Month: August 2015

Americans love their kids after all

by digby

Wow, it turns out that “marxist harpy” Michelle Obama’s dastardly plan to force kids to eat vegetables and go play outside isn’t unpopular after all:

According to the poll, 86 percent of Americans support the nutritional standards required by the law.

Two-thirds of Americans say the nutritional quality of food served in public school cafeterias is excellent or good, which is up from 26 percent when a similar poll was conducted in 2010, before the new standards were adopted.

And 93 percent of those surveyed believe that it is very important or somewhat important to serve nutritious foods in schools to support children’s health and capacity to learn.

“Our survey found that people in the U.S. overwhelmingly support strong nutrition standards and believe school meals are healthier and on the right track because of these standards,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, president and chief executive of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The foundation said it spent about $30 million each year on healthy-food initiatives.

Coulter loves her some Donald

by digby

She loves him oh so much. He’s making her relevant again by immigrant bashing — the subject of her latest book “Adios America — and she’s reveling in it.

Appearing Tuesday on The Mike Gallagher Show, Coulter admitted that she has “turned against” Fiorina “as of yesterday,” and now feels the “hot, hot hate of a thousand suns” for the sole female GOP candidate.

“At first, I admit I was suspicious because I hate this, ‘Oh, a woman can talk, oh, that’s great!’” the conservative commentator said. “But I just hate this affirmative action among Republicans.”

She’s mad at Fiorina for saying she thinks Trump’s endorsement of ending birthright citizenship is outlandish.

But plenty of Republicans, notably Scott Walker, are on board with this — Trump’s not that far out on the edge.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said recently that he didn’t think the party needed to go that far in trying to crack down on illegal immigration. But during his run for governor in 2010, according to the Columbus Dispatch, he reiterated his longtime support for ending birthright citizenship.

When Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul first ran for the Senate in 2010, he said he didn’t “think the 14th Amendment was meant to apply to illegal aliens.” He has since pushed for a constitutional amendment. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has said the issue needs to be re-examined as well.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has also stated his support for altering the 14th Amendment. In a column this May debuting his immigration policy, the 2012 Republican primary runner-up wrote the following:

Other enticements to illegal immigration, such as birthright citizenship, should be ended. Only children born on American soil where at least one parent is a citizen or resident aliens is automatically a U.S. citizen. Of developed countries other than the United States, only Canada has birthright citizenship.

And on Monday night, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal joined the debate, tweeting, “We need to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants.”

Even South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime supporter of immigration reform, has called for a consideration of a change in the Constitution because he believes immigrants will simply “drop and leave” their kids in this country.

Rubio and Bush are on the other side. So there’s that.

The nativist guru in the US Senate

by digby

I wrote about Trump’s immigration plan and the man who inspired both him and Walker to take it to the next level at Salon this morning. An excerpt:

“I’m not sure exactly what the drafters of the (14th) amendment had in mind, but I doubt it was that somebody could fly in from Brazil and have a child and fly back home with that child, and that child is forever an American citizen.”

Read on. There’s lots more about out history of deportation of Mexicans and Jeff Sessions’ obsession with reversing the 14th amendment. He’s quite the piece of work.

Trump holds strong

by digby

They still love him:

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump has won his party’s trust on top issues more than any other Republican presidential candidate, and now stands as the clear leader in the race for the GOP nomination, according to a new CNN/ORC poll.

The survey finds Trump with the support of 24% of Republican registered voters. His nearest competitor, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, stands 11 points behind at 13%. Just behind Bush, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has 9%, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker 8%, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul 6%, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former tech CEO Carly Fiorina and Ohio Gov. John Kasich all land at 5%, with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee rounding out the top 10 at 4%.

Trump is the biggest gainer in the poll, up 6 points since July according to the first nationwide CNN/ORC poll since the top candidates debated in Cleveland on Aug. 6. Carson gained 5 points and Fiorina 4 points. Trump has also boosted his favorability numbers among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters, 58% have a favorable view of Trump now, that figure stood at 50% in the July survey.

These nationwide findings follow recent polling in Iowa and New Hampshire showing Trump also leads the Republican field in those two key early states.

Bush, who held the top spot in the field in most CNN/ORC polls on the race between last fall and Trump’s entry into the race in June, has seen his favorability ratings drop alongside his standing in the contest. Overall, 56% hold an unfavorable view of the former Florida governor and 42% of Republican voters have a negative impression. That’s an increase in negative views among all adults (up from 43% since July) and among Republican voters (up from 34% unfavorable).

They’re going to have to ruthlessly winnow this field and figure out who the un-Trump is. Unbelievable.

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And afterwards, some shooters
by Tom Sullivan

The Oath Keepers have been back in Ferguson, Missouri for about a week, armed to the teeth and representin’ their right to carry AR-15s into a volatile situation. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the Oath Keepers as a “fiercely antigovernment, militaristic group.” The Washington Post explains that carrying loaded long guns in public is legal in most states.

“Their presence was both unnecessary and inflammatory,” says St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar.

Raw Story reports that the armed white men plan to arm black Ferguson protesters and then surround them to protect them from police. Because the Oath Keepers have a dream or something:

The gun-loving Oath Keepers plan to arm 50 black demonstrators with AR-15 rifles in Ferguson, Missouri, and basically dare police to shoot them.

The leader of the group’s local chapter told Red Dirt Report that the event would likely be held before the end of this month to protest an order last week by law enforcement officers to Oath Keepers to put away their rifles while in city limits.

“Every person we talked to said if they carried they’d be shot by police,” said Sam Andrews, head of the Oath Keepers chapter in St. Louis County. “That’s the reason we’re going to hold this event, and it will be a legal demonstration. I’m sick and tired of law enforcement who doesn’t think they have to abide by the law. They’re narcissistic and that guy (the county police chief) discredited my men.”

And after they bug out the AO, the totally not narcissistic survivors with their weapons will regroup down at Hooters for some shooters.

From “the Christian Right isn’t going anywhere” files

by digby

Two good pieces from Salon today. The first is by a fellow who was once a sincere fundamentalist Christian believer and discovered that Conservative Christianity in this country isn’t actually a religion at all but is rather a purely political organization:

The political version of Christianity is first and foremost a media construct, like so much of our lives these days. It’s championed by Fox News, the 700 Club and a parade of has-beens and never weres, selling the “prosperity gospel” like so much snake oil. It’s a powerful and toxic stew that is as relevant to Jesus as professional wrestling or a discarded Playboy. Conservative Christianity in America is less a religion and more of a secret handshake, a group signifier of exclusion and moral superiority. Its swaggering and masculine cruelty is at once its greatest weakness and most attractive feature for working class white people who have seen their lifestyles and power eroded…

I could fill a dozen essays with examples of Bible verses that contradict the core ideas and statements of conservative candidates, politicians and talking heads, but it’s a waste of time. No matter what the politicians and pundits claim to believe, they are only using faith to exploit an angry and ignorant populace with a collective Bible literacy that wouldn’t fill a shot glass.

As the Republican base becomes both grayer and whiter, more homogenous and religious, fake Christianity will become an even more important wedge for conservatives to drive between people and their self-interest. We don’t care if a Republican politician throws grandma out of the nursing home or takes food stamps from poor people, so long as he weeps during Sunday service. The problem with America isn’t greed, out of control capitalism or the perversion of democracy with moneyed interests—it’s that we don’t go to church enough or we aren’t cruel enough to our gay nephew.

The Fox News/GOP version of Christianity has already betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, and would do so again, just to get the matching set of spinning rims. Even though it’s a 21st century fabrication, it still has power and danger. Liberal Christians and anyone who values a secular republic need to stop pretending it’s been defeated.

This one by Elias Isquith:

Recently, Salon spoke over the phone with [the Rev. Barry] Lynn [of Americans United for Separation of Church and State] about his work, the recent Supreme Court rulings on religious liberty and marriage equality, and why it’s a mistake to laugh off people like Santorum and Huckabee, regardless of how silly they may seem. Our conversation is below and has been edited for clarity and length.

In the book’s introduction, you say you’re optimistic about the country’s future regarding the separation of church and state. But you also say vigilance will be required to make sure the gains of the last two generations or so are not lost. What would it mean to “lose” in this sense?

One of the way you lose is if you’re not vigilant about the issues that are essentially over as a matter of judicial inquiry.

Prayer in schools, for example, is virtually on no one’s radar anymore — except we find case after case where individual schools or school districts are trying to evade what is essentially settled law. Similarly, creationism and its white-coated friend “intelligent design” have been to court over and over again, even though it’s pretty much a resolved legal question.

The other way we could lose big is if certain practices that are completely inconsistent with the separation of church and state become seen as routine or normative.

Such as?

Funding ministries, for example, used to be unthinkable; even in the 1930s and ’40s, governments did not believe they should pay for religious schools or hunger programs held in churches. But today, seven years into the Obama administration — and with two full terms of George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” — we find it routine for organizations that are religious to believe they deserve government funding and that they deserve to have taxpayers pay for all of the things that they can’t convince their own members to support voluntarily.

Another that’s become routine is the endorsement of candidates from the pulpit. Even the late Jerry Falwell used to say, Do not talk about politics from the pulpit. Then, of course, Jerry got a better offer — to run the Moral Majority — and he became obsessed with the idea of gaining political power. But now, thanks to the inaction of the Obama administration, there are no complaints being followed up about deliberate and obvious and over-the-line endorsements and opposition to candidates by religious institutions.

The religious right is not going away. They are the foot soldiers of the conservative movement. And while they always feel persecuted and victimized by the secular left even as they make great headway in enforcing their agenda, gay marriage has them reeling. The actually lost one and they lost big. And all the operatives, wheeler-dealers and profit centers of the conservative movement are under tremendous pressure to deliver something to appease them.

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A lead paint chip off the old GOP block

by digby

A typical Republican makes the typical Republican case for deregulation:

Gov. Larry Hogan’s top housing official said Friday that he wants to look at loosening state lead paint poisoning laws, saying they could motivate a mother to deliberately poison her child to obtain free housing.

Kenneth C. Holt, secretary of Housing, Community and Development, told an audience at the Maryland Association of Counties summer convention here that a mother could just put a lead fishing weight in her child’s mouth, then take the child in for testing and a landlord would be liable for providing the child with housing until the age of 18.

Pressed afterward, Holt said he had no evidence of this happening but said a developer had told him it was possible. “This is an anecdotal story that was described to me as something that could possibly happen,” Holt said.

Yeah, and you know what else could possibly happen? Some wily developer could see that he was dealing with a bigoted moron and tell him a ridiculous anecdote to feed his prejudices in order to save himself from being forced to stop killing children and causing brain damage. (In fact, it’s fair to guess that Mr Holt himself may have once eaten some lead based paint chips in his day.)

This is what happens when you elect a Republican to run a Democratic state. They have no personnel infrastructure only wingnutty partisans with which to choose among to run their government. Big problem.

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They’ll decide who is a natural born” citizen and who isn’t

by digby

So according to this article, the birther movement is now “targeting” some Republican candidates for president. yeah, right. Talking Points Memo spoke with the article’s author, an extremely slimy piece of work who tries throughout to pretend he’s just “reporting” on some group of people with whom he’s not affiliated, which is obvious nonsense. Here’s just one small excerpt:

You write that the term “natural born citizen” is “often misunderstood or deliberately twisted.” How so? Can you give me a specific example of that?

When the challenge was made against Barack Obama, people said “how dare you question he’s a natural born citizen because he was born in Hawaii.” Even if he was born in Hawaii, that does not make him a natural born citizen. It’s a very strict term. I won’t say very strict — there’s a real meaning to the term, it’s not that it’s perfectly defined but the understanding is well understood. The understanding is that you be born of American parents with unquestioned loyalty to the United States. So for instance, had Obama been born [somewhere] other than Hawaii he would not have been eligible to run for President. Even though his mother was an American, just like Ted Cruz’s mother was American, the difference is that according to the law you’d have to be an American citizen for five years after the age of 14. She simply wasn’t old enough to confer that status on Obama. If his mother had been a non-American citizen and his father had been a Kenyan, and neither had any allegiance to the United States, which in fact neither of them really did, he would not have been eligible no matter where he was born.

So the question comes up about Bobby Jindal’s parents. Both of them were in the United States on student visas. To me the real question is does the candidate have any divided allegiance. So if Jindal’s parents remained steadfastly identifying as Indians and he steadfastly identified as an Indian, even though he was born in the United States and was a citizen, he would not be eligible. Legitimately, he would not be eligible to be President. But given the fact that he changed his name after a character in “The Brady Bunch” — as American as it gets — I don’t think there’s any question in any of those candidates that there’s any dual allegiance. That’s what the law was designed to prevent, was people with dual allegiance. Especially in the early Republic when you had people who were from England or from France and who really reported back to the motherland first. Even if they were born here they might be children of a diplomat or something like that. The fact that you are a citizen doesn’t make you a natural born citizen.

I was going to ask you about that, because Jindal’s parents have been living and working here since the 1970s. His mother worked for the state of Louisiana. From what I’ve read, the family even stopped making trips to India to see relatives in the early 1990s. If somebody from that fringe 1 percent was to question Jindal’s eligibility, do you think they could make that argument?

They could, and they do, and they will. They have, because they are very, very strict readers, as I found out. I had a lot of comments. Most of the comments were fine, none of them were profane. A few of them were kind of angry, like, ‘You haven’t read deeply enough. Didn’t you read Vattel’s 1758 Law Of Nations.’ The intent of the law is to prevent people with split allegiances from becoming President of the United States, no matter where they were born.

As I judge the crop of candidates who are suspect, that is Jindal, Cruz, Rubio and Santorum, they all pass that test. Others who have more finely tuned constitutional noses than I do may smell a rat. I just don’t smell it.

Same thing with Obama. If Obama were born in the United States, I don’t think you could legitimately challenge his status as a natural born citizen.

He still thinks the whole “born in Hawaii” thing was a fraud.

But more interesting than that is how he explains that it’s really about whether the immigrant parents of these first generation Americans disavowed their country of origin and everyone who lives there, including their own family.The good news is that all the Republicans pass that vital test. (This “reporter” says there may be some who think that the Republicans he mentioned still aren’t qualified on those terms but he is satisfied that they are.)

This is in contrast to Obama whose mother couldn’t confer citizenship on him because she was five months too young (you can look it up — it’s so dumb) and whose father was a card-carrying foreigner. Also too they lived outside the US which is a huge no-no. In fact, it turns out that if you are an immigrant to America, citizen or not, you must relinquish any desire to ever leave these hallowed shores once you are here, even for a vacation,  lest you be suspected of being a spy.

You know, like the constitution says. I’ll give you a link to that part as soon as I find it.

You have to read the whole thing. The TPM reporter plays it absolutely straight and what she gets from this guy is just … awesome.

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Did he think he could get away with this?

by digby

Honestly, what the hell is wrong with John Kasich? Is there something more to his weirdness than we know?

In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” aired Sunday, Kasich said, “I would never have committed ourselves to Iraq.”

But in November 2002, Kasich, then a former congressman, made a very different argument during an event at The Ohio State University, as the United States was gearing up for war in Iraq.

“We should go to war with Iraq. It’s not likely that (Saddam) Hussein will give up his weapons. If he did he would be disgraced in the Arab world,” he said then.

Kasich’s 2002 comments, in front of a crowd of 100 students at the Kuhn Honors and Scholars House, were reported at the time by The Lantern, Ohio State’s student newspaper, under the headline: “Fireside speaker favors war with Iraq.”

He was a Fox News host and contributor at the time. This note from an Iraqi scientist gives a little hint of where Kasich was at on the subject:

During my recent FOX TV Heartland show interview with John Kasich about a week ago, I was one dimensionally bombarded with flimsy arguments by the anchor on the abundance of “Iraqi defectors have told of nuclear weapon sites” and who am I to refute Khidhir Hamza, the infamous “bombmaker” who has been claiming the existence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program for a year now on CNN, along with speaking to American congressional committees and right wing “think tanks.”

I’m sure there are endless examples of his Fox cheerleading which will be dug up in short shrift.

His spokesman “clarified” later that he didn’t mean what he said he meant — he actually said that if we knew then what we know now he wouldn’t do it. This is becoming the catch all focus group tested line of bullshit among these guys and they should not be allowed to get away with it.

The Bush administration pulled the inspectors out when they were unable to find any WMD!!!! And these idiots all cheered him on, rejecting all the information that was out there at the time that contradicted their propaganda.

And that’s not even taking into consideration the fact that they couldn’t get the rest of the world on board, much less the UN, and based the whole thing on a ridiculous thesis that had been illegal since World War II.

Please.

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QOTD: The Great Whitebread Hope

by digby

Walker says U.S needs border fence, compares it to barrier separating Israel from Pal territories— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) August 17, 2015

Well that ought to solve all our problems…

Remember, Trump said he’s getting his immigration advice from Senator Jeff Sessions.

So is Walker.

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