there but I’ll tell you one of the most off-cited examples that gets repeated in the fever swamps of the Internet is that my dad has said President Obama should go back to Kenya.”

Mother Jones reported in 2013 that Rafael Cruz had called Obama an “outright Marxist” who “seeks to destroy all concept of God,” and told the president to go “back to Kenya” in videos from Tea Party events. But Ted insists his father’s words were taken out of context.

more
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/ted-cruz-denies-his-dad-is-a-birther-while-admitting-his-father-said-obama-should-go-back-to-kenya/

July 31, 2015

The latest anti-choice move: Try to take custody of a woman’s fetus

JESSICA VALENTI, THE GUARDIAN
31 JUL 2015 AT 10:19 ET

ates have tried all sorts of things to prevent women from having abortions. They’ve enacted waiting periods, ultrasound laws and parental notifications. They’ve passed laws that force doctors to lie to women and force women to visit with ideological zealots . Some legislators have even attempted to make women get a man’s consent before obtaining the procedure – a paternalistic permission slip to access their legal rights.

But Alabama has brought efforts to restrict abortion to a whole new level, as the state tried this week to stop a woman from getting an abortion by terminating her parental rights… to her fetus.

District attorney Chris Connolly filed a petition to terminate an incarcerated woman’s parental rights for the sole purpose of stopping her from ending her pregnancy. The woman, known as Jane Doe, had filed a lawsuit in order to be granted a furlough to obtain the procedure. Connolly told a local paper , “Our position, if the termination for parental rights is granted, is that (she) would not have standing to obtain the abortion.” He’s arguing that Doe’s parental rights should be rescinded because she is facing charges of chemical endangerment of a child.

Alabama ACLU legal director Randall Marshall, one of the woman’s lawyers, told the Huffington Post that this is the first time the state has used these charges to try to prevent an abortion. “It appears to me that what the state is attempting to do is turn Jane Doe into a vessel, and control every aspect of her life,” he said.

If this dystopian Handmaid’s Tale nonsense wasn’t bad enough, Doe’s fetus was even appointed an attorney, thanks to a law passed in 2014 allowing such a move. (As The Daily Show’s brilliant Jessica Williams said to one such ‘fetal attorney ’: “You have a crazy-ass job, sir.”)

more
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/the-latest-anti-choice-move-try-to-take-custody-of-a-womans-fetus/

July 31, 2015

Offers pour in from across the country to help pay killer cop Ray Tensing’s bail and legal bills

People from all over the country offered to help pay the $1 million bond for the former campus police officer charged with murder in the shooting death of an unarmed black motorist.

Ray Tensing, who was fired as a University of Cincinnati police officer, posted 10 percent of the bond shortly before 7 p.m. Thursday, about nine hours after pleading not guilty during his arraignment.

The former officer’s attorney, Stew Mathews, said he had received numerous calls offering to help pay Tensing’s bail and legal fees, but he wasn’t sure whether his client would accept, reported WCPO-TV.

“I’m not prepared to do anything like that, but there are a lot of people who are prepared to help,” Mathews told ABC News. “His family is attempting to raise it through family members. I’m not sure where we are with it.”

Mathews said he would not allow Tensing to speak with the media, and the former officer’s family members have refused to speak with reporters.

more
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/offers-pour-in-from-across-the-country-to-help-pay-killer-cop-ray-tensings-bail-and-legal-bills/

July 31, 2015

Wingnuts are gearing up for another government shutdown — this time over Planned Parenthood

Republicans know how bad a government shutdown over abortion would be, but Ted Cruz and Erick Erickson DGAF

SIMON MALOY

The big news in conservative media land over the past couple of weeks has been a series of undercover “sting” videos released by a shady antiabortion rights activist group claiming to show that Planned Parenthood sells tissues procured from aborted fetuses. As is nearly always the case with videos such as these, they’re edited to make them look far worse than they actually are. Planned Parenthood maintains that any money it receives for procuring those tissues – which have long been used in medical research – is just reimbursement for the costs associated with the procedures. None of the videos that have been released actually show Planned Parenthood doing anything illegal, but they do show representatives of the organization speaking somewhat cavalierly about a grim topic. Many of the people promoting these videos are hoping that the emotional reaction they elicit will stoke a public and political backlash against the nation’s leading provider of reproductive health services.

Conservatives in the media and some hard-line Republicans in Congress believe they’ve come up with a plan for dealing with Planned Parenthood: shut down the government again.

“Shut down the government. Now,” demands Erick Erickson. “The budget and appropriations fights are forthcoming,” he writes. “If Barack Obama is willing to risk a government shutdown because he demands our tax dollars continue funding an organization that kills our children and sells their organs, we should have that fight.” This line of reasoning appeals to legislators like Sen. Ted Cruz – auteur of the last shutdown crisis – who is agitating for Planned Parenthood funding to be stripped as part of the upcoming appropriations battle. “I would support any and all legislative efforts to defund Planned Parenthood,” Cruz says. He has sympathetic ears among some of the more conservative members of the House.

This plan isn’t quite so appealing to the Republican leadership in Congress. Republicans went into the 2014 elections promising voters that they’d be effective stewards of power and competent agents of governance. They haven’t lived up to those promises yet (a partial shutdown was narrowly averted just two months into their reign) and picking a fight over government funding, even when it’s related to a controversial issue like abortion, promises to make them look even worse. They shut down the government over the Affordable Care Act – which was quite unpopular at the time – and they paid for it in the polls. So while the GOP leadership is certainly sympathetic to the complaints of the base over Planned Parenthood, they’re not willing to resort to extreme measures and risk serious political blowback.

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/31/wingnuts_are_gearing_up_for_another_government_shutdown_this_time_over_planned_parenthood/

July 30, 2015

Keystone pipeline’s fate to be decided during Obama’s term

Source: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
30 JUL 2015 AT 08:40 ET

President Barack Obama plans to decide before leaving office whether to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline that would send Canadian crude oil to US refineries.

Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman, said Wednesday that the issue will be resolved before January 2017.

“That approval process is being handled on the merits,” he told reporters.

The 1,179-mile (1,900-kilometer) TransCanada-built pipeline would transport crude from oil sands in energy-rich Alberta province to a network of pipelines that reach across the United States to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/keystone-pipelines-fate-to-be-decided-during-obamas-term/

July 30, 2015

Donald Trump’s media boot-lickers: Joe Scarborough, Howard Kurtz & other useful establishment idiots

Donald Trump’s media boot-lickers: Joe Scarborough, Howard Kurtz & other useful establishment idiots

The GOP candidate does not have many media defenders. But shockingly, he has more than zero

JIM NEWELL

We write about Donald Trump a lot over here at the Salon Dot Com web magazine. Have you noticed? He’s a character. Rarely does it occur to us, though, to treat anything he does in either the political or entertainment arenas as laudable. He is a joke on the political system and the Republican Party that, inexplicably, some portion of the United States population has yet to pick up on. That’s why it’s such a great joke.

Some media figures — a small portion, to be sure — take a different approach to Trump’s campaign. What they do is bend on their knees, pucker up, and kiss his ass. Why put themselves through this indignity? Perhaps for access: kissing up to a public figure is a tried-and-true way to retain good relationships with that figure and his or her handlers. If you’re going to be so blatantly unethical in your professional duties, it might as well be with Donald Trump, who gets very big, very bigly classy ratings, the biggest ratings in history. The scarier explanation for why some media figures kiss Trump’s ass is because they genuinely believe that Trump is a laudable human being. In other words, because they are dumb.

The Trump ass-kissers fascinate us. But which of them is the worst? Let’s share several recent, comical instances of the media kissing Trump’s ass recently, and you decide which of them is the most egregious.

Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity loves Donald Trump. Has him on his show like every night. Hannity may one of the figures who just does this for the ratings, but maybe he does it because he is dumb, too. Who’s to say?

-snip-

Howard Kurtz

Howard Kurtz appears willing to discard whatever shred of integrity he still possesses as an arbiter of journalistic ethics on defending Donald Trump against the reporters his campaign terrorizes. He has both appeared on Fox News and written on FoxNews.com arguing that the Daily Beast’s story was unfit for publication.

-snip-

“Morning Joe”

Trump has appeared on Morning Joe a lot recently. Its hosts have begun to enjoy his company, and might like to have him on again.

-snip-

Matthew Boyle

Matthew Boyle of Breitbart News writes nice things about Donald Trump because Donald Trump trashes immigrants, and in turn, Donald Trump gives Matthew Boyle all sorts of EXCLUSIVE interviews. Boyle typically introduces Trump as either “billionaire real estate magnate Donald Trump” or “real estate magnate billionaire Donald Trump,” much like how Donald Trump might introduce himself. Or here’s one about “real estate magnate, reality television star, billionaire and 2016 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.” Emphasis ours:

-snip-

more:
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/30/donald_trumps_media_boot_lickers_joe_scarborough_howard_kurtz_other_useful_establishment_idiots/

July 30, 2015

Trump Dominates Fellow GOPers, But Trails Democrats In New Poll

Source: TPM

Donald Trump dominated the Republican presidential field in yet another poll on Thursday, but his favorability was the lowest of any candidate and he lost all three match-ups with Democrats tested by Quinnipiac University in a poll released on Thursday.

Twenty percent of registered Republican voters said they would vote for Trump in the Republican primary, with 13 percent favoring Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) and 10 percent choosing former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R).

However, Trump also dominated the "no way " list, with 30 percent of Republican voters saying they would never vote for Trump in the presidential primary, while 15 percent said they would never vote for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and 14 percent said they would not vote for Bush. The real estate mogul also has a low favorability rating, with just 27 percent of voters viewing him positively.


And although Trump faired well against his primary opponents, voters chose Democratic candidates over Trump. Among registered voters, Trump trailed Hillary Clinton by 12 points, Vice President Joe Biden by 12 points, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) by 8 points.

-snip-

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/polltracker/quinnipiac-poll-july-trump-dominates

July 30, 2015

The New York Times’ humiliating Judith Miller déjà vu: How its Hillary investigation went so wrong

Deputy executive editor Matt Purdy blames the publication's sources for its erroneous reporting. Sound familiar?

ERIC BOEHLERT, MEDIA MATTERS

“I was wrong because my sources were wrong.” — Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, 2005.

“We got it wrong because our very good sources had it wrong.” New York Times Deputy Executive Editor Matt Purdy, 2015.

One of the most baffling elements to The New York Times botched story about a fictional “criminal” investigation bearing down on Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email account is the seemingly shrug-of-the-shoulders response from the Times editors who are ultimately responsible for the newsroom’s black eye.

Rather than signaling that they’re drilling down to find out exactly what went wrong and how such a painfully inaccurate story landed on the Times’ front page (there is no criminal investigation), to date editors seem content to simply blame sources for giving Times reporters bad information.

“This story demands more than a promise to do better the next time, and more than a shrug,” wrote Norm Ornstein in The Atlantic. “Someone should be held accountable here, with suspension or other action that fits the gravity of the offense.”

But there’s no indication that’s going to happen, largely because there’s no indication editors blame the reporters or themselves for the embarrassing failure. Instead, they mostly fault sources who gave the Times bogus information about an alleged “criminal” probe of Clinton sought by two inspectors general.

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/30/the_new_york_times_humiliating_judith_miller_deja_vu_how_their_hillary_investigation_went_so_wrong_partner/

July 30, 2015

Can Florida Dems Squash Alan Grayson?

Orlando’s outspoken progressive congressman is running for Marco Rubio’s U.S. Senate seat, and might win the primary—a thought that has Florida Democrats terrified.

Eleanor Clift

A messy fight between traditional Democrats and the party’s emboldened progressive wing in Florida could cost Democrats their best shot at taking Marco Rubio’s senate seat. Rep. Alan Grayson, who first gained fame saying the Republican health care plan is “Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quick,” is giving Democrats heartburn with his decision to enter the 2016 senate race.

Grayson has a national following for the way he sticks it to both Republicans and his fellow Democrats. But beyond those drinking the Kool-Aid, Democrats don’t want him as their standard-bearer in a hotly contested race that’s key to winning the senate majority.

“He’s a love him or hate him guy, and he doesn’t get much love outside the Netroots progressive core,” says Brad Coker of Mason Dixon Polling and Research. “The money people in Florida wouldn’t support him.”

Efforts to dissuade Grayson from running only seem to egg him on, and to energize his voters. A Mason Dixon poll released Monday showed a tight race, with Grayson at 33 percent, and Rep. Patrick Murphy, who has been endorsed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, at 32 percent, with 35 percent undecided.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/30/can-florida-dems-squash-alan-grayson.html

July 30, 2015

Ted Cruz Gets Jealous Of Trump Coverage, Lashes Out At Obama To Feel Better About Himself

July 30, 2015 By Allen Clifton

Since the Obama administration, the U.N. and many of our allies agreed with Iran on a nuclear deal, the rhetoric coming from the Republican party has been absolutely absurd. From Mike Huckabee suggesting that this brings Jews “to the door of the oven,” to many Republicans suggesting this will bring about WWIII, it’s almost comical how these folks have acted.

Then again, this is really nothing new. After all, these are the same people who’ve compared the Affordable Care Act to Nazi Germany and insisted that climate change is all some giant liberal hoax.

Well, Sen. Ted Cruz took it up a notch by essentially saying that with this deal, President Obama has now become the largest sponsor of terrorism in the world.

“If this deal is consummated, it will make the Obama administration the world’s leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism,” Cruz said. “Billions of dollars under control of this administration will flow into the hands of jihadists who will use that money to murder Americans, to murder Israelis, to murder Europeans.

Those are the sorts of comments I’m talking about when I say it’s impossible to take these people seriously. There are ways to go about objecting to something without the outrageous rhetoric Republicans often use. It’s one thing to dislike a president’s policies, but to hear Republicans talk they really do view him as an enemy to the United States – which is absolutely appalling.

Read more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/ted-cruz-disgustingly-accuses-president-obama-sponsoring-terrorism/?