Tag: TMC Politics

President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney sparred last night in their second of three debates. Today, in a two-hour special, we expand the debate by including the voices of three presidential candidates shut out of the official debate. We are joined by Jill Stein of the Green Party, Constitution Party nominee Virgil Goode, and Justice Party candidate Rocky Anderson. We re-air parts of last night’s presidential debate, pausing the videotape to give third-party candidates a chance to respond to the same questions put to the major-party candidates

Transcript here.

“Don’t blame me, I voted for McGovern” was the bumper sticker on my car on the day that President Richard M. Nixon resigned from office in disgrace. I proudly campaigned and voted for Senator George McGovern in 1972 who campaigned against the war in Viet Nam, as war the Richard Nixon had said he would end and hadn’t. It wasn’t the only reason, I voted for him but it was the main one.

Can you imagine a world without yellow ribbons?

Senator McGovern died early this morning after being admitted to a hospice in Sioux Falls, SD last week.

His family has requested that in lieu of flowers donations be made to Feeding South Dakota.

May the Goddess guide him on his journey to the Summerlands. May his family and friends and the world find Peace.

The Wheel Turns. Blessed Be.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

The Sunday Talking Heads:

Up with Chris Hayes: The Up with Chris Hayes web site has been drastically changed making it less user friendly, with no information about up coming program topics or guests. I did manage to get some information about this morning’s program from @upwithchris Tweets.

Tomorrow’s show: The changing Libya story, debating Pentagon spending & Iran sanctions, w/ Joe Sestak, Anne-Marie Slaughter & more. #uppers

— Up w/ Chris Hayes (@upwithchris) October 20, 2012

Whether or not there is a preview, Up is always very informative and has some of the most interesting diverse guests. Following along on twitter is always great fun.

This Week with George Stephanopolis: Guests for This Week are Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on the latest in the 2012 presidential contest.

The roundtable guests are Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz; Faith and Freedom Coalition founder and chair Ralph Reed; former Obama White House environmental adviser Van Jones, co-founder of Rebuild the Dream; Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren; and political strategist and ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guest are Sen. Marco Rubio (FL-R); Romney senior adviser Kevin Madden; and Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter.

His roundtable guests are The Wall Street Journal‘s Peggy Noonan, The New York Times‘ David Sanger, TIME Magazine‘s Joe Klein and CBS News Political Director John Dickerson.

The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests are Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent; John Harris, Politico Editor-in-Chief; Michael Duffy, TIME Magazine Assistant Managing Editor; and Kathleen Parker, The Washington Post Columnist.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: Today on MTP the guest is Sen. Marco Rubio (FL-R); Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH); and David Axelrod.

The roundtable guests are  Democratic Strategist and Former White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers; Republican strategist Mike Murphy; NY Times Columnist Tom Friedman; and NY Times White House Correspondent Helene Cooper.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests are former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson; former Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich; Senator Mark Warner (D-VA); and former Congressman Tom Davis (R-VA).

Her panel guests are Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), CNN Sr. Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash and The Washington Post’s Dan Balz.

Up with Chris Hayes host Chris Hayes discusses what we have learned this week with his panel guests Patrick Gaspard, executive director of the DNC; Chrysta Freeland, contributing writer to Reuters.com; Father Bill Daily, Notre Dame Law School; and Victoria Defrancesco Soto, MSNBC contributor.

NBC News recently took over running the MSNBC web site and has done a revamp that is less user friendly and has less information about the programs. Bear with us as we try to navigate the new format there.

Why the Recent DOMA Decision Matters Even More Than You Think

by Anthony Michael Kreis

On Thursday, Oct. 18, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (pdf) that the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional. The Second Circuit was not the first appeals court to strike down DOMA, however. The First Circuit Court of Appeals found DOMA unconstitutional (pdf) in May. But the difference between the two legal opinions may mark the beginning of an important legal shift that holds extraordinary promise for the LGBT community.

The first decision evaluated DOMA under what is known as “rational basis review.” This standard is very low. Typically, this level of judicial review is more or less a rubber stamp for legislation. When it comes to gay rights, courts have used this type of analysis to strike down some anti-gay laws. Using rational basis review, courts have said that disliking the LGBT community is not a rational justification for discriminating against sexual minorities. This is how the United States Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional, for example. [..]

Not all groups can get the type of heightened protections under the Constitution that are already afforded to groups like racial minorities and women. Courts consider a number of factors to determine what groups get heightened scrutiny. Four factors are typically considered: 1) whether the class has been historically subjected to discrimination; 2) whether the class has a characteristic that bears a relation to its ability to perform or contribute to society; 3) whether the class exhibits obvious, immutable or distinguishing characteristics that define them as a discrete group; and 4) whether the class is a minority or politically powerless.

In comes the Second Circuit’s recent DOMA decision. The Second Circuit held that all these factors apply to non-heterosexuals. As such, the court concluded that laws that are discriminatory on the basis of sexual orientation must meet the standards of “intermediate scrutiny.” The justifications for those laws must be not just rational but “exceedingly persuasive.” It was under this more intense level of judicial inquiry that they ruled that DOMA violated the Constitution.

Americans increasingly believe in global warming, Yale report says

by Monte Morin

For the first time since the United States entered a deep recession five years ago, 70% of Americans now say they believe global warming is a reality, according to researchers.

In a report released Thursday by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, authors wrote that America’s concern about global warming is now at its highest level since 2008, and that 58% of Americans expressed worries about it.

“Historically Americans have viewed climate change as a distant problem —  distant in time and distant in space — and perceived that it wasn’t something that involved them,” said environmental scientist and lead author Anthony Leiserowitz. “That gap is beginning to close, however … we’re seeing a jump in the number of people who believe it will affect them or their families.”

Support 350.org‘s Do the Math campaign

On November 7th, we’re hitting the road to jumpstart the next phase of the climate movement.

It’s simple math: we can burn 565 more gigatons of carbon and stay below 2°C of warming – anything more than that risks catastrophe for life on earth. The only problem? Fossil fuel corporations now have 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five times the safe amount. And they’re planning to burn it all – unless we rise up to stop them.

This November, Bill McKibben and 350.org are hitting the road to build the movement that will change the terrifying math of the climate crisis.

Join us.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Conors Friedersdorf: On War and Peace, George McGovern Will Die Vindicated

The former presidential candidate, who is nearing death, warned of the folly of the Vietnam and Iraq Wars. Americans came to agree with him — but only when it was too late.

Speaking at the Democratic National Convention in 1972, George McGovern kicked off his ill-fated presidential bid by focusing on his opposition to the ruinous war in Vietnam. “I have no secret plan for peace. I have a public plan. And as one whose heart has ached for the past ten years over the agony of Vietnam, I will halt a senseless bombing of Indochina on Inaugural Day,” he said. “There will be no more Asian children running ablaze from bombed-out schools. There will be no more talk of bombing the dikes or the cities of the North. And within 90 days of my inauguration, every American soldier and every American prisoner will be out of the jungle and out of their cells and then home in America where they belong. And then let us resolve that never again will we send the precious young blood of this country to die trying to prop up a corrupt military dictatorship abroad. This is also the time to turn away from excessive preoccupation overseas to the rebuilding of our own nation. America must be restored to a proper role in the world. But we can do that only through the recovery of confidence in ourselves.”

Over the course of his career, McGovern made a lot of arguments that I personally find unpersuasive. But he sure did get the most important issue of his time right. Think of all the Americans who’d be alive today if the country had listened to McGovern rather than his opponents about the Vietnam War. Think of all the veterans who’d have been better off. Think of how many Vietnamese civilians would’ve been spared death by napalm. But America didn’t listen.

Gail Collins: The Least Popular Subject

Let’s give a cheer for Nina Gonzalez, the woman who asked Mitt Romney and Barack Obama about gun control at the presidential debate.

People, have you noticed how regularly this topic fails to come up? We have been having this campaign since the dawn of the ice age. Why wasn’t there a gun control moment before now?

True, the candidates were asked about it after the horrific blood baths last summer in Colorado and Wisconsin. But there have been 43 American mass shootings in the last year. Wouldn’t you think that would qualify guns for a more regular mention?

The little noticed Constitution Party presidential candidate, Virgil Goode does not appear on many state ballots this November but where he does, it is believed he may have some impact on the electoral college outcome.

Virgil Hamlin Goode, Jr served in the US House of Representatives from 1997 to 2009, first as a Democrat, then an Independent and finally as a Republican. He was defeated after six terms in the 2008 election to Democrat Tom Perriello. Goode subsequently joined the Constitution Party.

The conservative Constitution Party was founded in 1991 as the U.S. Taxpayers’ Party by Howard Philips who was the party’s presidential candidate in 1992, 1996 and 2000. In 1999, the party changed its name to the “Constitution Party.” The party’s platform is predicated on the the original intent of the Founding Fathers, found mostly in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The party largely focuses on immigration calling for stricter penalties towards illegal immigrants, a moratorium on legal immigration until all federal subsidies to immigrants are discontinued and the unemployment rate is below 5%. The Constitution Party has some substantial support from the Christian Right and in 2010 achieved major party status in Colorado.

Goode is well known in Virginia and his candidacy has caused some concern among his former GOP friends and Virginia state party officials. Virginia is among the nine states where the 2012 election will be decided. If Goode swings enough conservative votes from Mitt Romney, it could give Virginia’s 13 electoral college vote to Barack Obama and another four years.

Recent polls show Obama about even or slightly ahead of Romney in head-to-head Virginia pairings by 4 to 8 percentage points. Only one, a Washington Post poll of 934 registered Virginia voters conducted Sept. 12-16, included Goode, and he was the choice of 2 percent. The poll’s sampling error margin is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

“He’s still a household name in some parts of Virginia,” said Mark Rozell, a political science professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. “Unlike other candidates, Virgil Goode has the potential to siphon off a sizable number of votes regionally.”

Rozell said that if it comes down to Virginia in a very close election, Goode could draw 1 percent to 2 percent of the vote to become this year’s Ralph Nader, although statistically it’s unlikely.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: Snow Job on Jobs

Mitt Romney talks a lot about jobs. But does he have a plan to create any?

You can defend President Obama’s jobs record – recovery from a severe financial crisis is always difficult, and especially so when the opposition party does its best to block every policy initiative you propose. And things have definitely improved over the past year. Still, unemployment remains high after all these years, and a candidate with a real plan to make things better could make a strong case for his election.

But Mr. Romney, it turns out, doesn’t have a plan; he’s just faking it. In saying that, I don’t mean that I disagree with his economic philosophy; I do, but that’s a separate point. I mean, instead, that Mr. Romney’s campaign is telling lies: claiming that its numbers add up when they don’t, claiming that independent studies support its position when those studies do no such thing.

New York Times Editorial: An HPV Vaccine Myth Debunked

One of the most preposterous arguments raised by religious and social conservatives against administering a vaccine to girls to protect them from human papillomavirus, or HPV, has been that it might encourage them to become promiscuous. That notion has now been thoroughly repudiated by a study published on Monday in Pediatrics, a journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. [..]

Over all, there was no difference between girls who had received the vaccine and those who had not in such indicators of sexual activity as pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and counseling on how to use contraceptives. As one expert said, parents should think of the vaccine as they would a bicycle helmet; it is protection, not an invitation to risky behavior.

In a 2 to 1 decision, a three judge panel of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan has ruled that Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional.

The majority opinion written by Judge Dennis Jacobs rejected a section of the law that says “marriage” only means a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife and that the word “spouse” refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife. A federal appeals court in Boston earlier this year also found it unconstitutional.

The issue is expected to be decided by the Supreme Court. The decision came less than a month after the court heard arguments on Sept. 27. [..]

In striking down the law, the Jacobs wrote that the law’s “classification of same-sex spouses was not substantially related to an important government interest” and thus violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

He said the law was written so broadly that it touches more than a thousand federal laws. He said “homosexuals are not in a position to adequately protect themselves from the discriminatory wishes of the majoritarian public.”

He rejected arguments that the definition of marriage was traditional.

“Even if preserving tradition were in itself an important goal, DOMA is not a means to achieve it,” he said.

Judge Chester Straub dissented, saying that if the government was to change its understanding of marriage, “I believe it is for the American people to do so.”

As noted in another New York Times article, acceptance of same sex marriage has grown even among Latinos:

Just six years ago, 56 percent of Latinos were against same-sex marriage. Today, their rate of approval stands at 52 percent over all and slightly higher – 54 percent – among Latino Catholics, the survey by the Pew Research Center found.

Latino evangelicals, on the other hand, remain strongly opposed to same-sex marriage, affirming their conservative credentials in a demographic group whose politics and positions, liberal and conservative, have become more in line with Americans over all.

The Republican House took up defending DOMA after the Obama Justice Department stopped defending it in February 2011. House leaders committed $1.5 million of tax payer funds to hire lawyer, Paul Clement, to represent them in DOMA cases. So far they have argued in 14 cases and have spent nearly all of the allocation. As of today they have lost six.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) criticized Boehner for ignoring “critical issues like comprehensive jobs legislation” while wasting “time and taxpayer money defending the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act.”

“Despite losing multiple court cases, Speaker Boehner continues to insist on racking up even more taxpayer-funded legal bills, even as Republicans claim to be concerned about the deficit,” Hoyer said in a statement.

It remains unclear if House Republican leaders plan to extend their contract with Clement — and spend more taxpayer dollars — to continue defending DOMA. They maintain they are obligated to defend current law, regardless of what it is. A Boehner spokesman deferred all DOMA-related questions to Clement. A request for comment from Clement was not immediately returned.

So much for those deficits concerns.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

New York Times Editorial: Mr. Romney’s Version of Equal Rights

It has dawned on Mitt Romney that he has a problem with female voters. He just has no idea what to do about it, since it is the result of his positions on abortion, contraception, health services and many other issues. On Tuesday night, he bumbled his way through a cringe-inducing attempt to graft what he thinks should be 2012 talking points onto his 1952 sensibility.

In the midst of their rancorous encounter at Hofstra University, President Obama attacked Mr. Romney for vowing he would end federal support of Planned Parenthood and for criticizing the provision in the health care law that requires employers – except churches and religiously affiliated institutions – to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives.

Amy Goodman: Binders Full of Women, and Two Women Bound

You may have noticed that the Green Party presidential candidate, Dr. Jill Stein, was absent from the “town hall” presidential debate at Hofstra University the other night. That’s because she was shackled to a chair in a nearby New York police facility, along with her running mate, Green Party vice president nominee Cheri Honkala. Their crime: attempting to get to the debate so Stein could participate in it. While Mitt Romney uttered the now-famous line that he was given “whole binders full of women” while seeking staff as newly-elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002, the real binders were handcuffs used to shackle these two women, who are mothers, activists and the Green Party’s presidential ticket for 2012. [..]

Even if Stein and Honkala hadn’t been hauled off a public street and handcuffed to those chairs for eight hours, Stein’s exclusion from the debate was certain. The debates are very closely controlled by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which excludes third-party candidates, among other things. George Farah is the founder and executive director of Open Debates, and author of “No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates.” Farah told me on the morning of the Hofstra debate about how the CPD gained control over the debates from the nonpartisan League of Women Voters: “We have a private corporation that was created by the Republican and Democratic parties called the Commission on Presidential Debates. It seized control of the presidential debates precisely because the League was independent, precisely because this women’s organization had the guts to stand up to the candidates that the major parties had nominated.”

Without comment from Marcy Wheeler at emptywheel:

As TPM’s Ryan Reilly noted yesterday (link to come), among the awards Attorney General Eric Holder gave out at yesterday’s Attorney General’s Award Ceremony was a Distinguished Service Award to John Durham’s investigative team that chose not to prosecute Jose Rodriguez or the torturers who killed their victims.

   The 13th Distinguished Service Award is presented to team members for their involvement in two sensitive investigations ordered by two different Attorneys General. In January 2007, Attorney General Michael Mukasey asked Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham to lead a team that would investigate the destruction of interrogation videotapes by the CIA. Assistant U.S. Attorney Durham assembled the team and began the investigation. Then, in August 2009, Attorney General Holder expanded Assistant U.S. Attorney Durham’s mandate to include a preliminary review of the treatment of detainees held at overseas locations. This second request resulted in the review of 101 detainee matters that led to two full criminal investigations. In order to conduct the investigations, the team had to review significant amounts of information, much of which was classified, and conduct many interviews in the United States and at overseas locations.



The timing on this award-coming even as DOJ aggressively prosecutes John Kiriakou for talking about this torture-is particularly cynical.

Holder also presented a Distinguished Service Award to the team that crafted a $25 billion settlement effectively immunizing the banksters for engaging in systemic mortgage fraud.

   The third Distinguished Service Award is presented to the individuals involved in procuring a $25 billion mortgage servicing settlement between the United States, 49 state attorneys general and the five largest mortgage servicers, representing the largest federal-state settlement in history.   The settlement includes comprehensive new mortgage loan servicing standards, $5 billion to state and federal treasuries and borrowers who lost their homes to foreclosure, $20 billion in consumer relief and a $1 billion resolution of False Claims Act recoveries by the Eastern District of New York.

As DDay has documented relentlessly, the settlement is little more than kabuki, with most of the “consumer relief” consisting of actions the banks were already taking.