LGBTQ news and entertainment
“If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861?”
“The South has always stood by the Constitution and limited government. When one attacks the Confederate Battle Flag, he is certainly denouncing these principles of government as well as Christianity.” – GOP Arkansas state Rep. Roy Mauch, in a letter to a local newspaper.
Do I even have to add – “SRSLY?”
via JoeMyGod
The local RNC says the caller was “completely off-script.”
I don’t know – sounds pretty much like what they’ve been saying (lying) for a while…
In his remarks to the AARP Friday, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan was booed loudly when he said the “first step to a stronger Medicare is to repeal Obamacare.”
Ryan was unfazed. “I had a feeling there would be mixed reactions, so let me get into it,” he said.
“It weakens Medicare for today’s seniors and puts it at risk for the next generation,” Ryan argued. “First, it funnels $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for a new entitlement we didn’t even ask for. Second, it puts 15 unelected bureaucrats in charge of Medicare’s future.”
Ryan’s own budget contains the same cuts to future Medicare spending as the Affordable Care Act, although Mitt Romney has distanced himself from that plan. The bureaucrat reference is to the new Independent Payment Advisory Board, whose members must be approved by the Senate and whose recommendations can be rejected by Congress. Politifact has rated Ryan’s description of the board “mostly false.”
The AARP is a non-partisan organization, but the group supported the Affordable Care Act, nicknamed Obamacare. Obama appeared before the group earlier in the day (also via satellite) and offered a sharp critique of his Republican rivals’ plans to revamp Medicare, saying it would leave seniors “at the mercy of insurance companies.”
Senate Democrats failed to achieve cloture and thus prevent a filibuster on the legislation which would cost $1bn over five years to help veterans find employment in public work projects and as police officers and firefighters.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) led the opposition to the bill, arguing that the nation’s debt overrode its obligations to help veterans get jobs. Only 5 Republicans voted to proceed with the debate, leaving Democrats two votes short of the 60 required to block a threatened Republican filibuster.
And our country’s veterans lose.
Read more at RawStory
During an appearance on CNN’s Starting Point on Monday, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) could not explain when President Obama “apologized” for the United States, despite repeatedly claiming that he went on an “apology tour” across the Middle East shortly after becoming president.
Republicans have charged many times that Obama’s “defeatist” policies have caused the unrest in the middle East and contributed to the death of Libyan ambassador Christopher Stevens. But pressed to detail where Obama has apologized for America by CNN host Soledad O’Brien, King came up short:
O’BRIEN: Never once in that speech, as you know, which I have the speech right here. that was — he never once used the word “apology.” He never once said “I’m sorry.”
KING: Didn’t have to. The logical — any logical reading of that speech or the speech he gave in France where he basically said that the United States can be too aggressive. […]
O’BRIEN: Everybody keeps talking about this apology tour and apologies from the President. I’m trying to find the words ‘I’m sorry, I apologize’ in any of those speeches. Which I have the text of all those speeches in front of me. None of those speeches at all, if you go to factcheck.org which we check in a lot, they all say the same thing. They fact check this and they say this whole theory of apologies…
KING: I don’t care what fact check says.
O’BRIEN: There are fact checks. You may not care, but they’re a fact checker.
KING: No. Soledad. Any commonsense interpretation of those speeches, the president’s apologizing for the American position. That’s the apology tour. That’s the way it’s interpreted in the Middle East. If I go over and say that the U.S. has violated its principles, that the United States has not shown respect for islam, that’s an apology. How else can it be interpreted?
O’BRIEN: I think plenty of people are interpreting it as a nuanced approach to diplomacy is how some people are interpreting it. So I don’t think that everybody agrees it’s apology.
I’ve personally looked for these “apologies” from President Obama and like Soledad, I haven’t been able to find ONE instance where the President has said “I apologize for the United States” – or anything even close to that.
Congressman King and his group know that this is all just “red meat” for their base.
And it’s also a lie.
Via ThinkProgress
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan say they can balance the budget and fix the economy in part by removing some “tax loopholes.”
Many of these “tax loopholes” are the biggest tax deductions middle class America gets: mortgage interest deductions, state and local tax deductions… But Mitt Romney and company won’t say what “loopholes” they’ll “close.”
If you buy a home this year for $100,000 with a mortgage – under current law, middle class America would get something like a $6,000 tsx deduction.
How do you feel about losing that?
GOP VP pick Paul Ryan traveled to Colorado on Friday, an important swing state where medical cannabis is already legal and a ballot initiative legalizing marijuana outright appears likely to pass. In the past, Congressman Ryan has opposed even medical marijuana in states that legalized it.
When asked his position on legalizing pot, he suddenly embraced a new position saying it’s a “states’ rights” issue in an interview with Colorado Springs television station KRDO:
I asked Congressman Ryan: “In Colorado we have medical marijuana. Under a Romney Ryan ticket, what happens?”
Ryan: “It’s up to Coloradans to decide.”
I said: “So even if federal law says marijuana is illegal, you’re saying?”
Ryan: “My personal positions on this issue have been let the states decide what to do with these things. This is something that is not a high priority of ours as to whether or not we go down the road on this issue. What I’ve always believed is the states should decide. I personally don’t agree with it, but this is something Coloradans have to decide for themselves.”
Nearly three quarters of Americans agree with this position, however none of them are named Mitt Romney.
Mitt Romney promised to fight marijuana legalization “tooth and nail,” and he lost his cool with a Colorado reporter who asked him about the medical cannabis issue last May. So Ryan was forced to backtrack on Saturday, when a Ryan spokesperson claimed that Ryan “agrees with Mitt Romney that marijuana should never be legalized.”
Courage, clarity and commitment you can trust.
Via ThinkProgress
Did anyone notice that there were no mentions of the Tea Party movement during the prime time speeches at the Republican National convention this week? Remember when Tea Party was everyone’s favorite phrase?
Not a single one of the 38 speakers during the convention’s key prime time hours has even mentioned the phrase, according to an examination of their transcripts — a sign both of Romney’s own distance from the movement and that polls have suggested that voters view the movement negatively.
At the very least, I expected Tea Party favorite Senator Rand Paul to give a shout out. Nothing.
Things that make you go “hmm…”
(Source)
