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Gun regulations in Israel (and some shameless self promotion)
August 22, 2012
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by David Safier In my column in the Explorer, I decided to take a different tack in discussing gun regulations. Rather than diving into the debate head on, I wrote about the way Israel regulates personal gun ownership. Israel's gun policies surprised me when I read about them recently. Gun regulations are strict, gun ownership … Read more
Rep. Todd Akin should be the keynote speaker at the GOP convention
August 22, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: As I posted the other day in The GOP war on women: define 'legitimate' rape, "Rep. Todd Akin's comment reflects the mainstream view of the majority of the Tea-Publican Caucus in Congress. Akin's ignorant comment is not the product of the lunatic ravings of a madman. But that is what the GOP would have you believe today … Read more
‘Galt – Gekko 2012’ campaign wants to avoid a ‘great debate’
August 21, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Great post today from Greg Sargent on the "Galt – Gekko 2012" Big Lie propaganda campaign. No Romney and Ryan really don't want a great debate:
Ever since Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan, it’s been widely claimed that this ensures a “great debate” pitting two starkly different ideological visions over the future against one another. But it’s now clear that the GOP ticket doesn’t want a great debate at all. Their entire strategy is designed to obscure the true ideological differences between both sides.
Many media figures have pointed out that Romney has refused to detail his positions on issue after issue. What’s less appreciated is the real reason he’s doing this. The GOP candidates don’t really want that much-ballyhooed “great debate.” If they did want a contest between two grand visions, they wouldn’t be shying away from discussing the true nature and implications of their own vision. Yet they are doing just that.
This explains why the Romney campaign has been campaigning so heavily on two falsehoods about Obama’s policies: That he gutted welfare reform’s work requirement and raided Medicare to pay for Obamacare. The former claim is a distraction; the latter is about muddying the two sides’ actual differences over what to do about the popular entitlement. The muddying is necessary because the actual Ryan vision for Medicare’s future is deeply unpopular. Same on taxes: Romney won’t detail how he’d pay for his deep tax cuts — which would disproportionately benefit the rich — because paying for them with middle class tax hikes would be politically unacceptable. Must-read from Mike Tomasky:
These guys may not be able to count, but they can read polls, and so they know very well that if they gave the county the honest debate we were told we were going to have about Medicare, and for that matter about taxation, they’d wake up Nov. 7 with about 120 electoral votes in their pockets and conservatism in tatters.
They know this. They know that the truth would crush them electorally. And so it follows that they know they must lie. They must lie about their Medicare plans. They must lie about the effects of their tax plans on average people and rich people. And they must tell a number of lies about Obama, all the better if they involve race, as the welfare lie does.
So this will be the entire point of the Romney-Ryan campaign. Lie lie lie. Muddy the waters. Turn day to night, fire to water, champagne to piss. Peddle themselves as the precise opposite of what they actually are. That is clearly the m.o.
This really explains everything. It explains what Ezra Klein has called the “policy gap” between the campaigns, in which only one side is proposing actual policies. . .
Obama campaign ad on Romney education plan
August 21, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Via Steve Benen, Education policy comes into sharper focus:
On education, Romney's stump speech tells voters, "We're going to make sure our kids and our adults have the skills they need to succeed. We need to make sure our schools are the best in the world. They are not now. They will be. We'll make them the best."
How? The answer is one of Romney's biggest vulnerabilities.
The Democratic National Committee unveiled this video this morning, noting Romney's education plan and the details of the Republican agenda: slash Pell Grants, cut college tax credits, reintroduce the loan-system middleman that rewards banks instead of students, and encourage young people to choose wealthy parents when thinking about higher education.
And what about students who've worked hard, been accepted to the school of their choice, but don't have parents with large amounts of disposable income? Under Romney's vision, these people are simply out of luck. Higher education isn't an option — young people who can't afford to go to their college of their choice should "shop around" for some other institution, because a Romney administration doesn't intend to help with Pell Grants or student loans.
Video below the fold.
Romney’s Neocon foreign policy advisers want a war with Iran ‘on day one’
August 21, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I posted back in May, An Inexperienced Romney and his Neocon Bush Foreign Policy Advisers:
One of the things that ought to give anyone pause about Willard
"Mittens" Romney is that he has surrounded himself with the
Neoconservative war mongers from George W. Bush's presidency who gave us
the bogus intelligence for an unnecessary war in Iraq that cost us so
much in American lives and treasure. Not to mention set this country on a
dark course to illegal torture and rendition as if we are the old
Soviet Union.
These guys ought to be on trial for war crimes before a Nuremberg Tribunal-style court, not walking around free to peddle their "American Century" Pax Americana Empire wet dreams to Tea-Publican candidates for president.
Twenty three of Romney's senior advisers served under Bush in some capacity, several serving in key roles in the administration. Here is the full list of Mitt Romney's national security team.
Today, Neocon war monger Elliott Abrams asked that Congress enact another Authorization for Use of Military Force resolution, this time against Iran, so that the Neocon war mongers may immediately continue their "American Century" Pax Americana Empire wet dream should Americans be foolish enough to elect Romney. These Neocon war mongers want a war with Iran "on day one." Ryan Adviser Calls On Congress To Authorize War With Iran:
Elliott Abrams, a former Bush Administration official who focuses on the Middle East, took to the pages of [bloody Bill Kristol's] Weekly Standard to argue that neither Iranians nor Israelis think the Obama administration is “serious” about attacking Iran, and that the only real way to convince them is having Congress vote for war:
In any event, the debate over a joint resolution will clarify who stands where. At the moment, no one is persuaded that the United States will use force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. That situation worries Israelis and emboldens Iranians, not the outcome we want. A clear statement now that is backed by the nominees of both parties and elicits widespread support in Congress would demonstrate that, whatever the election results, American policy is set. That is the best (and may be the only) way to avoid an Israeli strike in the near future and the best (and may be the only) way to persuade Iran to negotiate seriously. And if we are unwilling as a nation to state that we will act to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, that conclusion should solidify support for what would then become the inevitable Israeli strike. A refusal by the White House to seek such a joint resolution would itself suggest that, while “all options are on the table,” the likelihood is that that is precisely where they will remain.
Going on the Buckmaster Show Wednesday
August 21, 2012
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by David Safier I'll be doing another Blogger Beat segment on the Buckmaster Show Wednesday. The show starts at noon on KVOI (1030 AM). I should be on around 12:30. We'll be talking about — we'll see when I get there. Plenty of topics to choose from.
DNC Convention Preview: Latino Star Power
August 21, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro will deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, making him the first Latino to receive the honor. Julian Castro, San Antonio Mayor, To Be First Latino DNC Keynote Speaker:
"As mayor, Julian Castro has worked tirelessly to move San Antonio forward by building its economy from the middle out, not the top down, by putting the city on a path to being a leader in the new energy economy and making innovative investments in education to prepare San Antonio's students for the jobs of the future," said Los Angeles Mayor and Democratic Convention Chair Antonio Villaraigosa in a statement. "That's the same vision forward for the middle class the President has, and it stands in stark contrast to Mitt Romney, who's ready to return us to the same policies that crashed our economy."
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In a video message, Castro, 37, called his role at the convention "an honor I don't take lightly." He recalled watching and being inspired by President Barack Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 convention. That speech catapulted Obama, at the time a state senator from Illinois, onto the national stage.
"We've come so far over the past three and a half years under Obama's leadership," Castro said in the video. "And I know he's not done yet. We've got a lot more work to do."
Video beow the fold.
WaPo Editorial: The repugnant code behind Todd Akin’s words
August 21, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Washington Post editorializes today, The repugnant code behind Todd Akin’s words:
LITTLE WONDER that Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican nominee to represent Missouri in the U.S. Senate, is trying to back away from his comments about abortion and rape. So ignorant and offensive were his remarks that members of Mr. Akin’s own party, including its presidential standard-bearer, issued strong condemnations,enoug though it took them a while to get strong h. Mr. Akin was utterly unconvincing in explaining that he “misspoke.” It is scary that someone so ill-informed could hold elective office or have a chance of becoming a senator.
[Note to Editors: Have you actually met the members of Congress? Todd Akin is neither unique nor the most ill-informed and extreme member of Congress. There are more where he came from.]
The comments, first aired Sunday on St. Louis’s KTVI-TV, bear repeating, if only to underscore Mr. Akin’s alarming worldview. Responding to a question about whether he would ease his opposition to abortion to allow exceptions for women who have been raped, the six-term congressman said, “It seems to me, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
It’s idiotic, to borrow the phrase of GOP strategist Mike Murphy, to say — citing doctors, no less — that women’s bodies contain some hidden defenses that can kick in to prevent pregnancies. To suggest there are different categories of rape — some real and awful and others that are not — is loathsome. [See last paragraph of opinion below.] Even from someone who would liken student loans to Stage 3 cancer, as Mr. Akin once did, the comment was stunning in its stupidity and insensitivity.
At first, Mr. Akin issued a statement saying that he “misspoke” and his “off-the-cuff remarks” didn’t “reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year.” The explanation was hard to square with the fact that opposition to abortion has been a core tenet of his time in office — the issue isn’t new to him, in other words — and that he expounded on his thoughts during a lengthy interview with KTVI’s Charles Jaco.
As calls mounted for him to withdraw from the Senate race and the National Republican Senatorial Committee announced it would not spend any money to help elect him, Mr. Akin apologized Monday on former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee’s radio show, calling his remarks “a very, very serious error.” Indeed.
