An intriguing catfight has been brewing on the right—and it could possibly affect the re-election campaign of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Republican Senate leader. A former aide to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has asked the Federal Elections Commission to investigate whether Ron Paul's 2012 presidential campaign violated federal law by bribing an Iowa state senator to win his endorsement. The complaint letter, sent by ex-Bachmanner Peter Waldron, charges that senior members of Paul's campaign—including Jesse Benton, who is now McConnell's campaign manager—were party to the bribe or knew about it. The role of specific Ron Paul aides in the scheme is unclear, but a 2013 Iowa Senate Ethics Committee report cited by Waldron states that the Paul campaign exchanged money to purchase the endorsement.
The controversy concerns the curious actions of a prominent local politician during the 2012 Republican caucuses in the Hawkeye State. Then-GOP state Sen. Kent Sorenson was an influential figure in the social-conservative wing of the state Republican Party, and he had offered his support to Bachmann's presidential effort early in the 2012 campaign. Sorenson and Bachmann were natural allies; both were crusaders against abortion and same-sex marriage. Sorenson served as co-chairman of Bachmann's campaign in Iowa and was a frequent surrogate speaker for her. But less than a week before caucus day, Sorenson made a surprise appearance at a Ron Paul rally in Des Moines, where he shocked Iowa political observers by switching his endorsement to the libertarian candidate.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on Tuesday worried that President Barack Obama and Democrats could withhold life-saving drugs from Americans because they had mandated “killer drugs” like birth control.(I don't know what rock Michele has been living under, but I know how old she is; birth control has been prevalent in the U.S. her entire life. In that sense, the nation looks the same as it always has - with women happily and safely using contraception, and without that use killing anyone.)
Following Supreme Court arguments over whether companies could practice a religion and deny contraception to employees based on those beliefs, Bachmann and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) took to the House floor to blast the Obama administration for mandating birth control coverage in the first place.
“That is government enforced coercion on religious belief,” Bachmann complained. “And it varies at caprice and whim. That’s one thing under the rule of law that has been a pillar of American exceptionalism, the fact that under the rule of law there is certainty for the American people.”
“If you looked at the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, you knew with certainty when you woke up tomorrow morning that your religious liberties were intact,” she continued. “Now, apparently today, the gentlemen was in the chamber and heard that, according to at least one Supreme Court justice, in her opinion, they aren’t so much certain anymore.”
“It is not at only the election of the court, but at the election of the unnamed bureaucrat that decides, today we will have these killer drugs that we mandate. Tomorrow, what drugs will they take off the list? Will I not get life-saving drugs that I need to get?”
Bachmann went on to suggest that “only politically-connected best friends” of President Obama’s administration would receive certain surgical procedures in the future.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) added a new theory to the slew of Benghazi cover-up conspiracies on Wednesday, accusing former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell of taking “the fall" for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an interview with conservative news site World Net Daily.
“She couldn’t have a better person to take the fall for her because Morell was involved in rewriting the talking points and was the No. 2 at CIA," Bachmann told WND, suggesting that Morell was clearing the path for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. "So, he can come in authoritatively [and] say, ‘No, that’s not the story. The story is the fake story we tried to push.'"
Morell testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Wednesday and denied an onslaught of Republican allegations of CIA cover-ups and false messaging after the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
“We did not deliberately downplay the role of terrorists in the Benghazi attack in our analysis or in the talking points,” Morell said during the hearing.
I began to think about this issue once again when a new study appeared in the journal Pediatrics. This study dealt with human children, not dogs, and looked at the effects of spanking. Spanking is the most common form of punishment used to control the behavior of human children. Based on data from nearly 2,500 children, Catherine Taylor and her associates at Tulane University report that children that were spanked more frequently at age 3 were much more likely to be aggressive by age 5. "The odds of a child being more aggressive at age 5 increased by 50 percent if he had been spanked more than twice in the month before the study began," said Taylor. Such negative effects of punishment have been reported so often in the scientific literature that the American Academy of Pediatrics has chosen not to endorse spanking under any circumstance. According to the Academy, it's a form of punishment that becomes less effective with repeated use and also makes discipline more difficult as the child outgrows it.Here is the Gruenhagen video:
Jim DeMint Asserts The Federal Government Played No Role In Freeing The Slaves
Heritage Foundation head Jim DeMint appeared on Vocal Point with Jerry Newcombe of Truth In Action Ministries last week, where he insisted that “no liberal is going to win a debate that big government freed the slaves.”
DeMint, a former US senator from South Carolina, told Newcombe that “the conscience of the American people” and not the federal government was responsible for the end of slavery.
In the interview, DeMint seemed to confuse the US Constitution with the Declaration of Independence and implied that William Wilberforce, a British politician who died almost thirty years before the Civil War, did more to end American slavery than the federal government.
The Minnesota House passed a bill aimed at toughening the state's anti-bullying law by a vote of 69-63 early Wednesday.
The bill - the Safe and Supportive Schools Act - defines bullying, in part, as behavior that causes physical harm or fear of physical harm and "constitutes intentional infliction of emotional distress."
"This provides a strong set of tools to create a strong local anti-bullying policy and create safe educational climates in Minnesota," said Rep. Jim Davnie, DFL-Minneapolis, the bill's sponsor.
The measure already has cleared the Senate. Gov. Mark Dayton plans to sign the bill into law in a public ceremony at 4 p.m. today on State Capitol steps.
The bill would require school districts to track and investigate cases of bullying and require schools to better train staff and teachers on how to prevent it. Current law requires school districts to have a bullying policy but omits details on what the policy should contain.
The
pro-gun crowd fears people taking matters into their own hands with
property owners banning guns on their properties and businesses. They
don't want people using their first amendment rights to thwart their
non-existant and fictitious "Second Amendment Right" (On the other hand,
if you want to join the National Guard--go for it: that is your Second
Amendment right if you REALLY want to exercise it).
The
reality is that everyone in the United States is effected by gun
violence whether they consciously realise it or not. Embracing the
object which terrorises them is not a sign of "freedom"--it is a sign
that they have been enslaved by their fear.Geocentrism? A new documentary film narrated by Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Kathryn Janeway on “Star Trek: Voyager,” claims the sun revolves around the Earth, and that the Earth is fixed at the center of the universe.The film’s ultra conservative Catholic producer believes the early leaders of the Catholic Church, who interpreted the Bible to mandate an Earth-centered universe, were right after all.The film, entitled “The Principle,” promotes “Geocentrism,” the absurd notion that the Catholic church was right, that the Earth is at the center of the universe and it does not move, and that scientists since Galileo have got it all wrongGeocentrism is creationism on steroids, and is often attributed to a literal reading of the Bible.Perhaps even more disturbing than the iconic Kate Mulgrew, of Star Trek: Voyager and Orange Is the New Black, the film also features appearances by big-name scientists like Michio Kaku and Lawrence Krauss.The new documentary was produced by Robert Sungenis, a controversial figure known to be a virulent anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. Promoting his book, “Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right,:
 |
| Hobby Lobby SCOTUS protests |
Hobby Lobby Invests In Abortion Pill Manufacturers
The owners of Hobby Lobby, a Christian-owned craft supply chain, were so offended by the idea of having to include emergency contraceptives and intrauterine devices in their health insurance plans that they sued the Obama administration and took the case all the way up to the Supreme Court. But Mother Jones reported on Tuesday that the company's retirement plan has invested millions of dollars in the manufacturers of emergency contraception and drugs used to induce abortions.
Hobby Lobby's 401(k) employee retirement plan holds $73 million in mutual funds that invest in multiple pharmaceutical companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and abortion-inducing medications.
The companies Hobby Lobby invests in include Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which makes the Plan B morning-after pill and ParaGard, a copper IUD, as well as Pfizer, the maker of the abortion-inducing drugs Cytotec and Prostin E2. Hobby Lobby's mutual funds also invest in two health insurance companies that cover surgical abortions, abortion drugs, and emergency contraception in their health care policies.
Hobby Lobby's attorneys argue that the provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires most employers to cover contraception in their health plans infringes on the company's right to exercise religious freedom because the company's owners believe that emergency contraception and IUDs are actually forms of abortion. Medical studies have debunked this claim.
We completely understand the concern over this act of compliance, as the baseball seating was donated and built by well-intentioned parent boosters and not the school district. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to many supporters and parents, the boys baseball scoreboard and seating updates were constructed and managed outside of the appropriate district protocol and oversight several years ago [my note: 2001, according to this article]. Upon closer investigation, the District also learned that the seating addition didn’t meet existing laws and zoning ordinances, and was not physically safe. Our goal is to work together with boosters in the future to ensure any facility improvements made on school property are safe, equitable and meet existing zoning ordinances.Here is a snippet of the Faux News/ Blaze bally-hoo, followed by more of the factual contradiction. "Fisking" the Blaze piece, let's start with the fact seating was stadium-style /chair type seating, not bleachers. And the High School was not ordered to take down that seating, least of all by any federal agency. And the reason for the take-down of the seating - yes, that did occur - was far more complex and nuanced, including being improperly located so as to be dangerous to spectators, and that it was not handicapped accessible.
Though we cannot change what has happened in the past, we recognize that there are some systematic issues that need to be addressed at the district level and are making every effort to ensure that our teams, boosters and district do not have to face similar situations in the future. To that end, we have begun building better leadership structures and increased accountability across the board within our interscholastic athletic program; this includes steps to improve leadership, communication, and inadequate facilities, along with improving hiring practices and creating a standard code of conduct for all coaches.
Why a High School Was Ordered to Tear Down Its Brand-New Baseball Bleachers Will Likely Have Small-Gov’t Advocates Shaking Their HeadsThe seating is some six years old; it is not clear who authorized it to be built, without conforming to rules and regs for handicapped access, or who authorized that location, nor is it clear who ordered the stadium seats to be removed either. No one is talking about who actually made that decision.
The U.S Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has forced a school in Michigan to tear down a brand-new set of bleachers for its boys’ varsity baseball team because the new seating is nicer than the girls’ softball bleachers.
This next part is true; parent DID raise money for new seating and a new scoreboard. The adjoining girls softball field is also going to be getting a new scoreboard.
The raised seating deck for the boys’ baseball team, which was paid for with money raised by parents, was put in place because fans who’d come to watch games at Plymouth High School in Canton, Mich., were having a hard time seeing the game through the chain-link fence WJBK-TV reported.
The parents installed the new bleachers themselves and even added a new scoreboard to the field, the station reported.
But after an investigation by government officials, which was prompted by an anonymous complaint, the school was told it had to remove the new seating because it was “no longer equal” to the adjacent girls’ softball bleachers, which have yet to get a makeover of their own.Here is where the story hits the rhubarb of factual deficiency again. Yes, there was an anonymous complaint - presumably the Dept. of Education's Civil Rights department knows who complained, but aren't talking. And there were other problems to address besides spectator seating, including field time for the girls La Crosse team and other issues. The school was advised about their problems with compliance under Title IX, and solutions were negotiated. The school was NOT ordered to remove the seating; that solution came from the school district, along with some other problems being addressed. There did not seem to be any pressure from the U.S. Dept. of Education to make the changes immediately, only a request that they comply with treating their female students fairly, as the law requires, within a reasonable time framework.
Further, government officials said, the new boys’ bleachers were not sufficiently handicap-accessible.
The school agreed to tear down the new bleachers after government officials issued a citation.
Plymouth High School superintendent Michael Meissen said the school will hold onto the new bleachers until they can come up with a plan that adheres to strict government rules and is “fair to everyone,” WJBK-TV reported.
The Government Did Not Force A High School To Tear Out Its Baseball SeatsI don't fully understand why it is that conservatives are so willing to deliberately ignore facts and truth, or why they seem driven by such angry hatred towards groups of people they (incorrectly) perceive as both 'other' and 'enemy', but it has come to define the political partisanship of the right wing to a degree which, so far as my reading of history has progressed, is virtually unprecedented in our national history. It is destructive, it is toxic, and it must be actively resisted by the center and left to the extreme of our energy resources, especially by vigorous fact checking and sharing of the truth and objective reality in which we live. We also need frequently and routinely to underline the benefits of those actions taken by the more liberal among us, like the benefits of Title IX, which the radical right chooses to ignore or deny, or lie.
I may already be too late to quell the outrage — or at least funnel it in the right direction — regarding the baseball boosters of Plymouth High School in suburban Detroit having to tear out seats it bought and installed on their own dime and time. But I want to correct one big whopper of a mistake that is bouncing its way across the rage-o-sphere: the federal government did NOT order the seats torn out as a remedy for a Title IX gender equity violation.
It’s just like how the federal government doesn’t tell a college violating Title IX that it has to cut the men’s wrestling program – under Title IX, it ensures that men and women have equal athletic opportunities. However, cuts in men’s sports have happened during the 42 years of Title IX, so there is a subset of people who believe it’s been responsible for a war on males. That subset is ready to pounce on any “evidence” that another shot in this War on Men’s Sports has been fired (while ignoring football’s role in squeezing out opportunities for males in other sports).
On March 28, the local Fox television station in Detroit provided some fuel for outrage. It reported that after boosters installed a seating deck and a scoreboard at the Plymouth High baseball field, a complaint came into the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights that there might be a Title IX violation because similar work wasn’t done at school’s softball field. At one point, the report notes Plymouth-Canton Community Schools “agreed to take the seats down” to be in Title IX compliance.
Except that according to the investigative report on the complaint, which wasn’t quoted in the Fox Detroit story (and was about equality of facilities in general, not just about the seats and scoreboard), the district wasn’t asked to tear anything down — it was asked to build up. From the Department of Education’s report dated Oct. 31, 2013, which took a complete look at the district’s athletics programs and facilities for boys and girls:
If booster clubs provide benefits and services to athletes of one sex that are greater than what the district is capable of providing to athletes of the other sex, then the district must take action to ensure that benefits and services are equivalent for both sexes. …
The District has signed the enclosed resolution agreement, which, once implemented, will fully address the information obtained during the investigation in accordance with Title IX. The agreement requires the District to: renovate the School’s varsity softball field to include a scoreboard and seating equivalent to what is provided at the School’s varsity baseball field; and provide the School’s girls’ lacrosse team with access to an on-campus practice facility equivalent to that provided to the boys’ lacrosse team.
However, because it’s a lot more fun to say the big, bad ol’ government is oppressing people, the Narrative (there’s always a Narrative) quicklyestablished that the feds told the boosters to tear out the seats (or as often misreported, bleachers).
