Category: Politics
Sounds like Christie’s folks are engaging in, can you say… intimidation?
Amid mounting criticism that their tactics violated civil liberties, the state attorney general today ordered the State Police to stop taking pictures of protesters at Gov. Chris Christie’s town hall meetings — for any reason.
The order came a day after a man who identified himself as a member of the State Police photographed people who disrupted one of the governor’s usually highly orchestrated events.
In a statement issued to The Star-Ledger, acting Attorney General John Hoffman said he and State Police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes had “instructed the State Police to no longer photograph at these events for security or any other purposes.”
Christie plans to hold another town hall meeting Thursday in Flemington.
In calling for a halt to the practice, Hoffman said: “The State Police is responsible for the safety and security of the governor and the public at town hall meetings. In doing so, the State Police are careful to guarantee that First Amendment rights are respected and the public — whether expressing positive or negative sentiments toward the governor and his policies — have ample opportunity to make their positions known.”
I think the Democratic Congressman is just calling it as he sees it. They claim that they’re against “big spending government,” but where was the Teaparty when Bush spent us into oblivion?
In an interview with NY1, Rangel said “it’s hard for me to explain how you work with a president that thought that he could really deal with the Republican leadership,” Rangel said. “Maybe it was the water that they drink at Harvard,” he continued, referring to Obama’s time at Harvard Law School.
While Rangel was disappointed with the president, his ire was at its most intense when discussing the Tea Party. If Rangel had to describe the right-wing movement in a word, it would appear he’d have a hard time choosing between “racist” and “mean.”
“They are mean, racist people,” Rangel said of the Tea Party. “Now why do I say that? Because in those red states, they’re the same slave-holding states.”
“They had the Confederate flag,” he continued. “They became Dixiecrats; they had the Confederate flag. They’re now the Tea Party; they still got the Confederate [flag].”
“I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” Rangel added. “There is nothing the president can do – not love of country, not love of party – that they’re not prepared to kill themselves to get to him.”
As Politicker.com notes, this isn’t the first time Rangel has attacked the Tea Party and described the movement as racist in nature. During the Summer of 2013, Rangel said Tea Partyers were “the same group we faced in the South with those white crackers and the dogs and the police.”
Young Turks host Cenk Uygur criticized MSNBC counterpart Touré for his recent commentary calling for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) not to run for president, in order to assure former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can provide the Democratic Party with a “pragmatic” 2016 candidate.
“This is the same kind of horsecrap I’ve been hearing for the entire time we’ve been doing this show,” Uygur said, shaking his head. “‘No, no, we should run weak-ass Democrats because it’s the pragmatic thing to do. And then what do they do? They get rolled over by Republicans because they’re Republican-lite. Republican vs. Republican, the Republican always wins.”
On Monday, Touré expressed his support for Clinton, saying past Democratic attempts to run behind “true liberal” candidates like Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis had failed, and called Warren an “inexperienced candidate who fits neatly into the classic caricature of Dems as effete latte-sipping, Volvo-driving, Ivy Leaguers” while praising her for not being afraid to take on Wall Street interests, a contrast upon which Uygur seized.
Some of you wouldn’t believe this, but Republicans have been lying to you all along… about everything… especially Obamacare, also called The Affordable Care Act.
Let’s begin with the meme threatening that healthcare reform will lead to a serious decline in full-time employment as employers reduce workforce hours to below 30 per week in the effort to avoid their responsibility to provide health benefits to their employees.
It turns out that there has, in fact, been no such rush to reduce work hours. Indeed, numbers released last week reveal that precisely the opposite is taking place.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the number of part-time workers in the United States has fallen by 300,000 since March of 2010 when the Affordable Care Act was passed into law. What’s more, in the past year alone—the time period in which the nation was approaching the start date for Obamacare—full-time employment grew by over 2 million while part-time employment declined by 230,000.
And it gets even more interesting.
Despite the cries of anguish over the coming destruction of private sector work opportunities at the hands of Obamacare, it turns out that the only significant ‘cutter’ of work hours turns out to be in the public sector where cops, teachers, prison guards and the like are experiencing cuts in work time as cities, states and universities seek to avoid the obligations of the health reform law.
Correct me if I am wrong, but is it not the very same folks who strenuously oppose Obamacare who are constantly screaming for smaller government? Are these not the same people who have, for as many years as I can recall, been carping about swollen government payrolls?
But the false narrative that has been peddled to make us believe that the private sector can’t wait to lower our hours of employment turns out not to be the only false note being played by anti-Obamacare forces.
For months now, we have been pounded with the story of the millions of Americans who have lost their non-group, individual health insurance policy due to cancellations forced by Obamacare.
Yet, a new study just out by Lisa Clemans-Cope and Nathaniel Anderson of the Urban Institute tells a very different story.
More document revelation – Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for Christie’s campaign, wrote to campaign manager Bill Stepien: “Coordinating with Drewniak on this, but heads up. I’ll let you know when I hear back from him on the conversations on his side of things.”
Michael Drewniak is Christie’s chief spokesman. In a reply two minutes later, Stepien wrote, “Awesome.”
Stepien asked in another message sent later that day, “Who is writing the follow-up story on Fort Lee?”
In a text message that evening to Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni, another Christie appointee, the documents show that Stepien wrote, “WSJ writing a follow-up on the Fort Lee issue. You probably know but wanted to make sure.”
In a subsequent text, Stepien praised Baroni for the explanation he gave that the lane closures were part of a traffic study, which has since been called into question.
According to the brief, Stepien wrote, “Hey great job yesterday. I know it’s not a fun topic, and not nearly as fun as beating up on Frank Lautenberg, but you did great and I wanted to thank you.”
Words if wisdom coming from the woman who is probably the last black woman left in the Republican party.
Secretary Rice recently urged the GOP to be more inclusive and inviting to women and people of color. The GOP is facing a demographic shift that will allow them to compete gerrymandered House districts but that will make them obsolete in the long run as a national party.
On the issue of immigration, Secretary Rice said, “We have a responsibility to those who do not yet have the liberties and the rights that we enjoy..We cannot abandon them … We were once them.”
According to census data by 2020, deep red states like Texas could finally turn blue, thanks to an emerging majority of Latino voters. Simply put, the math doesn’t do the GOP any favors.
In 2012, 71 percent of Latinos voted for President Obama. According to Pew, the Latino vote helped Democrats win in three critical battleground states: Florida, Nevada, and Colorado. And while immigration continues to dominate the discussion surrounding Latinos currently, it’s the economy and jobs that topped the list of issues the community cared about most in the last presidential election cycle.
And despite the GOP paying lip service to communities of color about “reaching out” not much has changed since they got pummeled in 2012. The Republican party does not have anything to offer and has stuck in an endless loop of faux investigations and symbolic Obamacare repeal votes. Their lack of policy proposals that will help Latinos in any way shape or form, is partially to blame for their lack of support. Their open hostility to diversity and occasional refusal to see Latino people as humans is also likely a major factor.
You’re wasting your time Ms Rice. The Republicans have already gerrymandered their districts to avoid reaching out to anyone who is not an old white and male. Women and people of color can just keep it moving. They are not a necessary part of the Republican equation.
I know right? These days it seems like all Republican lawmakers are in favor of racism, or secism, or any other forms of isms you can think of. The examples are overwhelming.
Here’s another example. His name is Phil Jensen and he is a Republican Senator from Dakota.
It is Mr. Jensen’s position that businesses should be allowed to refuse blacks service if they so choose.
Here’s Phil Jensen, in his own words.
“If someone was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and they were running a little bakery for instance, the majority of us would find it detestable that they refuse to serve blacks, and guess what? In a matter of weeks or so that business would shut down because no one is going to patronize them,” Jensen told the Rapid City Journal in a story that suggested he just might be the crimson red state’s “most conservative lawmaker.”
In this year’s legislative session, Jensen offered up a bill that was even more extreme than the legislation in Arizona that would have given businesses an opening to discriminate against LGBT customers.
Unlike the Arizona bill, Jensen’s measure was explicit. It aimed to give business owners permission to deny service based on a customer’s “sexual orientation” without the fear of a lawsuit.
The legislation was ultimately killed in committee, with one GOP lawmaker calling it “a mean, nasty, hateful, vindictive bill.”
But Jensen, who moved to South Dakota from Kansas in 2003 with a sign taped to his truck saying he was heading north to “Vote Senator [Tom] Daschle Out,” remains steadfast in his support of the bill.
“It’s a bill that protects the constitutional right to free association, the right to free speech and private property rights,” he told the Journal.
Jensen did not respond to TPM’s request for comment.
Such vitriol. What would prompt two New Yorkers to stand on a cold New York street early in the morning holding a sign calling for De Blasio’s dearh? The new mayor is planning to rid the city of the horse drawn carriges, a staple of Central Park in Manhattan, and people are really upset about that.
Calling the horse drawn carriages “inhumane” de Blasio promised to quickly end the practice.
“We are going to quickly and aggressively move to make horse carriages no longer a part of the landscape in New York City,” de Blasio said, according to NBC New York. “They are not humane. … It’s over.”
Animal rights advocacy groups lauded de Blasio’s pledge.
“We believe that the use of carriage horses in 21st century New York City is unnatural, unnecessary, and an undeniable strain on the horses’ quality of life,” Stacy Wolf, senior vice president of the ASPCA’s Anti-Cruelty Group, said in an email to NBC News.
Carriage operators beg to differ.
Stephen Malone, who’s been in the business for 26 years, told NBC News that he anticipates a long and contentious bout with de Blasio over the proposed ban.
“We look forward to having a long battle with him,” he said.
According to Malone, who’s father began in the business in 1964, there have been only three horse fatalities due to traffic in 30 years.
Malone added that he and and the other carriage owners are willing to sue de Blasio and the city if need be to protect their livelihoods.
One carriage and horse owner, who asked only to be identified as Robert, told NBC News on Monday that the carriage ride is iconic to the city.
“People expect us to be here,” he said. “It’s like taking away the Empire State Building. It’s the same as taking the (Christmas) tree from Rock Center.”
Since Central Park opened in 1857, horse-drawn carriages have traveled through the park in its sundry narrow passage ways, Sid Kolo, field manager for New York Central Park Tours, told NBC News.
ThinkProgress is reporting that Florida has executed 84 people since the Supreme Court announced the modern death penalty regime in 1976. Zero of them are white people sentenced to death for killing an African American. Indeed, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, “no white person has ever been executed for killing an African American” in the state of Florida.
Nor is Florida particularly unusual in the racial impact of its death penalty. In Alabama, 6 percent of murders involve black defendants and white victims, but 60 percent of black death row inmates were convicted of murdering a white person. In Louisiana, a death sentence is 97 percent more likely in murder cases where the victim is white. Nationwide, only 20 white people have been executed since 1976 for killing a black person. By contrast, 269 black defendants were executed for killing someone who is white.
As ThinkProgress’ Nicole Flatow and Adam Peck explained in January, nearly all of the people executed in 2013 were convicted of killing at least one white person. Of the 39 executions that took place last year, 32 involved a white victim — and only one white person was executed for killing only a black man:
Tragedy has struck an Ohio family after a 15-year-old boy accidentally shot his 11-year-old cousin dead when they were left home alone.
According to News Net 5, Ashton Nicholson was pronounced dead after his unidentified cousin killed him with a gun found in his parents bedroom.
Lt. Gregory Johnson told the site:
“I have nothing to indicate that it was an intentional act, nothing to indicate that whatsoever. This is a terrible tragedy that he was involved in, but I have to give him credit for standing up.”
The gun was not secured, which was how the 15-year-old boy knew where to find it in the house. The boys were home and not at school because it was a snow day.
When the 11-year-old – who was said to have also handled the gun at one point – was shot, the 15-year-old’s older brother called 9-1-1 and told the dispatcher:
“My brother just shot my cousin on accident… Oh my God, he shot him with a pistol.”
Johnson also said that he wants this case to be a lesson to parents who hold guns in their house to be more responsible about securing them.
We pray for family of these young boys during this tragic time.
Sen. Rand Paul leads the GOP 2016 pack, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is more likely to be perceived as capable of handling crises than is President Barack Obama, according to new survey data released Sunday.
A CNN/ORC International survey found Paul the slight favorite for his party’s nomination, with 16 percent of those polled on the question tapping the Kentucky Republican as their choice for the 2016 GOP nod. He was closely followed, within the margin of error, by 2012 vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who pulled in 15 percent; and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, with 11 percent.
Perry, whose unsuccessful 2012 bid was characterized by a series of high-profile missteps, made a big splash at the Conservative Political Action conference earlier this month. Like Paul, he has signaled he is weighing a 2016 presidential bid.
On the other side of the aisle, Clinton was the prohibitive Democratic favorite according to the survey, clocking in with 63 percent support for the 2016 presidential nod. She was followed by Vice President Joe Biden at 13 percent.
The March 7-9 survey of 801 adults across the country — including 367 Republicans and voters who lean Republican; and 372 Democrats and voters who lean Democratic — hase a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
Other data from CNN/ORC indicated that 64 percent of Americans surveyed perceived Clinton as “tough enough to handle a crisis” and the same percentage of people called her a “strong leader,” while only half called Obama a “strong leader” and 53 percent said he is “tough.” Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed considered her likable, the poll said. However, the survey also found that only 50 percent of those polled would be “proud” to have her as president.