Kilmer17's roadmap to fix the GOP

[skinsmarydu]

Thanks, chip.

I couldn't get Larry's link to work.

"I don't believe them" means, in essence, "they lie to me".

Whether the lies exist or not, Mr. Spacey said what he believes to be the truth. And isn't it his belief/comments that we're speaking of?

You know, the ones that a certain someone doesn't watch?

[Larry]

You know, the ones that a certain someone doesn't watch?

I've watched that clip three times, today.

You want to call me a liar, back it up with something other than your "I watched it LIVE (five months ago, therefore I don;t have to watch it again)", and announcing your physic claim that I haven't watched it. 

 

I dropped the subject.  Because it's a diversion from my point.  And I was willing to let you have the last word, if that was good enough to get back on my actual topic. (And he absolutely said that some of them were lying.  And intentionally refused Jon's offer to put percentages on his numbers..) 

 

Do not mistake that for the assumption that you can call me a liar a second time. 

[skinsmarydu]

No one called you a liar. I don't see how anyone would interpret what Mr. Spacey said, however, any differently than I did, but we're all free.

[Larry]

deleted

[@DCGoldPants]

GOP Candidate Mistakes YMCA Kids For Migrants, Describes 'Fear In Their Faces'

 

A Republican running for Congress in Arizona snapped a photo of a passing school bus full of children on Tuesday near a housing facility for undocumented minors. He posted the picture to Twitter with a stern warning to his followers: "Bus coming in. This is not compassion. This is the abrogation of the rule of law."

 

Adam Kwasman later spoke with a local reporter and described seeing "the fear" in the children's faces, urging authorities to abide by the law and enforce the border against the influx of child immigrants crossing into the United States.

 

But there was a problem with Kwasman's story. The school bus was carrying local children on the way to a YMCA camp not far from the migrant shelter. A reporter at the scene said he saw the children laughing and taking pictures with their iPhones.

 

In an awkward interview caught on camera, Kwasman offered what could possibly be the fastest political walk-back in history.

 

"Do you know that was a bus with YMCA kids?" 12 News reporter Will Pitts asked.

 

"They were sad, too," Kwasman responded. "OK I apologize. I didn't know. I was leaving when I saw them. People are not happy down the line. That was an error by me."

 

"Those were not migrant children. That's fine," he added. "It was a mistake. That was a mistake. That was not correct and that's a mistake."

 

Kwasman later deleted his tweet, but not before it was recorded by Politiwoops:

 

 

 

 

 

Fantastic, Adam.

[Larry]

Admiring the GOP calls for Obama to "enforce the rule of law" and kick these children out of the country, when Obama is actually following a law (which was passed under W) which was specifically designed to make it hard to kick these children out.

Grand theater.

 

And I'm sure that it's really playing things up.  Probably get lots of votes from the folks who are terrified that thousands of children are fleeing to the US. 

[skinsmarydu]

deleted, OT

[Larry]

Thought Daily Show had a nice segment on this flood of children, as part of their opening segment, Monday.  (It covers several topics.  The child immigration part goes from like 2:00 till 4:00 into the clip.) 

 

They made it their entire opening segment, last night.  And there's some funny parts in it, but I don't think it's as funny as the shorter, Monday, clip. 

[SkinsHokieFan]

http://www.people-press.org/2014/07/15/as-mideast-violence-continues-a-wide-partisan-gap-in-israel-palestinian-sympathies/

 

We can see the influence of the evangilican right in the Republican party based on the incredible levels of support the Gaza operation has within the Republican party

 

As Mideast Violence Continues, a Wide Partisan Gap in Israel-Palestinian Sympathies

 

As violence between Israel and Hamas shows no signs of abating, the sympathies of the American public continue to lie with Israel rather than the Palestinians. And dating back to the late 1970s, the partisan gap in Mideast sympathies has never been wider.

Currently, 51% of Americans say that in the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, they sympathize more with Israel. Just 14% sympathize more with the Palestinians, while 15% volunteer that they sympathize with neither side and 3% sympathize with both.

These views are little changed from April, before the recent outbreak of Mideast violence. However, the share of Republicans who sympathize more with Israel has risen from 68% to 73%; 44% of Democrats express more sympathy for Israel than the Palestinians, which is largely unchanged from April (46%). The share of independents siding more with Israel than the Palestinians has slipped from 51% to 45%.

 

 

[Larry]

Concerning the "child immigration" theme. 

 

I decided at lunch that there were two elements of this issue, which I'm trying to separate. 

 

One is the "how does this affect our political situation?".  Which is what I think this thread is about. 

 

The other is "what should we (the entire nation, not one political party or the other) do?" question.  (I've tried to start a thread for that part of the discussion.) 

 

As to the politics, I have to observe that I don't see demonizing thousands of children (who are, at least arguably, orphans) as some kind of invading army, threatening our nation, as a strategy that's going to really help the GOP. 

 

Yeah, it will certainly fire up a really big part of their base. 

 

But I also see it as yet another one of those issues where, the harder they demonize these children to their base, the more repulsive the GOP looks, to the majority of the voters. 

 

(And yes, Hispanic voters are absolutely going to look at this demonization as racism.  Because that's at least part of what it is.) 

 

(Waiting for someone to float the theory that Obama is intentionally letting these kids into the country, as part of a clever election year strategy to make the GOP look like racist xenophobes.) 

 

[@DCGoldPants]

GOP governor implements GOP economics, disaster ensues

 

In many ways, Brownback’s term has been a perfect experiment in Republican governance. Take a crusading conservative governor, give him a legislature with Republican super-majorities so he can do pretty much whatever he wants, and let him implement the right’s wish list. The result was supposed to be a nirvana of economic growth and budgetary stability. But the opposite happened.

 

The disastrous results of Brownback’s economic and fiscal policies demonstrate that it’s one thing for your average Republican to go around saying things like “cutting taxes raises revenue!” even if nearly every economist agrees that the idea is absurd (Greg Mankiw, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush, famously called the purveyors of this idea “charlatans and cranks”). It’ll never really be tested, at least not in a context where there aren’t so many other variables at play that any inconvenient results can be explained away. Republicans know that it’s bogus, but they like the way it sounds; after all, who wouldn’t love a free lunch? But if you bet a single state’s future on the idea — and you have the power to take it to an extreme — you’re going farther than anyone in Washington ever has to go.

 

That’s what Sam Brownback did. In 2012 and 2013, Brownback and Republicans in the legislature cut income taxes twice, eliminated taxes on corporate profits that are “passed through” to individuals (making it the only state that does this), and since they’re Republicans, made changes to the tax code that had the effect of raising taxes on the poor (the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a good explanation of the tax changes and their effects). The governor has said his goal is to eventually eliminate the income tax completely.

 

And what happened? At a time when most states are seeing higher revenues as the country recovers economically, Kansas’ revenues have plummeted. The result has been cuts to schools, cuts to higher education, cuts to libraries, and cuts to local health centers. Kansas’ job growth and income growth are lagging the nation’s. In response to the fiscal difficulties, Moody’s recently lowered the state’s bond rating.

 

 

When he was elected governor, some Washington conservatives touted Sam Brownback as a future presidential contender. Once he implemented the conservative economic agenda and showed what a dynamic economy and pleasing government balance sheet it produced, he’d be able to take the message nationwide as a demonstration of the power of conservative ideas. Nobody’s saying that anymore. Brownback is trailing his probable Democratic opponent. In a state as conservative as Kansas (where Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama by 22 points), you have to screw up pretty badly to be in that position. And saying, “hey, didn’t we all agree that tax cuts raise revenue?” probably won’t bail him out.

 

 

 

 

More from the link.

 

This is why I want to see a guy like Rand Paul run for Governor of his state and implement all these things he talks about. See if it works on that level.

[Larry]

But, Texas . . .

But, on a more serious note, it can be really tough to extrapolate from a state to a nation. It's really apples and Fruit Loops.

[twa]

But, on a more serious note, it can be really tough to extrapolate from a state to a nation. It's really apples and Fruit Loops.

[@DCGoldPants]

But, on a more serious note, it can be really tough to extrapolate from a state to a nation. It's really apples and Fruit Loops.

 

I think the point is that this was looked at as the great example of how these policies in full force would lead to prosperity. Its doing the opposite apparently. So bad that a heavily red state could vote blue? 

 

The WSJ talks about it too. http://online.wsj.com/articles/some-in-kansas-gop-break-with-gov-brownback-endorse-democratic-opponent-1405441534

 

Prodded by Mr. Brownback, who cast the policy as a model for Republican governors across the country, the legislature cut the top income-tax rate by 25% as part of a plan to completely eliminate the tax. He also won their backing for the elimination of taxes on non-wage income for many businesses.

But the experiment has caused a steep drop in state revenues, while not yet delivering outsize economic growth. Those endorsing Mr. Davis pointed to the cuts as a main reason why they are breaking from the party. Several on the list put out by the Davis campaign were vocal critics of Mr. Brownback well before Tuesday.

The Brownback campaign put out a short statement Tuesday highlighting private-sector job growth during his first term, but declined to comment further on Davis's endorsements.

 

[TheGoodBits]

Oh WSJ.. "while not yet delivering outsize economic growth" 

 

Any day now, I'm sure it's coming.

[PeterMP]

But, on a more serious note, it can be really tough to extrapolate from a state to a nation. It's really apples and Fruit Loops.

 

With respect to TX, one of the reasons they came through the financial crisis so well is that they didn't have much of a housing bubble.

 

They actually have some of the more strict financial services laws in the country that were based on the their experience with the S&L crisis in the 1980s, which really hurt TX.

 

And their oil.

 

It is kind of funny.  You have an economy that in comparison has grown as compared to much of the rest of the country due to things that hurt it in the 1980's as compared to much of the rest of the country.

[twa]

we certainly learned hard lessons....it's far from just oil driving ours though(that was part of the lesson learned  )

 

using the metric of lower govt revenue in Kansas,or even cuts in govt funding, is not the whole picture.

[s0crates]

More Bill of Rights, less bigotry. More small business, less big business. More freedom, less Fox News. More Reagan, less Bush. More John Locke, less Adam Smith. More U.S. Constitution, less U.S. Patriot Act. More love of country, less love of self. More Christian gospels, less Christian fundamentalism. More God bless America, less God hates fags. More creativity, less creationism.

Just brainstorming.

[Larry]

One piece of advice I'd give them? 

 

Quit appealing court decisions overturning your gay marriage bans. 

 

The Republicans losing every single time they go to court.  (I think, unanimously, every time.) 

 

And there is absolutely nothing to be gained by fighting it.  It's going to go to the Supreme Court.  In fact, some other state is going to get there, first.  Your state won't even have the "honor" of getting your tookis handed to you, in court, in the final decision. 

 

Let some other state get their name associated with this train wreck, the way Loving v. Virginia gets immortalized. 

 

All you're doing is painting your Party, and your State, the same way those southern states got painted for fighting against desegregation.  "Yeah, we will forever be enshrined in history is being despicable racist bigots.  But look how long and hard we fought, to earn that title.  Look how proud we were, of what we did."  (In fact, look how hard we try to paint what we did as right, even to this day.) 

 

----------

 

And, just my opinion, but to me, nothing says "fiscal conservative" like "I spent years, and millions of taxpayer dollars, arguing a Lost Cause that was not only morally wrong, but which I knew full well I was going to lose, anyway" 

 

----------

 

When your state loses, in court?  Give in. 

[twa]

you overlook the need when activist judges do not issue a stay pending SCOTUS getting off their ass

 

do you endorse the same tactic when the feds lose in court? 

[No Excuses]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/07/23/jody-hice-is-likely-headed-to-congress-he-also-thinks-the-first-amendment-should-not-cover-islam/

 

Get to know the name Jody Hice. Unless something very surprising happens, he's going to be a member of Congress next year.

Hice, a Baptist minister and conservative radio show host, has also said the First Amendment should not cover Islam, once likened being born gay with being born violent and said it is okay for women to hold positions of power in politics, so long they are within their husband's authority.

In short, he's stoked quite a bit of controversy.

Hice won the Republican runoff Tuesday in Georgia's heavily conservative 10th district. He will be a heavy favorite in November to succeed Rep. Paul Broun ®, who ran for the U.S. Senate unsuccessfully.

 

 

Can't fix stupid.

[Larry]

deleted.

[skinsmarydu]

Can't fix stupid.

Can't believe they think they can. Broun was a just a "side" of crazy, Hice is the entrée.

[Larry]

Well, it's a Red State. But a Blue AG.

ABC %5BAP%5D: NC Attorney General Won't Defend Gay Marriage Ban
 
 

North Carolina's attorney general says his office will no longer defend the state's voter-approved ban on same sex marriage in court after a federal appeals court ruled a similar prohibition in neighboring Virginia unconstitutional. 

Attorney General Roy Cooper said Monday that the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling made it highly likely North Carolina's ban will be overturned. North Carolina is part of the 4th Circuit. Cooper said any federal judge in North Carolina would be bound by the ruling.

 

 

It's a really short article.  (I've quoted half of it.)  Although the other half does have interesting things in it. 

[Rudechain]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/07/23/jody-hice-is-likely-headed-to-congress-he-also-thinks-the-first-amendment-should-not-cover-islam/

 

 

Can't fix stupid.

Hice is one of those dyed in the wool extremely conservative Christians and while mildly entertaining, I hope he is relegated to minor responsibilities while serving.      

 

During the runoff it was reported that campaign signs were being stolen.   ( come to find out some of Hice's people were moving signs)

 

The guy is a complete loon and it's my sincere wish he's only there for one term at the most.

 

There's no room for hate.