(Click pics for full articles by The Human Rights Campaign)
Sanders Joins HRC and Freedom to Marry, Appeals to Conservative Values
…is highlighted over at Cowgirl. Excerpt:
“Using his signature method of anecdotes and unsupported claims, Rep. Burnett (R-Bozeman) is ramping up his crusade for a massive food police bureaucracy to restrict food to needy children.
The Montana TEA Party legislator stated in a Wisconsin newspaper this week that we shouldn’t be helping needy kids who don’t get school lunch because school is out–in spite of the increase in hungry kids seeking food in the last five years.”
Tom Burnett is currently running unopposed in House District 63 until Democrats find a replacement for Marty Livingston, who withdrew in June.
Please God, let them find a good one….
Montana Republican Party (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
…and they did it while thousands were celebrating Montana Gay Pride in Bozeman. From Talking Points Memo:
Montana’s Republican Party has dropped a longtime plank in its platform demanding that the state recognize a law banning homosexual activity.
The state GOP had officially declared that “We support the clear will of the people of Montana expressed by legislation to keep homosexual acts illegal,” language that was initially included in 1997 after a state court struck down an existing ban on gay sex. All such state laws were invalidated in 2003 in the Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas.
The issue was dropped from the “crime” section of the platform over the weekend at the Republican state convention after the party’s crime subcommittee decided to remove it.
“The folks on the crime committee told me they had a good debate about it,” he said. “I wasn’t there myself.”
But it wasn’t entirely clear why the plank was removed. At least some Republican legislators had openly decried its inclusion as an embarrassment. But Montana GOP Executive Director Bowen Greenwood told TPM that his only direction to party committee chairs was to gut extraneous items from the platform in order to make it shorter and more accessible.
Greenwood declined to offer any opinion on the move.
“I run a servant office,” he said. “I work for Republican officeholders and I represent the platform they choose. I don’t tell them what it ought to be.”
State Rep. Keith Regier (R), chairman of the state party crime committee, did not immediately return a request for comment.
I’ve been harping on this for years now, so whatever the reason, begrudgingly or otherwise, I’ll take it.
Rep David Howard (R, Park City), notorious bad speller and apostrophe misuser has done it again- used Facebook to bash the gays, and highlight his horrible spelling and punctuation:
Sigh.
His Facebook page is like that creationism amusement park in Kentucky– not a fact in sight.
Rachel Maddow highlighted the group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) on its 25th birthday- and reveals that she was part of the work.
I remember ACT UP- and I remember the malaise and apathy they remedied. When the government and elected officials didn’t act, activists and mothers and lesbians held them accountable. A healthy reminder of where we’ve been- may we never return.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Image via Wikipedia
Pursuant to a conversation I had yesterday, it is ridiculous that one man has the power to raise and lower prices at the pump- unless it’s the chairman of BP, etc.
Yet the myth lives on that the President has that power- and is, ridiculously in an election year- not using it. From Robert Semple, jr in The New York Times:
The issue of gas prices has not only been misunderstood but thoroughly distorted by relentless ideological spin from industry and its political allies, mainly Republican. Hardly a day goes by that some industry cheerleader somewhere — be it Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana or Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma — does not flay President Obama for driving up oil prices by denying the industry access to oil and gas deposits and imposing ruinous environmental rules. Senator John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, said last week that Mr. Obama should be held “fully responsible for what the American public is paying for gasoline.”
If only the president had the power to give us $2.50-a-gallon gasoline, as Newt Gingrich promised to do if he got to the White House. It is ridiculous to think that a president can.
From her column on the lackluster Republican Candidates:
In an interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos, Santorum offended the Catholics he’s courting by saying that the J.F.K. speech ratifying the separation of church and state made him want “to throw up” because Kennedy had thrown “his faith under the bus.”
“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state are absolute,” Sanctorum said.
If he is willing to cross that line, the only two possibilities are that he doesn’t understand the nature of the United States or that he wants to do damage to the United States. Neither is acceptable.
Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu, a rising Republican star, publicly admitted he was gay on Saturday, in order to combat accusations from a former boyfriend. He joins a long line of conservatives who came out of the closet only after scandal forced them to do so.Vodpod videos no longer available.
Some of the memes of rural Republicans include: “the government is taxing us to death,” “we’re paying for other people’s programs” “where’s the benefit to the working man person?”. Tea Party protests against government are being held on sidewalks, streets and in parks designed, paid for, cleaned and lit by- you guessed it- the very taxes they’re protesting. Irony is begging for attention here.
Especially- according to the following article- in the red states:
It’s no secret: The federal budget is expanding faster than tax revenues, a trend that’s been fueled by the rapid growth of entitlement programs and exacerbated by the recession. As a recent New York Times article documents, even as fiscally conservative lawmakers complain about deficit spending, their constituents don’t want to give up the Social Security checks, Medicare
benefits, and earned income tax credits that provide a safety net for the struggling middle class…
States receiving the most federal funding per tax dollar paid:
Image via Wikipedia
1. New Mexico: $2.63
2. West Virginia: $2.57
3. Mississippi: $2.47
4. District of Colombia: $2.41
5. Hawaii: $2.38
6. Alabama: $2.03
7. Alaska: $1.93
8. Montana: $1.92
9. South Carolina: $1.92
10. Maine: $1.78
Read the full article (with interactive maps) here.
From Eternity To Here 