“That is our generation’s task.. to make life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness real for EVERY American… it does require us to act in our time.. we have the obligation to shape the debates of our time… with passion and dedication let us answer the call of history…” - Pres. Barack Obama
Stonewall, Seneca Falls, and immigration <3
together
It’s a little bit like being the head caretaker of the cemetery. There are a lot of people under you, but nobody listens.
— Rep. Hal Rodgers (R-KY), quoted by the New York Times, describing House Speaker John Boehner’s grip on power. (via liberalsarecool)
(Source: politicalwire.com)
It’s a little bit like being the head caretaker of the cemetery. There are a lot of people under you, but nobody listens.
— Rep. Hal Rodgers (R-KY), quoted by the New York Times, describing House Speaker John Boehner’s grip on power. (via liberalsarecool)
(Source: politicalwire.com)
An alternate reality where Barack Obama is a socialist Muslim; global warming is from polar bear farts; Fox News is ‘fair and balanced’; and the greatest threat to our way of life in a time of unprecedented economic inequality and institutional advantage(s) for the wealthy is two dudes who wanna get married.
— JON STEWART, on what the Republicans actually built when they say “We built it,” on The Daily Show (via inothernews)
The Party’s platform on the issue of abortion adopts for the entire Party the Todd Akin policy of no exceptions, of no empathy for rape & incest victims.
Former RNC Chair Michael Steele said the plank is “way outside the mainstream” but that it would be a waste of time for Mitt Romney to change it. Paul Ryan called rape another “method of conception” but was quick to clarify the president sets policy, so therefore his position is irrelevant.
Is it?
As Rachel Maddow and others have pointed out, pro-life to the point of banning abortion entirely is the most consistent position to have in the debate over reproductive rights. Why? Because if you’re truly pro-life, and believe a fetus is a person from the moment of conception, then a life is a life is a life, no matter its method of conception.
Personally, I find this position horrifying. Zerlina Maxwell writes, “Sexual assault should never be referred to as a method of conception. American women are not baby incubators. Forcing women to have babies against their wishes is not a ‘vast improvement’ over the status quo, not for rape victims and not for anyone else.”
I agree, and I’ll be curious to see if this is addressed in any way in Tampa.
- Meg
My post on the Election blog today
(Source: sansastone)
Well, you know, Andrea, there’s no delicate way to put this, but he lied. He blatantly lied, and brazenly. A number of different things have been fact checked by members of the media, independent fact checkers… Facts are powerful things. We didn’t hear many of them last night.
— Stephanie Cutter, the Obama campaign’s deputy manager, on Paul Ryan’s RNC speech Wednesday night. (via motherjones)
“I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine,” said Doug Preisse, chairman of the county Republican Party and elections board member who voted against weekend hours, in an email toThe Dispatch. “Let’s be fair and reasonable.”
He called claims of unfairness by Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern and others “bullshit. Quote me!” (via Columbus Dispatch)
9:54:Huckabee boasts that he’s helped fight AIDS with the ONE campaign, but the homophobia he spews and abstinence-only policies he supports contribute to the HIV epidemic.
9:49: Huckabee accuses Obama of waging a war on Catholics, referring to an Obamacare provision which requires employers and insurers to offer women birth control. But the measure exempts houses of worship and religiously-affiliated institutions from the requirement.
9:48: Huckabee raises doubts about Obama’s religion. Calls him a “self-professed evangelical” who “tells people of faith that they must bow their knees to the god of government.”
9:46: Huckabee has been the most vocal supporter of Todd Akin in the immediate wake of his “legitimate rape” comments.
9:43:: Huckabee reprises Newt Gingrich’s “food stamp president” line about Obama, ignoring that the growth in food stamps was due to a recession that began before Obama took office. The program has helped keep millions out of poverty, but it faces the axe under Paul Ryan’s budget. A diverse group of faith leaders has condemned the cuts.
9:40: Pretty tasteless line from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: “The only hitch in an otherwise perfect week was the awful noise coming from the hotel room next door to mine. Turns out it was just Debbie Wasserman Schultz practicing her speech for the DNC in Charlotte next week.”
“Paul Ryan gave a feisty anti-Obama speech that will have fact-checkers working for days. His most brazen lie accused President Obama of “raiding” Medicare by taking the exact same $716 billion that Ryan and the House GOP notoriously voted to slash. It was stunning.
But that’s not all. He attacked Obama for failing to keep open a Janesville GM plant that closed under Bush in 2008. He hit him for a credit-rating downgrade that S&P essentially blamed on GOP intransigence. He claimed that all taxpayers got from the 2009 stimulus was “more debt,” when most got a tax cut (and the stimulus is known to have saved between 1.4 and 3.3 million jobs.) He derided the president for walking away from the Simpson Bowles commission deficit-cutting recommendations when Ryan himself, a commission member, voted against those recommendations.
He blamed Obama for a deficit mostly created by programs he himself voted for – from two wars, tax cuts, new Medicare benefits and TARP.
And of course, he riffed on the tired central lie of the GOP convention: that the president said “government gets the credit” for small businesses, not the business owners themselves.
Other than that, it was a great speech.
Interestingly, for all his lies, Ryan didn’t repeat the Romney camp’s false claim that Obama did away with the welfare system’s work requirements. Maybe he ran out of time.
Ryan got off a few good zingers: “College grads shouldn’t have to live out their 20s in childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters.” He didn’t mention that he opposed legislation to keep student loan rates from doubling. His remarks about his childhood were slightly moving. He talked about losing his father at 16, and he called his mother, who went back to school and to work after that, his role model. But he never mentioned the Social Security death benefits that let him go to an out-of-state school. Occasionally he seemed to be going after swing-voters, rather than his hard-right base, taking a more in sorrow than anger tone about Obama’s failings. Then he’d mix things up with nastiness and lies.” by Joan Walsh
Click through for more:
(Source: whatyoustoleicanrecreate)
Through Obamacare, the current Administration has promoted the notion of abortion as healthcare. We, however, affirm the dignity of women by protecting the sanctity of human life. Numerous studies have shown that abortion endangers the health and well-being of women, and we stand firmly against it.
— The 2012 GOP platform • Laying out the party’s official position on abortion rights, which RNC chairman Reince Priebus sought to distance from the Romney campaign last week. As had been reported in the days leading up to the platform’s release, it includes no exceptions for victims of rape or incest, but this was the first glimpse of specific language – claiming a protection of the “dignity of women,” and referencing health risks from abortion, albeit in an entirely non-specific manner (to be sure, any medical procedure has some degree of risk involved, but scientifically unfounded claims about abortion and breast cancer have been common for years). source (via • follow)
Young Mitt Romney took full advantage of every opportunity he was granted and is clearly a genuinely successful businessman. Anyone can — and should — applaud the young Romneys’ frugality, determination and dedication. But that success must also be credited in large part to his unique level of privilege, which clearly shielded the young couple from the true nature of poverty. And real poverty, I am afraid to inform Mrs. Romney, is not merely a series of choices in décor. It is not some sort of a lark. It is not an act of youthful defiance. It is not living frugally simply because you want to prove a point. It is having nothing to fall back on. It is knowing that if you fail or run into even a tiny bit of bad luck, you and your family will not have food or shelter.
— Larry Womack: Ann Romney Addresses the Common People (via apsies)
