Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist: Why I’m backing Barack Obama
August 26, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a Republican, penned an op-ed today exclusive to the Tampa Bay Times, Former Gov. Charlie Crist: Here's why I'm backing Barack Obama:
I’ve studied, admired and gotten to know a lot of leaders in my life. Across Florida, in Washington and around the country, I've watched the failure of those who favor extreme rhetoric over sensible compromise, and I've seen how those who never lose sight of solutions sow the greatest successes.
As America prepares to pick our president for the next four years — and as Florida prepares once again to play a decisive role — I'm confident that President Barack Obama is the right leader for our state and the nation. I applaud and share his vision of a future built by a strong and confident middle class in an economy that gives us the opportunity to reap prosperity through hard work and personal responsibility. It is a vision of the future proven right by our history.
We often remind ourselves to learn the lessons of the past, lest we risk repeating its mistakes. Yet nearly as often, our short-term memory fails us. Many have already forgotten how deep and daunting our shared crisis was in the winter of 2009, as President Obama was inaugurated. It was no ordinary challenge, and the president served as the nation's calm through a historically turbulent storm.
The president's response was swift, smart and farsighted. He kept his compass pointed due north and relentlessly focused on saving jobs, creating more and helping the many who felt trapped beneath the house of cards that had collapsed upon them.
He knew we had to get people back to work as quickly as possible — but he also knew that the value of a recovery lies in its durability. Short-term healing had to be paired with an economy that would stay healthy over the long run. And he knew that happens best by investing in the right places.
Women’s Equality Day – if you can keep it
August 26, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
August 26 of each year is designated Women's Equality Day, commemorating the granting of the vote to women throughout the country on an equal basis with men. Women in the United States were granted the right to vote on August 26, 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was certified.
Today is a day to not only celebrate the enacting of the 19th Amendment, but to call attention to women’s continuing efforts toward full equality to make the United States a more equal society. Full participatory rights by women are essential to real democracy. This civil rights movement continues.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in an interview with California Lawyer, dismissed the idea that the 14th Amendment prohibits gender discrimination:
The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws.
His views are not new; Scalia has also dismissed the idea that the 14th Amendment might protect against gender discrimination in his dissent in U.S. v Virginia. Scalia is correct that the authors of the 14th Amendment intended to address equal protection under the law on the basis of race in the aftermath of the Civil War and the freeing of African-American slaves.
But 14th Amendment equal protection jurisprudence has been extended by the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous Acts of Congress to other classes of U.S. citizens to prohibit intentional discrimination by the government, including sex (gender), age, national origin, religion, disability or handicap, and in recent years, sexual orientation.
The fact that Justice Scalia expresses any doubt that women enjoy equal protection under the law is cause for concern. Last year, Democratic lawmakers reintroduced the Equal Rights Amendment in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to deny class action status to a gender-discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart. Lawmakers reintroduce ERA in wake of Supreme Court's Wal-Mart decision:
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) on Wednesday reintroduced the Equal Rights Amendment at an event outside the Capitol. [H.J.RES.69 has 186 cosponsors. S.J.RES.21 has 15 cosponsors.]
“The Equal Rights Amendment is still needed because the only way for women to achieve permanent equality in the U.S. is to write it into the Constitution,” Maloney said, according to a subsequent press release.
“Making women’s equality a constitutional right — after Congress passes and 38 states ratify the ERA — would place the United States on record, albeit more than 200 years late, that women are fully equal in the eyes of the law,” she said.
PALF Labor Day 2012
August 26, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Announcement from the Pima Area Labor Federation:
The Birther of a Nation
August 25, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The caption is based upon D. W. Griffith's silent film classic, The Birth of a Nation (1915). As film critic Roger Ebert notes:
Griffith and "The Birth of a Nation" were no more enlightened than the America which produced them. The film represents how racist a white American could be in 1915 without realizing he was racist at all.
Willard "Mittens" Romney's Birther joke was a paen to the racists of the Tea Party who have demonized Barack Obama as a "Kenyan born secret Muslim (pick one) socialist/communist/marxist/Leninist/Stalinist/liberal." It is a belief rooted in the long and sordid history of racism in America which produced them. Did Romney realize his joke was a dog whistle appeal to the racism of his supporters?
Romney told CBS yesterday afternoon that he doesn't question the president's citizenship, adding, "Humor, you know, we've got to have a little humor in a campaign…. [T]he crowd loved it and got a good laugh."
Yes, demonizing Barack Obama and questioning his Americaness by casting him as an "other" (or as a European socialist as Romney has done at other times) are humorous to Willard "Mittens" Romney. And just because his ignorant racist supporters find this funny, that makes it OK? What does this say about the character, temperament and judgment of this man?
The Obama campaign has already unveiled a new web video about Romney's joke, "America doesn't need a Birther-in-Chief." (Video below the fold).
The voice-over tells viewers, "Holding out hope Romney had a vision for the middle class? Think again." After showing the clip of Romney's joke, the web video concludes, "Embracing unfounded conspiracy theories, distracting from real issues. America doesn't need a Birther-in-Chief."
GOP Convention Preview
August 25, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The GOP tent revival prayer meeting and 3-ring circus gets underway in Tampa, Florida next wek.
The Republican National Convention has already had to reshuffle its previously announced schedule due in part to the threat from hurricane Isaac, political maneuvering around Ron Paul delegates, and the networks who were not going to telecast the opening night of the convention on Monday.
Some of the changes: the roll call of state delegates has been moved up to the first night on Monday, rather than Wednesday, to thwart Ron Paul troublemakers who want to stage a floor demonstration (sorry, no network TV losers). Ann Romney has been moved to Tuesday so that she can get network TV coverage of her herculean task to convince "you people" that Willard "Mittens" Romney is really a "warm and fuzzy" nice guy. Yeah, good luck with that Marie Antoinette.
The reshuffled lineup has not yet been announced. Based upon previous press releases, this is the best I can determine as to the list of speakers at the convention, always subject to change:
The "Headliners"
- United States Senator from New Hampshire, Kelly Ayote – she doesn't know who you are either
- Former Alabama Democratic Congressman Artur Davis – This year's version of Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA) – will he also challenge MSNBC's Chris Matthews to a duel?
- Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal – he's also an exorcist! (Google it)
- Florida Congressman Connie Mack, who is running for the Senate – the senile geezers in Florida think they are still voting for his father
- Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell – aka "governor transvaginal ultrasound"
- United States Senator from Ohio Rob Portman – George W. Bush's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the man who brought you the Bush Great Recession
The Keynote Speaker is a Thanksgiving Day balloon on loan from Macy's, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie — he comes with his own hot air. I hope they built a lift into the stage so he can just pop up from below; the usual long walk to the podium might just give him a heart attack.
The Convention theme is "A Better Future" — Republicans want to take you back to the good old days of the 50s — the 1850s.
To this end, the disgraced former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich will host Newt University, a series of public policy workshops for delegates to brush up on culture warrior policy and the Christian Reconstructionist revisionist history behind the GOP platform (to be released on Monday).
No plans have been announced yet for the "Birther King," Donald Trump, but he assures us that his role will be "really huge" — like his ego.
Arizona's Cracker Contingent led by our George Wallace in a dress governor, Jan Brewer, Secretary of State Ken "Birther" Bennett, and Sheriff Bull Connor Crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio will attend to celebrate Kris Kobach's SB 1070 anti-immigration plank in the GOP platform, a salute to our Cracker Contingent. Crazy Uncle Joe has also been assigned the unenviable task of cleaning up behind the elephants at the Tampa Zoo after a fundraiser.
A real doctor versus a flake on women’s reproductive health
August 25, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Jim Nintzel at the Tucson Weekly has already done an excellent job of reporting on this issue, so I hope that he will not mind that I repost his reporting at length here (kudos). Flake vs. Carmona on Abortion Rights | The Tucson Weekly:
Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin’s comments about "legtimate rape" and abortion have thrust the topic into the center of the nation’s political debate just one week before the Republican National Convention.
Congressman Jeff Flake, who is the odds-on favorite to win the GOP primary next week, has urged Akin to get out of the race.
After a speech Tuesday afternoon at the Pima County Republican Club, Flake said that while he believes abortion should be illegal in most cases, he supports an exemption for rape, incest and the life of the mother.
“I have always, throughout my career, said that there should be exceptions for rape, for incest and for life of the mother, “ Flake said. “I’ve received a lot of criticism from groups on the right because my position wasn’t as they wanted it to be, but that’s been my position and I’m sticking with it.”
But the Arizona Democratic Party is reminding voters that Flake was one of 227 co-sponsors on the bill that Akin was discussing when he got into trouble this week.
That bill, H.R. 3, was designed to narrow the circumstances under which federal dollars could be used to pay for an abortion. Among other changes in federal law, it would have redefined “rape” to “forcible rape” in regards to an exemption to the Hyde amendment, which blocks the use of federal funding to terminate a pregnancy.
The Christian Science Monitor has a good run-down of the controversy regarding the bill here. The CSM noted:
The term “forcible rape” was never explicitly defined, but pro-abortion-rights forces presumed the bill would preclude federal funding for abortions of pregnancies resulting from a variety of rapes where force may not be involved, including date rape, statutory rape, the rape of a woman who had been drugged, and the rape of a mentally incompetent woman. The bill also restricts abortions in cases of incest to females who are minors.
Flake said Tuesday that he makes “no distinctions” between different forms of rape. [Then why did he cosponsor the original bill that included the "forcible rape" language?]
“’Forcible rape’ seems redundant to me,” Flake said. [Yeah, you say that now after all the blowback.]
Where does Martha McSally stand on the Todd Akin abortion plank in the GOP platform?
August 25, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
CD 2 Republican congressional candidate Martha McSally has gotten kid-gloves treatment and a free pass from the local media villagers during this primary, running a below the radar campaign. She is an unknown quantity as a result. That is about to change after Tuesday's primary election.
The media villagers can start with a direct question about the hot-button issue of the week for Tea-Publicans going into their convention: "Where do you stand on the "legitimate rape" comments of Rep. Todd Akin running for the Senate in Missouri, and where do you stand on the "no exceptions" anti-abortion plank in the GOP platform?"
The media villagers should also ask her direct questions whether she will support Reps. Todd Akin and Paul Ryan's bill to redefine rape as "forced rape," an end-run around statutory rape laws and instances of emotional abuse and intimidation to limit access to abortions. And whether she will support Reps. Todd Akin and Paul Ryan's bill defining life as beginning at conception — thus reducing an adult woman to second class citizen status to her fertilized egg.
Does McSally's views on "small government" mean a government small enough to declare her uterus property of the state and to dictate her access to contraception and abortion, and general reproductive health? The kid-gloves come off now.
Now, I know that the leader of the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, has told Tea-Publicans not to answer these questions, but you media villagers need to demand an answer and keep pressing. Don't accept the crap that Jesse Kelly pulled during his now infamous K-GUN 9 interview about support from an anti-immigration organization.
The Arizona Democratic Party issued this press release this week:
