Archive for category National Politics
Gallup Poll: ‘Enthusiasm Gap’ Now 25 Points
Posted by Richard Warnick in 2010 Elections, Democracy, Democrats, Disaster, Elections, National Politics, Party Politics, Republicans, This Blog on September 2, 2010
Also, Republicans lead on the “generic ballot” by an unprecedented 10 points.
Source: Gallup.com
The last Gallup weekly generic ballot average before Labor Day underscores the fast-evolving conventional wisdom that the GOP is poised to make significant gains in this fall’s midterm congressional elections. Gallup’s generic ballot has historically proven an excellent predictor of the national vote for Congress, and the national vote in turn is an excellent predictor of House seats won and lost. Republicans’ presumed turnout advantage, combined with their current 10-point registered-voter lead, suggests the potential for a major “wave” election in which the Republicans gain a large number of seats from the Democrats and in the process take back control of the House.
Glenn Greenwald has a roundup of some of the reasons why. In general, we have a Democratic administration and Congress that steadfastly refuses to implement progressive policies. They are even plotting to roll back Social Security and Medicare.
How Do You Define ‘Non-Political’?
Posted by Richard Warnick in Activist groups, Bigotry, Conservative, Free Speech, Glenn Beck, National Politics, Sarah Palin, Tea Bag Party, This Blog on August 29, 2010
Yesterday’s Beck-a-thon at the Lincoln Memorial was billed unconvincingly as a “non-political” event, and “not a Tea Party rally” in order to circumvent National Park Service rules. But somebody forgot to tell the participants to leave their right-wing partisanship at home. Which is OK by me because, you know, free speech is as American as apple pie.
h/t Scott Keyes at Think Progress, Talking Points Memo, Gawker, and Associated Press.
Incidentally, if anyone is serious about restoring the honor of America then how about calling for prosecutions of torturers and torture conspirators — as required by the U.N. Convention Against Torture?
More info: BuzzFeed: The Best Anti-Glenn Beck Signs At The Glenn Beck Rally
Glenn Beck vs. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Posted by Richard Warnick in Activist groups, American History, Bigotry, Civil liberties Infringement, Conservative, Glenn Beck, Human Rights, Hypocrisy, Martin Luther King, National Politics, Racism, Tea Bag Party on August 26, 2010
Glenn Beck is Not Martin Luther King, Jr.
On Saturday, Glenn Beck wants to “reclaim the civil rights movement” for right-wingers. Huh? The right was always against equality, and still is.
August 28th is an important day in American history. On that day, forty-seven years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream Speech” at the Lincoln Memorial. His message gave voice to the voiceless and his vision promoted a just, equal, diverse and compassionate country.
This year, a very different message is going to be spread from the very ground on which King once stood. Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin will hold a rally at the Lincoln Memorial.
The racist, raging and hate-filled tenor of Beck, Palin and the Tea Party movement is in direct contrast to the noble vision of Dr. King. We cannot sit idly by and let King’s vision and legacy be hijacked for political purposes.
Dr. King once declared that “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
We will not be silent on this matter. Honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s struggle for a just and equal America.
It’s almost impossible to think of two well-known Americans who could be more opposite than Glenn Beck and Martin Luther King, Jr. Unlike the 1963 March on Washington, Beck’s event is a purely partisan affair (how did he get a National Park Service permit for a political event?) Unlike MLK, Beck says he won’t have a prepared speech. He says he’ll be channeling The Almighty. God speaks to Beck, Beck tells the people!
More info:
Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream” from American Rhetoric.
UPDATE: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) will also speak along with Beck and Sarah Palin at Saturday’s all-Republican “non-political” event. Which is technically being sponsored by a veterans’ charity to get around National Park Service rules.
UPDATE: JM Bell: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Glenn Beck – A Comparison
UPDATE: REPORT: Glenn Beck’s Philosophy Is Opposed To Everything Martin Luther King, Jr. Stood For
It’s difficult to find two people whose philosophies are so distinctly different than Glenn Beck and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. While King fought for all people to be able to live a decent life, championed a compassionate version of Christianity that sought to create a better world, and established dialogue with those who disagreed with him, Beck shows little compassion for those worse off, has derided the social gospel, and has viciously smeared and attacked his political opponents. As Media Matters writes, “Martin Luther King would have been on Glenn Beck’s chalkboard.”
UPDATE: John Nichols: No, Glenn Beck Is Not a Civil Rights Icon
69% of Americans: Let Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich Expire on Schedule
Posted by Richard Warnick in American People, Bush Administration, Deficit, Economic Exploitation, Economy, Federal Budget, National Politics, This Blog, congress on August 21, 2010
Via Raw Story: A new CNN/Opinion Research poll released on Friday indicates that a whopping 69 percent of Americans want the Bush tax cuts for the rich to expire at the end of this year. Eighty-one percent favor extending them for the middle class.
CNN/Opinion Research poll (PDF):
As you may know, the tax cuts passed into law when George W. Bush was president are set to expire this year. Unless a new bill is passed, federal income tax rates will rise to the level they were at when those cuts were enacted. Which of the following statements comes closest to your view:
31% -Those tax cuts should continue for all Americans regardless of how much money they make
51% – Those tax cuts should continue for families that make less than 250 thousand dollars a year, but taxes should rise to the previous level for families who make more than that amount
18% – Taxes should rise to the previous level for all Americans regardless of how much money they make
To avoid ballooning deficits, all the Bush tax cuts will have to be allowed to expire when we recover from Bush’s Great Recession. The Congressional Budget Office calculates that extending the tax cuts for all but the rich would likely boost economic growth in the short-run but could hamper it over the next decade as the deficit would rise to 8 percent of GDP by 2020.
Related One Utah post:
How Long Are We Going to Keep Blaming President Bush for the Results of His Bad Policies? (June 28)
UPDATE: Mitch McConnell’s Con: Cut Social Security to Enable Tax Cuts to the Rich
‘Restrepo’ Opens in SLC September 3
Posted by Richard Warnick in Afghanistan, Foreign Policy, Military, National Politics, Taliban, War on August 20, 2010
“Restrepo” is the winner of the U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Like a modern day “Band of Brothers,” it chronicles the deployment of a platoon of U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. The movie focuses on a remote 15-man outpost, Restrepo, named after a platoon medic who was killed in action.
The war in Afghanistan has become highly politicized, but soldiers rarely take part in that discussion. Our intention was to capture the experience of combat, boredom and fear through the eyes of the soldiers themselves. Their lives were our lives: we did not sit down with their families, we did not interview Afghans, we did not explore geopolitical debates. Soldiers are living and fighting and dying at remote outposts in Afghanistan in conditions that few Americans back home can imagine. Their experiences are important to understand, regardless of one’s political beliefs. Beliefs are a way to avoid looking at reality. This is reality. — Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, directors of “RESTREPO”
“Restrepo” opens September 3, 2010 at the Broadway Centre 6 in Salt Lake City. See it.
Previous One Utah post:
Was the Five-Year Battle for Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley a Big Misunderstanding? (June 27)
The Decline: The Geography of a Recession
Posted by Richard Warnick in American People, Bush Failures, Capitalism, Disaster, Economy, National Politics, Unemployment on August 17, 2010
Geographers love maps. Maps are one of the best forms of communication ever devised. But sometimes maps can be very, very frightening…
Multi-temporal map animation by LaToya Egwuekwe
According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are nearly 31 million people currently unemployed — that’s including those involuntarily working part time and those who want a job, but have given up on trying to find one. In the face of the worst economic upheaval since the Great Depression, millions of Americans are hurting. “The Decline: The Geography of a Recession,” as created by labor writer LaToya Egwuekwe, serves as a vivid representation of just how much. Watch the deteriorating transformation of the U.S. economy from January 2007 — approximately one year before the start of the recession — to the most recent unemployment data available today.
Note: This map displays the so-called U3 unemployment statistic, which doesn’t account for the underemployed and those who’ve simply given up looking for work. The real measure of unemployment is approximately double the U3 numbers.
h/t HuffPo
UPDATE: Glenn Beck’s advice to his unemployed fellow Americans: “Go out and get a job.” (Beck’s job pays $25 million a year — nice work if you can get it. No college degree required, either.)
UPDATE: Death and Joblessness: Suicide Dogs the Long-Term Unemployed. What Can Be Done to Help Them?
UPDATE: Initial Jobless Claims the Latest Indicator in Support of a Double Dip
Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending August 14th came in at a seasonally adjusted 500,000, the highest level since November 2009.
…That begs the question of whether the NBER’s reluctance to call an official end to the great recession means that the NBER thinks it never really ended.
Tea Partyers Say Net Neutrality Hurts Freedom
Posted by Richard Warnick in Activist groups, Civil liberties Infringement, Conservative, National Politics, Tea Bag Party, The Constitution, This Blog, the Internet on August 16, 2010
Via TPM, one more addition to the growing collection of hilarious headlines that begin with “Tea Partyers Say…”
The tea party, a movement whose success on the grassroots level is in many ways attributable to the power of free and open Internet communications, is joining the growing conservative crusade against the FCC’s plan to enforce net neutrality on internet service providers. According to one tea partier involved in the effort, the movement is opposing net neutrality because “it’s an affront to free speech and free markets.”
To sum up, the Tea Party is all in favor of Freedom and Equality — except for the freedoms and equality guaranteed by the Constitution in the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and the 14th Amendment.
On HuffPo, Robert Creamer tries to explain what’s up with the Tea Party extremists. They’re making the mistake of going public with the GOP policy agenda (emphasis added).
The main difference is the willingness of the Tea Party gang to say what they believe out loud. This, of course, is driving Republican political consultants crazy. Republicans have never gotten elected by laying out to the voters the core components of their economic agenda. When they have been successful it has generally been by soft-pedaling or sugar-coating the things that mattered most to their corporate backers and playing instead to the fears and anxieties of their rank and file voters.
Who’s in favor of net neutrality? Everybody who believes in free speech. Who’s opposed? ADC, Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, Cisco, Comcast, Qwest, Time Warner, and Verizon. Google seems to be switching sides from good to evil, despite their corporate motto.
What would happen if the corporations were allowed to take away net neutrality? The Internet would become more like cable TV, with corporate control over how different types of content can be accessed.
UPDATE: AT&T claims net neutrality is oppressive
UPDATE: House Dems: FCC Must Reject Google-Verizon Deal To Ensure Net Neutrality
UPDATE: Tea Party Groups Out AGAINST Net Neutrality
UPDATE: Four Dem members of Congress stand up for net neutrality.
Sandstrom: My Anti-Immigrant Bill is Tougher Than Arizona’s
Posted by Richard Warnick in Civil liberties Infringement, Immigration, National Politics, Racism, Tea Bag Party, The Constitution, This Blog, Utah Legislature, Utah Politics on August 13, 2010
“Patrick Henry Caucus” founder Rep. Steven Sandstrom unveiled his anti-immigrant bill today, at a raucous press conference in the Utah State Capitol.
Similar to the Arizona “Papers Please” law, Sandstrom’s bill is intended to crack down in illegal immigration by forcing police to determine the citizenship of people they pull over and allowing Utahns to sue agencies that don’t pursue illegal immigrants to the full extent of the law.
Surrounded by protesters, Sandstrom said his bill goes further than Arizona’s SB 1070. Others call the new bill “SB 1070 lite.”
(Provo Daily Herald video)
Sandstrom’s anti-immigrant bill will be introduced in the House of Representatives during the 2011 legislative session that begins in January. Just what we needed — another right-wing “message bill” that’s unconstitutional on its face.
More info:
KSL-TV: Rep. Sandstrom unveils Utah immigration law
Provo Daily Herald: Sandstrom: My bill is tougher than Arizona’s
Related One Utah posts:
A Special Message to the Utah Patrick Henry Caucus (July 28)
Show Us Your Papers! (May 19)
AZ ‘Papers Please’ Law Unconstitutional and Un-American (May 17)
Your Papers, Please… (April 27)
‘Significant Risk of Terrorist Attacks’
Posted by Richard Warnick in Barack Obama, Bush Administration, National Politics, Terrorism, This Blog, Transparency, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority on August 11, 2010
h/t Think Progress
One of the many Bush administration programs still in place under the Obama administration is the Department of Homeland Security Homeland Security Advisory System. As of today, The United States government’s national threat level is Elevated, or Yellow (significant risk of terrorist attacks). For all domestic and international flights, the U.S. threat level is High, or Orange (high risk of terrorist attacks).
What the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t say, or perhaps does not know: Americans were 22 percent more likely to be killed by dog bites than terrorist attacks in 2009, when the alert levels were the same as they are now. You cannot make this stuff up.
According to the U.S. State Department’s official report, there were just 25 U.S. noncombatant fatalities from terrorism worldwide. (The US government definition of terrorism excludes attacks on U.S. military personnel).
According to DogsBite.org, which compiles press reports of dog bite fatalities, 32 U.S. fatal dog attacks occurred in 2009.
ALERT: Significant risk of dog attacks. Be afraid, be very afraid…
Prop 8 Gay Marriage Ban Unconstitutional
Posted by Richard Warnick in American People, Bigotry, Democracy, Equality, GLBT issues, Hypocrisy, Mormon LDS, National Politics, Religious Fundamentalism, The Constitution on August 4, 2010
I expect other One Utah authors will have much more to say about this. I just thought, this is great news so why wait?
Federal district court judge Vaughn Walker has overturned Prop 8, ruling that the California’s gay marriage ban is unconstitutional.
CONCLUSION
Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis,the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.REMEDIES
Plaintiffs have demonstrated by overwhelming evidence that Proposition 8 violates their due process and equal protection rights and that they will continue to suffer these constitutional violations until state officials cease enforcement of Proposition 8. California is able to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, as it has already issued 18,000 marriage licenses to same-sex couples and has not suffered any demonstrated harm as a result, see FF 64-66; moreover, California officials have chosen not to defend Proposition 8 in these proceedings.Because Proposition 8 is unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, the court orders entry of judgment permanently enjoining its enforcement; prohibiting the official defendants from applying or enforcing Proposition 8 and directing the official defendants that all persons under their control or supervision shall not apply or enforce Proposition 8. The clerk is DIRECTED to enter judgment without bond in favor of plaintiffs and plaintiff-intervenors and against defendants and defendant-intervenors pursuant to FRCP 58.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Judge Walker issued a stay of the ruling, pending appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and if necessary, the U.S. Supreme Court.
Related One Utah post:
The Prop 8 Trial and the Constitutional Case for Same-Sex Marriage (March 2, 2010)
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