gop-circus:

The polls have closed and news outlets now report that North Carolina will pass Amendment 1 to prohibit same-sex marriage. The Tar Heel State now joins the rest of its southern counterparts in prohibiting gay marriage, and will become the 31st state to amend its constitution with a ban.

-what a bunch of shit fucks

inothernews:

1. Hyperbillionaire Warren Buffett says he should pay a higher effective federal tax rate than his secretary’s.
2. President Obama, everyone else with common sense and decency agrees.
3. Democrats move to open debate on the so-called “Buffett Rule.”
4. Other hyperbillionaires, who think Warren Buffett is “just fucking crazy, no seriously WTF is wrong with this fucking dude, why the fuck does he want to give all our hard-earned money away?  To help the less-fortunate by using our — again — hyperbillions to help better the human condition?  No.  No.  NO FUCKING WAY!  Republican sugar daddies, please help us, PLEASE HELP US, STOP THIS PROPOSED LEGISLATION OR WHATEVER BEFORE IT EATS INTO THE FORTUNES THAT WE FORGOT TO STASH AWAY IN OFFSHORE TAX HAVENS, WAAAAAH, WAAAAAAH, WAAAAAH, HOW ARE WE NOW GOING TO PAY FOR OUR THIRD AND FOURTH HOUSES AND OUR PRIVATE JETS AND OUR SAFES FULL OF GOLD BULLIONS AND ALL OF OUR MAIDS AND BUTLERS AND MANSERVANTS, WAAAAAH, WAAAAAAH, WAAAAAH!!!!”
5. Senate Republicans move to block debate on the Buffett Rule.
6. Hyperbillionaires and other wealthy people give Republicans blowjobs galore
7. Warren Buffett does facepalm
8. President Obama does facepalm
9. Everyone but rich people does facepalms.

(Source: inothernews)

thenoobyorker:

vicemag:

Yeah, Ron Paul Is Racist After All, Sorry.

Move on Paulbots, find your next king before you taint the work you’ve done up to now. 

gop-circus:

Mitt Romney was officially glitter bombed yesterday as he approached a stage at a Minnesota event hosted by Tim Pawlenty. Romney had  GREAT day-, first he told CNN’s Soledad O’Brien that he’s “not concerned about the very poor,” ( a statement he is still trying to defend ) and then he was greeted with a face full of glitter. If we could get every poor person in America to team up with every gay person in America, we could have the glitterbomb of the century and maybe even wipe out the whole damn GOP. boom!

aubreylillian submitted

God, please no. I’d have to move.

___________________________________

Hrm, this chart is actually pretty dishonest. The author made that map, not gallup, assuming that Obama would only take states where he had a net positive approval rating, which is ridiculous. Really what we’re looking at are the states that are pretty much a definitive lock.

This is very similar to those polls where Obama is losing to an “unnamed republican” but winning against every named Republican candidate. Obama is not super-popular right now (though his ratings have been trending upwards along with the economy) but he’s still more popular than every single republican and really that’s what’s going to matter come November.

-Joe

leftish:

THE AUTHOR OF SOPA IS A COPYRIGHT VIOLATOR 

By Jamie Lee Curtis Taete

 US Congressman and poor-toupee-color-chooser Lamar Smith is the guy who authored the Stop Online Piracy Act. SOPA, as I’m sure you know, is the shady bill that will introduce way harsher penalties for companies and individuals caught violating copyright laws online (including making the unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime which you could actually go to jail for). If the bill passes, it will destroy the internet and, ultimately, turn the world into Mad Max (for more info, go here).

I decided to check that everything on Lamar’s official campaign website was copyright-cleared and on the level. Lamar is using several stock images on his site, two of which I tracked back to the same photographic agency. I contacted the agency to make sure he was paying to use them, but was told that it’s very difficult for them to actually check to see if someone has permission to use their images. (Great news, copyright violators!) However, seeing as they’re both from the same agency and are unwatermarked, it seems fairly likely that he is the only person on the entire internet who is actually paying to use a stock image (and he’d be an idiot not to).

So I took a look back at an archived, pre-SOPA version of his site.

This is a screenshot of his site as it appeared on the 24th of July, 2011.

And this is the background image Lamar was using. I managed to track that picture back to DJ Schulte, the photographer who took it.

And whaddya know? Looks like someone forgot to credit him.

I contacted DJ, to find out if Lamar had asked permission to use the image and he told me that he had no record of Lamar, or anyone from his organization, requesting permission to use it: “I switched my images from traditional copyright protection to be protected under the Creative Commons license a few years ago, which simply states that they can use my images as long as they attribute the image to me and do not use it for commercial purposes.

“I do not see anywhere on the screen capture that you have provided that the image was attributed to the source (me). So my conclusion would be that Lamar Smith’s organization did improperly use my image. So according to the SOPA bill, should it pass, maybe I could petition the court to take action against www.texansforlamarsmith.com.”

Oh dear. Luckily for DJ, there are people out there like Lamar making new laws to protect the little guy against online copyright theft. Keep fighting that good fight, Lamar!

READ UPDATES HERE…

truth-has-a-liberal-bias:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry says there is “no viable path forward” for his campaign and that Newt Gingrich has “the heart of a conservative reformer.”

FULL STORY

•  Final four face off in Charleston  

gop-circus:

On the question of whether any concerns about Wall Street, inequality, and economic unfairness are legitimate and are about something more than “envy,” -

ROMNEY: You know, I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare. When you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on 99 percent versus one percent, and those people who have been most successful will be in the one percent, you have opened up a wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God. The American people, I believe in the final analysis, will reject it.

QUESTIONER: Are there no fair questions about the distribution of wealth without it being seen as envy, though?

ROMNEY: I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like. But the president has made it part of his campaign rally. Everywhere he goes we hear him talking about millionaires and billionaires and executives and Wall Street. It’s a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach and I think it will fail.

Romney was TWICE given a chance to at least nod in the direction of saying that concerns about these problems have at least some legitimacy to them & that they are about something more than ‘envy’ or class warfare, and that they are deserving of a public debate. But he didn’t.

SURE, LETS CALL IT ENVY, MITTENS - the fact that between 1980 and 2005, the wealthiest 1 % pocked $4 of every $5 earned in the U.S.

Mitt Romney during the interview:

(replace ‘stylin on’ with ‘vastly out-earning’)

cognitivedissonance:

Please stop assuming I will back Ron Paul because I’m progressive, support ending the drug war, and wish to abolish our current imperialist system of meddling in world affairs.

There’s numerous reasons to not support Paul. I’m going straight to a sampling of the legislative record.

H.R.875 - Marriage Protection Act of 2011, co-sponsored by Paul and 12 other representatives, introduced March 2, 2011.

This bill sought to amend Title 28, Chapter 99 of the US Code to read:

“No court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, section 1738C.”

Here’s Section 1738C:

“No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.”

That’s the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA], which is currently facing several constitutional challenges in federal court. Basically, Mr. Constitutionalist Ron Paul sponsored a bill to ban federal courts (including the Supreme Court) from having any kind of jurisdiction over constitutional review of DOMA. Eighth grade civics says differently. Remember that whole checks and balances thing?

H.R.358 - Protect Life Act, co-sponsored by Paul and 144 other representatives, introduced 1/20/2011. Passed the US House October 13, 2011.

This bill sought to ban private health insurance companies from participating in federal exchanges if the company offered coverage to women for abortion or abortion-related services as part of an insurance policy, and also states if people receive federal healthcare subsidies to purchase private insurance plans, they cannot use the subsidy to purchase private comprehensive health insurance plans that cover abortion. If a woman wanted her insurance to cover abortion, she would have to purchase a separate policy to cover abortion - basically, an abortion rider. 

This bill would limit private enterprise from providing something consumers want. Seems contradictory to what a free-market denizen would advocate. But that’s not the worst part. This is:

And finally, it overrides protections for pregnant women under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. EMTALA was enacted in 1986 to ensure public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay, including women in active labor. Under EMTALA, hospitals must stabilize a pregnant patient who, for example, is facing an emergency obstetric condition or life-threatening pregnancy and either treat her—including an emergency abortion—or if the hospital or staff objects, to transfer her to another facility that will treat her.

H.R. 358 overturns decades of precedent guaranteeing people access to lifesaving emergency care, including abortion care and says its ok that a pregnant woman fighting for her life be left to die.

Paul is an OB/GYN and knows emergencies can arise during pregnancy requiring termination, making his co-sponsorship of this bill especially shameful. Read Mikki Kendall’s Salon article, “Abortion Saved My Life”, for an example of what happens when doctors refuse to treat women.

H.R.1095 - Freedom to Bank Act, sponsored by Paul with no co-sponsors, introduced March 15, 2011

The bill’s stated purpose:

“Sunset Federal laws and regulations which treat the American people like children by denying them the opportunity to make their own decision regarding control of their bank accounts and what type of information they wish to receive from their banks.”

So what’s that mean? Well, Paul thinks “no creditor, depository institution, or credit union shall be required to provide periodic statements of account to any customer.” Your bank would no longer be required to provide account statements or other information about investments or accounts unless you specifically know to ask for it.

Do I even need to go into how bad this idea truly is?

H.R.2040 - National Right-to-Work Act, co-sponsored by Paul and 71 other representatives, introduced May 26, 2011

Right to work is one of those warm and fuzzy newspeak names for something quite terrible. Here’s information on right to work states:

• The average worker in a right to work state makes about $5,333 a year less than workers in other states ($35,500 compared with $30,167).
• Weekly wages are $72 greater in free-bargaining states than in right to work states ($621 versus $549).
• 21 percent more people lack health insurance in right to work states compared to free-bargaining states.
• Maximum weekly worker compensation benefits are $30 higher in free states ($609 versus $579 in right to work states.
• According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate of workplace deaths is 51 percent higher in states with right to work, where unions can’t speak up on behalf of workers.

Oh, and my own state of Wyoming is a right to work state. Currently, Wyoming has the highest wage gap of any state, and is one of the deadliest places to work in the nation. Ron Paul thinks it would be super cool if we enacted a policy that contributed to these conditions nationwide. Because freedom.

H.R.1830 - To authorize the interstate traffic of unpasteurized milk and milk products that are packaged for direct human consumption, sponsored by Ron Paul and three co-sponsored, introduced May 11, 2011

Wasn’t the milk pasteurization question settled awhile ago? Anyhow, Paul believes “a Federal department, agency, or court may not take any action (such as administrative, civil, criminal, or other actions) that would prohibit, interfere with, regulate, or otherwise restrict the interstate traffic of milk, or a milk product, that is unpasteurized and packaged for direct human consumption.” In other words, selling unpasteurized milk is a-OK because Salmonella, Listeria, Q-fever, and E.coli are just the risks you take in a free society.

H.R.1164 - National Language Act of 2011, co-sponsored by Paul and 22 other representatives, introduced March 17, 2011

This bill would declare the official language of the US to be English. It would require all government business be transacted in English, and further state that “no person has a right, entitlement, or claim to have the Government of the United States or any of its officials or representatives act, communicate, perform or provide services, or provide materials in any language other than English.” Income tax forms would no longer be available in Spanish or any other language, nor information on government programs or benefits. This would even include information on joining the military and could potentially include the right to an interpreter when arrested or conducting business in the courts, i.e. divorce.

Further, this would affect voting rights by repealing Section 1973AA–1A of the Voting Rights Act of 1965:

The Congress finds that, through the use of various practices and procedures, citizens of language minorities have been effectively excluded from participation in the electoral process. Among other factors, the denial of the right to vote of such minority group citizens is ordinarily directly related to the unequal educational opportunities afforded them resulting in high illiteracy and low voting participation.

The Congress declares that, in order to enforce the guarantees of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, it is necessary to eliminate such discrimination by prohibiting these practices, and by prescribing other remedial devices.
…
A covered State or political subdivision for the purposes of this subsection if the Director of the Census determines:

• That more than 5 percent of the citizens of voting age of such State or political subdivision are members of a single language minority and are limited-English proficient
• More than 10,000 of the citizens of voting age of such political subdivision are members of a single language minority and are limited-English proficient
• Or in the case of a political subdivision that contains all or any part of an Indian reservation, more than 5 percent of the American Indian or Alaska Native citizens of voting age within the Indian reservation are members of a single language minority and are limited-English proficient
• And the illiteracy rate of the citizens in the language minority as a group is higher than the national illiteracy rate.

This bill will prevent people from voting. Period. And don’t give me any whining about voters who are not proficient in English don’t know anything about the candidates, issues, etc… First off, do you think native English speakers are well-informed? Second, even his supporters recognize the need for campaign materials in a language other than English. Check out Vota Ron Paul and this thread on the Ron Paul Forums. A few quotes:

• From California: Los Angeles County has (before redistricting) 18 Congressional Districts. Spanish is heavily spoken (and advertised). It would be helpful to us here in the third world, if the campaign would create a slim jim in Spanish. It would be great if the campaign could provide an official translation. Without Spanish materials, we are limited in who we can recruit. 
• From Wyoming: I am also interested in spanish campaign materials…there is a large population here…let no stone go unturned…
• From Pennsylvania: This would be about as well recieved in the GOP primary as putting out official campaign materials to promote an end to the war on drugs. It’s probably something best handled at the grassroots level.

So there you have it, Ron Paul fans. Ron Paul is more concerned about my right to drink unpasteurized milk than whether I would potentially die after being denied life-saving care based on a doctor’s religious conviction. He’s more concerned that my bank not be forced to provide me a bank statement than if the Defense of Marriage Act violates the constitution he claims to live and breathe. This is just from 2011 - and what I could turn up in 60 minutes. Don’t prod me to make a weekend of it.

Sincerely,

Meg

P.S.: Check out the Family Protection Act from 1980, sponsored by Ron Paul with no co-sponsors. I did. And I was disgusted. The act provides no federal penalty or implementation of guidelines “for determining whether a private school has forfeited its tax-exempt status by the adoption of racially discriminatory policies.”

ladonnapietra:

A Romney campaign flyer from 2002.  Please reblog.

Romney: pro-gay when it’s convenient!

As we enter an election year I figure it’s about time to remind everyone that Clint Webb is running for Senate. He’s electable.

-Joe

readyokaygo:

1. Ron Paul does not value equal rights for minorities. Ron Paul has sponsored legislation that would repeal affirmative action, keep the IRS from investigating private schools who may have used race as a factor in denying entrance, thus losing their tax exempt status, would limit the scope of Brown versus Board of Education, and would deny citizenship for those born in the US if their parents are not citizens. Here are links to these bills: H.R.3863, H.R.5909, H.J.RES.46, andH.J.RES.42.

2. Ron Paul would deny women control of their bodies and reproductive rights. Ron Paul makes it very clear that one of his aims is to repeal Roe v. Wade. He has also co sponsored 4 separate bills to “To provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception.” This, of course, goes against current medical and scientific information as well as our existing laws and precedents. Please see these links: H.R.2597 and H.R.392

3. Ron Paul would be disastrous for the working class. He supports abolishing the Federal minimum wage, has twice introduced legislation to repeal OSHA, or the Occupational Safety and Health Act and would deal devastating blows to Social Security including repealing the act that makes it mandatory for employees of nonprofits, to make “coverage completely optional for both present and future workers”, and would “freeze benefit levels”. He has also twice sponsored legislation seeking to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act and the Copeland Act which among other things provide that contractors for the federal government must provide the prevailing wage and prohibits corporate “kick backs.” Here are the related legislative links: H.R.2030, H.R.4604, H.R.736, and H.R.2720

4. Ron Paul’s tax plan is unfair to lower earners and would greatly benefit those with the highest incomes. He has repeatedly submitted amendments to the tax code that would get rid of the estate and gift taxes, tax all earners at 10%, disallow income tax credits to individuals who are not corporations, repeal the elderly tax credit, child care credit, earned income credit, and other common credits for working class citizens. Please see this link for more information: H.R.05484 Summary

5. Ron Paul’s policies would cause irreparable damage to our already strained environment. Among other travesties he supports off shore drilling, building more oil refineries, mining on federal lands, no taxes on the production of fuel, and would stop conservation efforts that could be a “Federal obstacle” to building and maintaining refineries. He has also sought to amend the Clean Air Act, repeal the Soil and Water Conservation Act of 1977, and to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to “restrict the jurisdiction of the United States over the discharge of dredged or fill material to discharges into waters”. To see for yourself the possible extent of the damage to the environment that would happen under a Paul administration please follow these links: H.R.2504,H.R.7079, H.R.7245, H.R.2415, H.R.393, H.R.4639, H.R.5293, and H.R.6936

6. A Ron Paul administration would continue to proliferate the negative image of the US among other nations. Ron Paul supports withdrawing the US from the UN, when that has not happened he has fought to at least have the US withdrawn from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. He has introduced legislation to keep the US from giving any funds to the UN. He also submitted that the US funds should not be used in any UN peacekeeping mission or any UN program at all. He has sponsored a bill calling for us to “terminate all participation by the United States in the United Nations, and to remove all privileges, exemptions, and immunities of the United Nations.”Ron Paul twice supported stopping the destruction of intercontinental ballistic missile silos in the United States. He also would continue with Bush’s plan of ignoring international laws by maintaining an insistence that the International Criminal Court does not apply to the US, despite President Clinton’s signature on the original treaty. The International Criminal Court is used for, among other things, prosecution of war crimes. Please see the following links: H.R.3891,H.AMDT.191, H.AMDT.190, H.R.3769, H.R.1665, H.CON.RES.23, and H.R.1154

7. Ron Paul discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation and would not provide equal rights and protections to glbt citizens. This is an issue that Paul sort of dances around. He has been praised for stating that the federal government should not regulate who a person marries. This has been construed by some to mean that he is somewhat open to the idea of same sex marriage, he is not. Paul was an original co sponsor of the Marriage Protection Act in the House in 2004. Among other things this discriminatory piece of legislation placed a prohibition on the recognition of a same sex marriage across state borders. He said in 2004 that if he was in the Texas legislature he would not allow judges to come up with “new definitions” of marriage. Paul is a very religious conservative and though he is careful with his words his record shows that he is not a supporter of same sex marriage. In 1980 he introduced a particularly bigoted bill entitled “A bill to strengthen the American family and promote the virtues of family life.” or H.R.7955 A direct quote from the legislation “Prohibits the expenditure of Federal funds to any organization which presents male or female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it can be an acceptable life style.” shows that he is unequivocally opposed to lifestyles other than heterosexual.

8. Ron Paul has an unnatural obsession with guns. One of Paul’s loudest gripes is that the second amendment of the constitution is being eroded. In fact, he believes that September 11 would not have happened if that wasn’t true. He advocates for there to be no restrictions on personal ownership of semi-automatic weaponry or large capacity ammunition feeding devices, would repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act (because we all know our schools are just missing more guns), wants guns to be allowed in our National Parks, and repeal the Gun Control Act of 1968. Now, I’m pretty damn certain that when the Constitution was written our founding fathers never intended for people to be walking around the streets with AK47′s and “large capacity ammunition feeding devices.” (That just sounds scary.) Throughout the years our Constitution has been amended and is indeed a living document needing changes to stay relevant in our society. Paul has no problem changing the Constitution when it fits his needs, such as no longer allowing those born in the US to be citizens if their parents are not. On the gun issue though he is no holds barred. I know he’s from Texas but really, common sense tells us that the amendments he is seeking to repeal have their place. In fact, the gun control act was put into place after the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Please view the following links: H.R.2424, H.R.1897, H.R.1096,H.R.407, H.R.1147, and H.R.3892.

9. Ron Paul would butcher our already sad educational system. The fact is that Ron Paul wants to privatize everything and that includes education. Where we run into problems is that it has been shown (think our current health care system) that this doesn’t work so well in practice. Ron Paul has introduced legislation that would keep the Federal Government “from planning, developing, implementing, or administering any national teacher test or method of certification and from withholding funds from States or local educational agencies that fail to adopt a specific method of teacher certification.” In a separate piece of legislation he seeks to “prohibit the payment of Federal Education assistance in States which require the licensing or certification of private schools or private school teachers.” So basically the federal government can’t regulate teaching credentials and if states opt to require them for private schools they get no aid. That sounds like a marvelous idea teachers with no certification teaching in private schools that are allowed to discriminate on the basis of race. He is certainly moving forward with these proposals!Remember his “bill to strengthen the American family and promote the virtues of family life.” or H.R.7955? Guess what? He basically advocates for segregation in schools once again. It “Forbids any court of the United States from requiring the attendance at a particular school of any student because of race, color, creed, or sex.” Without thinking about this statement it doesn’t sound bad at all. But remember, when desegregating schools that this is done by having children go to different schools, often after a court decision as in Brown Vs. Board of Education. If this were a bill that passed, schools would no longer be compelled to comply and the schools would go back to segregation based on their locations. Ron Paul is really starting to look like a pretty bigoted guy don’t you think?

10. Ron Paul is opposed to the separation of church and state. This reason is probably behind every other thing that I disagree with in regards to Paul’s positions. Ron Paul is among those who believes that there is a war on religion, he stated “Through perverse court decisions and years of cultural indoctrination, the elitist, secular Left has managed to convince many in our nation that religion must be driven from public view.” (( Koyaanisqatsi Blog: Wrong Paul Why I Do Not Want Ron Paul to be My President )) Though he talks a good talk, at times, Ron Paul can’t get away from his far right, conservative views. He would support “alternative views” to evolution taught in public schools (i.e. Intelligent Design.) We’ve already taken a look at his “bill to strengthen the American family and promote the virtues of family life.” or H.R.7955 Besides hating the gays he takes a very religious stance on many other things. He is attempting to force his beliefs on the rest of America, exactly what he would do as president.

RESEARCH! ((Orcinus: Ron Paul’s Record in Congress ))

From the continuing series of “What’s Wrong with Ron Paul”

Billboard reads “Faithful Republican, Unfaithful Husband”

-Joe