Political Randomness

[gilraen]

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas sustained “extensive second- and third-degree burns” on both legs below the knees and both feet — and may miss next week’s Republican National Convention as a result, his office said Sunday.

Spokesman Matt Hirsch said Abbott was with his family in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Thursday when he was scalded in an accident involving hot water. He declined to provide further details.

Jeez, what did he do, roll into a geyser?

[Enough]

The GOP platform is really shaping up as quite the populist and nanny state mess. Today they've added an amendment demanding the federal government turn over public lands to the states immediately. This follows their earlier action to put in an anti-porn provision, another opposing gay adoption among other anti-LGBTQ measures they are considering. The final vote on the platform they come up with will be at the convention. Every time someone goes off on PC politics and the left I just point at this stuff and laugh.

[Grifman]

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas sustained “extensive second- and third-degree burns” on both legs below the knees and both feet — and may miss next week’s Republican National Convention as a result, his office said Sunday.

Spokesman Matt Hirsch said Abbott was with his family in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Thursday when he was scalded in an accident involving hot water. He declined to provide further details.

Jeez, what did he do, roll into a geyser?

So the Texas governor got into hot water again?

[Default]

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas sustained “extensive second- and third-degree burns” on both legs below the knees and both feet — and may miss next week’s Republican National Convention as a result, his office said Sunday.

Spokesman Matt Hirsch said Abbott was with his family in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Thursday when he was scalded in an accident involving hot water. He declined to provide further details.

Jeez, what did he do, roll into a geyser?

So the Texas governor got into hot water again?

You have to do what you have to do to get out of going.

[Kraken]

There are 52 Republican senators. 16 have announced that they won't attend Trump's convention and 6 more haven't said either way. Two-thirds of the GOP senators up for re-election are skipping.

And, no, this is nowhere near normal.

By your count that leaves 30 senators who will or might attend. That's still plenty to fill airtime.

The former presidents are the more glaring absence to me, although a lot of Republicans would probably rather we forget about W anyway.

It's interesting to watch lines being drawn anyway. These go/no-go, support-or-not, party-first or country-first decisions will reverberate for a long time to come.

[Zarathud]

First they came for our dirty mags, next they come for our internet!

[hepcat]

Porn has driven tech innovation for centuries, man. If they don't allow us to watch a guy in a diaper getting spanked by a middle aged woman in a gestapo outfit, then I doubt we'll get driverless cars!

[Isgrimnur]

Ala.

The first black Miss Alabama has been placed on administrative leave from her job at a Miami television station after she called the man accused in the shooting deaths of five Dallas police officers a "martyr" on social media.

Kalyn Chapman James posted an emotional video from her vehicle Sunday explaining that she doesn't condone violence but she feels guilty for not feeling sad for the officers who lost their lives.

"I know it's not the right way to feel because nobody deserves to lose their lives and I know those police officers have families and people who love them and that they didn't deserve to die," James said. "But I'm so torn up in my heart about seeing these men -- these black men -- being gunned down in our communities that I can't help feel like ... I wasn't surprised by what the shooter did to those cops."

The local television station James worked for, WPBT2, issued a statement on its Twitter account Monday afternoon stating that "WPBT2 South Florida PBS does not condone the personal statements made by one of its independent contractors regarding the events in Dallas." The station did not name James directly.

"It placed the contractor on administrative leave while it actively and carefully looks further into the matter and will determine additional course of actions based on its thorough review of the matter," according to the station's post.
...
James hosts a weekly art program on WPFT2 called Art Loft. The show highlights local performances, artists and exhibitions.

James told WPMI 15 that since posting the video, the wife a Dallas police officer has contacted her.

"She said that she watched my video and she wasn't mad, she understood what I was saying and that she forgave me," James told the TV station.

[Enough]

First they came for our dirty mags, next they come for our internet!

Hey, at least they are making sure to save your right to force your loved ones into gay conversion camps! Heck if they sell off the federal lands like they want to, perhaps one of those conversion camps could be in a really cool place like Yellowstone!

[malchior]

The GOP platform is really shaping up as quite the populist and nanny state mess. Today they've added an amendment demanding the federal government turn over public lands to the states immediately. This follows their earlier action to put in an anti-porn provision, another opposing gay adoption among other anti-LGBTQ measures they are considering. The final vote on the platform they come up with will be at the convention. Every time someone goes off on PC politics and the left I just point at this stuff and laugh.

For me it is dread. None of this prepares our country to deal with a globalized future. Almost none of it deals directly with actual problems people face every day. It is a 'document' aimed at an echo chamber that masquerades as a popular political movement. It is crazy and it is dangerous. For these reasons I hope they get *curb stomped* by the vote.

[Jaymann]

It's not even self serving. Drumpf has already locked up the bigot vote. But it may drive more of the nose-holders to vote for Clinton.

[Isgrimnur]

Republican platform details

Dale Jackson, a heating and air-conditioning man and father of an 8-year-old autistic son, flew up to the site of the Republican National Convention on Monday, to ask his party’s platform committee to endorse the use of medicinal marijuana where appropriate.
...
Jackson found a delegate who would pitch the idea, but his luck ended there. The 112-member committee that is currently drafting policy positions for the 2016 presidential contest rejected it out of hand, by a voice vote of two-thirds or more.
...
The platform committee beat back an effort to kill language that encourages state legislatures to make the Bible a part of school literature studies in their state. They challenged federal efforts to protect grey wolves and prairie chickens.

Republicans killed an effort to permit states to bar welfare recipients from purchasing junk food – a position that brought a Georgia delegate into the debate. Scott Johnson of Marietta said such restrictions, attempted in some states, expose retailers to uncertain and often hair-splitting regulation.
...
A delegate from California drew a line between pot and gun violence. “If you look at the debate about guns, all of the mass killings that have taken place, they’re young boys from divorced families, and they’re all smoking pot,” she said.
...
“It’s the opiates that they’re on, is what’s causing all the shooters, and the addictions and the overdoses,” Jackson erupted after the vote. “Not cannabis. But that’s FDA appoved, so they’re okay with that.”

[Enough]

Yay, let's have the party of personal freedom/liberty bring back reefer madness.

[GreenGoo]

That is the least expensive evil girl I've ever seen.

[Moliere]

Comedians in Cars Getting Abortions
People thought this would be a hiiiilarious! to parody Jerry Seinfeld's show except it's two people on their way to an abortion clinic. Six and a half minutes of non-stop laughs about why she is getting an abortion. Like that crying kid they drive past, yeah the world doesn't need any more of them. Did these people not see the backlash received by the Daily Show for their tweet encouraging people to get someone pregnant just so they can have an abortion.

[Defiant]

George Bush says something fairly profound. No, really.

Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions

[LordMortis]

Many people searched the internet to see if Mr Bush had plagiarized it from another source.

Why don't I doubt that?

I'm surprised at how youthful W looks. The presidency seems to take its toll and its a one way street.

[Holman]

Neil deGrasse Tyson on the dozen times he has been racially profiled.

[Enough]

Oh my how times have changed. When I was growing up studying politicians I really liked Ike and there were other Republicans I admired. I just came across the Republican Party platform from 1956. Anyway we could bring back this version of the Rs?

Just a few examples:

The record of performance of the Republican Administration on behalf of our working men and women goes still further. The Federal minimum wage has been raised for more than 2 million workers. Social Security has been extended to an additional 10 million workers and the benefits raised for 6 1/2 million. The protection of unemployment insurance has been brought to 4 million additional workers. There have been increased workmen's compensation benefits for longshoremen and harbor workers, increased retirement benefits for railroad employees, and wage increases and improved welfare and pension plans for federal employees.

In that concept, this Republican Administration sponsored the Refugee Relief Act to provide asylum for thousands of refugees, expellees and displaced persons, and undertook in the face of Democrat opposition to correct the inequities in existing law and to bring our immigration policies in line with the dynamic needs of the country and principles of equity and justice.

We believe also that the Congress should consider the extension of the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 in resolving this difficult refugee problem which resulted from world conflict. To all this we give our wholehearted support.

Assure equal pay for equal work regardless of Sex;

Clarify and strengthen the eight-hour laws for the benefit of workers who are subject to federal wage standards on Federal and Federally-assisted construction, and maintain and continue the vigorous administration of the Federal prevailing minimum wage law for public supply contracts;

Extend the protection of the Federal minimum wage laws to as many more workers as is possible and practicable;

Continue to fight for the elimination of discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry or sex;

Provide assistance to improve the economic conditions of areas faced with persistent and substantial unemployment;

Revise and improve the Taft-Hartley Act so as to protect more effectively the rights of labor unions, management, the individual worker, and the public. The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the Eisenhower Administration. In 1954, 1955 and again in 1956, President Eisenhower recommended constructive amendments to this Act. The Democrats in Congress have consistently blocked these needed changes by parliamentary maneuvers. The Republican Party pledges itself to overhaul and improve the Taft-Hartley Act along the lines of these recommendations.

[gilraen]

It's a bit of common knowledge (but no less ironic) that after the Civil Rights Act era, the Democrat and Republican agendas essentially switched places.

[Enough]

It's a bit of common knowledge (but no less ironic) that after the Civil Rights Act era, the Democrat and Republican agendas essentially switched places.

Of course, but still it's a fascinating read. I personally had never read it before, and it came off far more progressive in tone than I would have expected.

[Enough]

The Log Cabin Republicans are just shocked that the presumptive platform is so virulently anti-gay,

There’s no way to sugar-coat this: I’m mad as hell — and I know you are, too.

Moments ago, the Republican Party passed the most anti-LGBT Platform in the Party’s 162-year history.

Opposition to marriage equality, nonsense about bathrooms, an endorsement of the debunked psychological practice of “pray the gay away” — it’s all in there.

This isn’t my GOP, and I know it’s not yours either. Heck, it’s not even Donald Trump’s! When given a chance to follow the lead of our presumptive presidential nominee and reach out to the LGBT community in the wake of the awful terrorist massacre in Orlando on the gay nightclub Pulse, the Platform Committee said NO.

BUT…now is not the time to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. Log Cabin Republicans has been officially credentialed for the Republican National Convention, and when it convenes in Cleveland in a mere 6 days’ time I want to be able to take a stand, but we’re going to need your support to do it.

[Moliere]

The Log Cabin Republicans are just shocked that the presumptive platform is so virulently anti-gay,

There’s no way to sugar-coat this: I’m mad as hell — and I know you are, too.

Moments ago, the Republican Party passed the most anti-LGBT Platform in the Party’s 162-year history.

Opposition to marriage equality, nonsense about bathrooms, an endorsement of the debunked psychological practice of “pray the gay away” — it’s all in there.

This isn’t my GOP, and I know it’s not yours either. Heck, it’s not even Donald Trump’s! When given a chance to follow the lead of our presumptive presidential nominee and reach out to the LGBT community in the wake of the awful terrorist massacre in Orlando on the gay nightclub Pulse, the Platform Committee said NO.

BUT…now is not the time to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. Log Cabin Republicans has been officially credentialed for the Republican National Convention, and when it convenes in Cleveland in a mere 6 days’ time I want to be able to take a stand, but we’re going to need your support to do it.

Why not just join the Libertarian Party?

[Enough]

The Log Cabin Republicans are just shocked that the presumptive platform is so virulently anti-gay,

There’s no way to sugar-coat this: I’m mad as hell — and I know you are, too.

Moments ago, the Republican Party passed the most anti-LGBT Platform in the Party’s 162-year history.

Opposition to marriage equality, nonsense about bathrooms, an endorsement of the debunked psychological practice of “pray the gay away” — it’s all in there.

This isn’t my GOP, and I know it’s not yours either. Heck, it’s not even Donald Trump’s! When given a chance to follow the lead of our presumptive presidential nominee and reach out to the LGBT community in the wake of the awful terrorist massacre in Orlando on the gay nightclub Pulse, the Platform Committee said NO.

BUT…now is not the time to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. Log Cabin Republicans has been officially credentialed for the Republican National Convention, and when it convenes in Cleveland in a mere 6 days’ time I want to be able to take a stand, but we’re going to need your support to do it.

Why not just join the Libertarian Party?

Well, with Ron Paul as a longtime hero it's sort of hard to get behind. I got a chance to meet with him in 1988 and came away completely unimpressed. Of course he later ran as a Republican, but of course the current guy going for POTUS endorsed Ron Paul. I remain unconvinced they are any better, sorry. That said, Johnson is infinitely better than Paul in terms of aligning to my views thanks to his truly liberal social policy views and his strong support of civil liberty. His budget I find less desirable.

Edit: reading comp fail. I now see you mean why don't the Log Cabin folks switch. I would guess probably due to wanting other Republican things like the biggest, baddest army on earth kind of stuff.

[Holman]

Or wanting to influence a party in power.

[LordMortis]

Well, with Ron Paul as a longtime hero it's sort of hard to get behind. I got a chance to meet with him in 1988 and came away completely unimpressed.

Heh, I did a radio interview with him in 88 and I was very impressed. And I was very impressed with the press pack he sent me and everything. OtOH, as I grew older, I came to my senses about essential government and paying for it and more importantly his refusal to abandon the support of people who would institutionalize bigotry lost him every thing in my eyes.

That said, Johnson is infinitely better than Paul in terms of aligning to my views thanks to his truly liberal social policy views and his strong support of civil liberty. His budget I find less desirable.

I see no reason to believe the Johnson would be what is IMO reasonable about essential government and how to pay for it. And that's sad because after that I'm very much in alignment with his views.

[Moliere]

I see no reason to believe the Johnson would be what is IMO reasonable about essential government and how to pay for it. And that's sad because after that I'm very much in alignment with his views.

Has he said otherwise? He told Bill Maher that the military would only be cut by 20% which is in line with the Pentagon's own recommendations. Which essential government services are you losing under Johnson?

[LordMortis]

Has he said otherwise? He told Bill Maher that the military would only be cut by 20% which is in line with the Pentagon's own recommendations. Which essential government services are you losing under Johnson?

http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Gary_Jo ... conomy.htm

I have proposed cutting the federal budget by 43 percent to bring it into balance. It can be done. It requires the will and ability to ignore and even fight the special interests that have a vested interest in more and more government spending. Our system is corrupted by special-interest campaign contributions. Crony capitalism permeates our government. The result is that, as the Congressional Budget Office reported this week, the deficit for 2012 will once again exceed $1 trillion.

Balance budget by cutting entitlements AND Defense
Gary Johnson said on ABC's "Top Line" that Republicans should be more aggressive than they've been in cutting federal spending. They should take on entitlement programs, too; Medicare and Medicaid could be slashed by 43% and turned into grant programs for the states to distribute.

"I think we should balance the federal budget tomorrow," Johnson said. "I'm optimistic. I think Americans are optimistic. We went to the moon, we can balance the federal budget. We can fix this. We're not addressing the problems that we face, and that starts with Medicaid, Medicare, reforming Social Security and Defense. And I mean cutting those areas

All while balancing the budget.

I don't trust that he is not a slash and burn and let capitalism sort it out libertarian. As much as I would like a world with less taxes and ultimately where we rely less on Federal government, we've made and ugly bed and we have to fix it and it will get fixed with our taxes to fund our labor through a federal conduit. We need infrastructure. We need to get medical under control. We need clean water. We need to care for our elderly. I trust Johnson with none of these things. I do love his refusal to give in globalist corporatism and his stance on personal liberty among other things.

[Isgrimnur]

I trust the federal government to be more "fair" about administration of funds to support marginalized groups in need than my state government. Given that some states decided not to expand medical support programs, I don't support the states to always do the thing that is best for their citizens. And the fewer people watching an organization, the more apt there is to be shady dealing and corruption. Or does he expect that the states' leaders will be more resistant to special interests and crony capitalism?

[Holman]

I trust the federal government to be more "fair" about administration of funds to support marginalized groups in need than my state government. Given that some states decided not to expand medical support programs, I don't support the states to always do the thing that is best for their citizens. And the fewer people watching an organization, the more apt there is to be shady dealing and corruption. Or does he expect that the states' leaders will be more resistant to special interests and crony capitalism?

States are much more likely to be captives of major industries that they can't afford to offend, so de-federalized oversight is no oversight at all.

[Zarathud]

States also pull juvenile political shenanigans that would never fly at the Federal level. One state requires all Medicare/Medicaid covered durable medical goods to be supplied by a single company -- which does not carry diabetic test strips, pumps and insulin because the margin isn't enough on those life-supporting products. There are no other authorized providers, so its citizens are SOL.

Illinois just doesn't pay its Medicaid, social services vendors and even local governments on time because the statutory 1% late payment interest is cheaper than a bank loan.

[Isgrimnur]

538: The End Of A Republican Party

Racial and cultural resentment have replaced the party’s small government ethos.
...
The results of a FiveThirtyEight and SurveyMonkey poll conducted in June1 found that one of the most indicative variables in determining Republican identification this year was agreement with the statement that the “number of immigrants who come to the United States each year” should “decrease.”
...
Trump’s strategy, while winning him the GOP nomination in the short term, has likely only served to compound the long-term demographic and ideological problems the Republican Party has long known it faces. Over the past few decades, the GOP has remained largely white, less educated and older while the numbers of minorities in the country soared, college attainment rose and the millennial generation came of age politically. Alienating the country’s growing ranks of minorities is unwise on the sheer face of the numbers, and bad reputations can stick around for years; like sports teams and baldness, our political beliefs are passed down through generations and familial connections.

What’s more, the idea of an electorate motivated more by issues of cultural grievance than by the grand ideas of conservatism is a dispiriting notion to Republicans already frustrated by the party’s particular pattern of positioning itself as ever beholden to the past. To those Republicans, Reagan hagiography has stunted the GOP: “No one under the age of 51 today was old enough to vote for Reagan when he first ran for president,” the authors of the party’s 2012 election post-mortem, a reviled document in some corners of the party, wrote. “We sound increasingly out of touch.”
...
Somewhere in recent years, the GOP’s engagement with modern America and how to best project those values into a nation of 320 million people became dysfunctional. As the country has diversified, the party has remained monochromatic, has grayed, and rather than allowing some birch-like give on shifting cultural norms, has become an unbending oak of ideological purity. The GOP now finds itself lacking an intimate’s ability to criticize productively, given its demographic and cultural divergence from the majority of the country.

[Isgrimnur]

From the above:

When looking at the change in the county-by-county vote from 2000 to 2012, one of the most predictive variable for a place becoming more Republican has been the number of people ethnically identifying as “American,” not whether or not a person believes in smaller government or lower taxes. States such as Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia, where a plurality of people identified in the 2000 Census as “American,” are among those that have trended the most Republican since 2000.

[GreenGoo]

I'll believe it when I see the GOP start losing handily and repeatedly.

[Moliere]

Good job Australia being ahead of the curve on banning students from clapping.

CLAPPING has been banned at a Sydney primary school which has introduced “silent cheering”, “pulling excited faces” and “punching the air” to respect students who are “sensitive to noise”.

The school now only allows its pupils “to conduct a silent cheer” when prompted by teachers and says the practice “reduces fidgeting”.

[Rip]

Good job Australia being ahead of the curve on banning students from clapping.

CLAPPING has been banned at a Sydney primary school which has introduced “silent cheering”, “pulling excited faces” and “punching the air” to respect students who are “sensitive to noise”.

The school now only allows its pupils “to conduct a silent cheer” when prompted by teachers and says the practice “reduces fidgeting”.

What about respecting those sensitive to silence?

[Isgrimnur]

Good job Australia being ahead of the curve on banning students from clapping.

CLAPPING has been banned at a Sydney primary school which has introduced “silent cheering”, “pulling excited faces” and “punching the air” to respect students who are “sensitive to noise”.

The school now only allows its pupils “to conduct a silent cheer” when prompted by teachers and says the practice “reduces fidgeting”.

What about respecting those sensitive to silence?

#TinnitusLivesMatter

[Pyperkub]

Kudos to the Illinois Republicans:

The Illinois Republican Party on Wednesday revoked the convention credentials of a Donald Trump delegate from Chicago “for publicly-made racist comments and threats of violence” on a Facebook posting.

Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider told the Sun-Times the party, “has zero tolerance for racism of any kind and threats of violence against anyone.”

The tweet:

The Republican National Convention welcome party was thrown Sunday at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Gayne wrote, over a photo of law enforcement officials on the roof on the iconic building on the Lake Erie shore:

“Our brave snipers just waiting for some “N—- to try something. Love them.”

Her explanation:

Gayne offered her “deepest apologies” in a statement, saying, “I strongly regret the offensive statements I recently made on social media. While I in no way intended to make racist or threatening statements, I now realize that they could be interpreted that way.

Uh, ok, what did you intend? Let's say hypothetically that you didn't intend to be racist, I'm still pretty sure that you are racist.

Well done to the Illiinois delegates for kicking her straight to the curb!

One of these days, hopefully other GOP organizations will do the same...

[Rip]

Kudos to the Illinois Republicans:

The Illinois Republican Party on Wednesday revoked the convention credentials of a Donald Trump delegate from Chicago “for publicly-made racist comments and threats of violence” on a Facebook posting.

Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider told the Sun-Times the party, “has zero tolerance for racism of any kind and threats of violence against anyone.”

The tweet:

The Republican National Convention welcome party was thrown Sunday at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Gayne wrote, over a photo of law enforcement officials on the roof on the iconic building on the Lake Erie shore:

“Our brave snipers just waiting for some “N—- to try something. Love them.”

Her explanation:

Gayne offered her “deepest apologies” in a statement, saying, “I strongly regret the offensive statements I recently made on social media. While I in no way intended to make racist or threatening statements, I now realize that they could be interpreted that way.

Uh, ok, what did you intend? Let's say hypothetically that you didn't intend to be racist, I'm still pretty sure that you are racist.

Well done to the Illiinois delegates for kicking her straight to the curb!

One of these days, hopefully other GOP organizations will do the same...

Unless she was black then it would all be cool.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/ ... nt-attack/

[hepcat]

Are you seriously trying to defend blatant racism?