http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum Welcome to the Boise Weekly Forum en Thu, 17 May 2012 01:17:21 GMT vBulletin 60 http://forum.boiseweekly.com/forum/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5848&goto=newpost Mon, 14 May 2012 22:49:41 GMT _Recent Senate Votes_ *Judicial Confirmation* - Vote Confirmed (91-3, 6 Not Voting) The Senate confirmed the nomination of Jacqueline H. Nguyen of... Recent Senate Votes
Judicial Confirmation - Vote Confirmed (91-3, 6 Not Voting)
The Senate confirmed the nomination of Jacqueline H. Nguyen of California to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Sen. Michael Crapo voted YES
Sen. Jim Risch voted YES

Cloture Motion: Student Loan Interest Rates - Vote Rejected (52-45, 1 Present, 2 Not Voting)

This bill would extend the current 3.4 percent interest rate on federally-subsidized Stafford loans to undergraduate students for one year. This extension would be paid for by eliminating a tax preference for certain shareholders of S-Corporations. The Senate failed to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to invoke cloture, and thereby end debate, on the motion to proceed to the bill. It is possible the Senate will hold another cloture vote on this bill. The House passed a competing version (H.R.4628) on April 27.

Sen. Michael Crapo voted NO. SHIT HEADS!!!!!
Sen. Jim Risch voted NO.



Recent House Votes
Suspension Vote: Export-Import Bank Reauthorization - Vote Passed (330-93, 8 Not Voting)

This bill would extend the charter of the Export-Import Bank of the United States through FY 2014. It would allow the bank's lending limit to rise incrementally to $140 billion (from $100 billion currently). HR 2072 passed under suspension of the rules, meaning the support of at least two thirds of all Members voting (in this case 282) is required for passage. The Senate will take up H.R.2072 on Monday, May 14, with a cloture vote scheduled.

Rep. Mike Simpson voted YES.


Suspension Vote: U.S.-Israel Cooperation - Vote Passed (411-2, 9 Present, 9 Not Voting)

This bill states that it shall be U.S. policy to deepen cooperation with Israel in a wide variety of areas, particularly regarding Israel’s "qualitative military edge" over regional rivals; to veto anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations; and to assist Israel in ongoing negotiations on a two-state solution. The bill also extends U.S.-government-backed loan guarantees to Israel through FY 2015. HR 4133 passed under suspension of the rules, meaning the support of at least two thirds of all Members voting (in this case 276) is required for passage.

Rep. Mike Simpson voted YES.


Sequester Replacement - Vote Passed (218-199, 1 Present, 13 Not Voting)

This bill cancels the automatic discretionary spending cuts instituted by last year's debt-ceiling agreement and replaces those cuts with a different set of reductions to a variety of mandatory spending programs, as well as a reduction on the overall spending limit for all FY 2013 appropriations bills. The bill separately eliminates the cap on defense spending instituted by the debt-limit agreement to accommodate a higher level of spending in that area. The Senate is unlikely to take up this bill. The President has issued a veto threat.

Rep. Mike Simpson voted YES

Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations, FY 2013 - Vote Passed (247-163, 21 Not Voting)

This appropriations bill provides $51.1 billion dollars in funding in FY 2013 for the departments of Commerce and Justice and other agencies such as NASA and the National Science Foundation. This funding level would be $1.8 billion less than in FY 2012 and $731 million less than the president requested for the upcoming fiscal year. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved its version of the bill on April 19, but floor time has not been scheduled. The President has threatened a veto on the House version.

Rep. Mike Simpson voted YES ]]> Politics GUS http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5848 http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5847&goto=newpost Sat, 12 May 2012 03:51:20 GMT http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-11/obama-winning-investors-by-49-38-against-romney-in-poll.html Excerpt By Mike Dorning Global... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...y-in-poll.html

Excerpt

By Mike Dorning

Global investors increasingly prefer President Barack Obama to Republican challenger Mitt Romney and most say they believe the incumbent will remain in the White House for another four years.

Asked who would be the better leader for the global economy, 49 percent favor Obama against 38 percent for Romney, according to a quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll. In January, the two candidates tied on the question.

By the same margin, they say Obama has a better vision for the U.S. economy, according to the survey of 1,253 Bloomberg customers, who are investors, analysts or traders.

Obama “managed the U.S. economy pretty well, solving a lot of imbalances created by the previous administration,” says poll respondent Mario Di Marcantonio, 35, a senior portfolio manager at Eurizon Capital in Milan.

“I believe the second Obama term will be better than having a U-turn with Romney,” he says. “More stability will mean more visibility and more investment in the future.”

The American presidential election is dividing foreign investors and those based in the U.S., where Romney is favored across the board. U.S. investors choose the Republican candidate as best for the global economy by more than 2-to-1. Respondents outside the U.S. prefer Democrat Obama by almost 3-to-1 in the poll, conducted May 8.

End excerpt ]]> Politics Bilge Rat http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5847 http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5846&goto=newpost Wed, 09 May 2012 19:38:44 GMT http://gma.yahoo.com/obama-announces-his-support-for-same-sex-marriage.html Excerpt By Rick Klein President Obama today announced that he... http://gma.yahoo.com/obama-announces...-marriage.html

Excerpt

By Rick Klein

President Obama today announced that he now supports same-sex marriage, reversing his longstanding opposition amid growing pressure from the Democratic base and even his own vice president.

In an interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts, the president described his thought process as an “evolution” that led him to this place, based on conversations with his own staff members, openly gay and lesbian service members, and conversations with his wife and own daughters.

End excerpt


Watch the video ]]> Politics Bilge Rat http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5846 http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5845&goto=newpost Wed, 09 May 2012 17:39:24 GMT You folk had a bad day yesterday...lost on Gay marriage, the anti Walker turnout was smaller than the pro walker turnout, BoBo almost lost his... You folk had a bad day yesterday...lost on Gay marriage, the anti Walker turnout was smaller than the pro walker turnout, BoBo almost lost his primary in WV to a jailed felon joke vote, and a RINO was replaced by a conservative in Indiana....:D ]]> Politics JIMV http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5845 http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5844&goto=newpost Sun, 06 May 2012 19:08:29 GMT http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/hollande-defeats-sarkozy-french-election-182314153.html Ousted in France. The only reason I post this is... http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...182314153.html

Ousted in France.

The only reason I post this is because when the conservatives were elected anywhere in the world our own little teabagger posted it as a 'warning' to what was going to happen here.
Looks like his delusional predictions are going to be wrong again! ]]> Politics kluwer http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5844 http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5843&goto=newpost Fri, 04 May 2012 15:46:09 GMT http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c3#/video/offbeat/2012/05/04/ac-ridiculist-limbaugh-gym-accusation.cnn There ya have it, Rushbo has the hots... http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c3#...accusation.cnn


There ya have it, Rushbo has the hots for Anderson Cooper. ]]> Politics Bilge Rat http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5843 http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5842&goto=newpost Thu, 03 May 2012 15:54:33 GMT The 'Myth' of Voter Fraud

The fight against 'voter fraud' is really about vote suppression

By Kira Zalan
April 24, 2012 RSS Feed Print

A democracy hinges on fair elections, which is why voter fraud could pose a serious threat to the American political system. But election law expert Tova Wang says instances of polling place fraud are extremely rare. Wang, a fellow at progressive think tanks Demos and the Century Foundation, is the author of a forthcoming book called The Politics of Voter Suppression: Defending and Expanding Americans' Right to Vote. She recently spoke with U.S. News about election fraud and why she thinks voter ID laws are discriminatory. Excerpts:

Is there a problem of voter fraud?

If you're asking whether there's fraud in the electoral system, yes, there is some, not a lot. If you're asking me if there is fraud at the polling place, then I would say no, we do not have a serious problem with fraud in this country.

[Robert Schlesinger: The Real Voter Fraud Scandal]

What about widely publicized stories of registration fraud?

Those cases are always very easily caught, very frequently by the very organization that's overseeing the work. And there's absolutely zero evidence that anyone who has put any false information on a voter registration form has actually voted using that information. Problems with voter registration [are] different than fraud at the polls that ends up impacting the election.

Are there reliable statistics on voter fraud?

What we can go by is the number of times that people have been prosecuted successfully for such crimes. And the number is ridiculously low. You have a better chance of being hit by lightning than discovering an incident of polling place fraud.

[Read more Q&As in U.S. News Weekly, now available on iPad.]

Then why is there a public perception that there's a problem?

I think there are a lot of political leaders who have perpetuated this myth for partisan purposes, and when you look at it superficially it's a believable argument. But they tend to conflate the different types of fraud that could occur in the election system and sort of mix together voter registration fraud, and voter absentee fraud, and other types of issues, and stir it all up in a pot, and come up with voter identification requirements that would do nothing to address the relatively minor problems that we have in the system.

What's going on with voter ID requirements?

We have seen an incredible wave of legislation since the 2010 elections, when Republicans took over a number of state legislatures. A number of states have passed ID legislation in the past year and a half or so. And now I think you're starting to see a backlash, particularly in the courts, where judges are looking at the evidence and saying, this is discriminatory, this is voter suppression, and there's no need for it.

[Susan Milligan: What James O'Keefe Gets Wrong About Voter Fraud]

What's wrong with requiring photo identification from voters?

There are many thousands of Americans who have the same rights as you and I who do not have the kind of identification that politicians want to require. Something between 10-11 percent of Americans.

Who falls into this category?

Disproportionately certain groups, particularly African-Americans, Latinos, young people, and people with disabilities—the types of groups that tend to vote, frankly, Democratic. Because there's not a big problem of fraud at the polls that this would address, the only conclusion that you could come to is that they're trying to purposefully keep out of the system people they don't want voting.

How will this affect November's election?

A number of the laws are in litigation right now through the Department of Justice and also private lawsuits. In the meantime, organizations across states where they have these new ID laws are working with individual voters, one on one, trying to mitigate the damaging impact these ID laws will inevitably have in November. ]]> Politics McGyver http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5842 http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5841&goto=newpost Wed, 02 May 2012 01:28:29 GMT PART 1 OF 2

McCain, Romney and Bush Wouldn't, Shouldn't, Couldn't Get Bin Laden in Pakistan...............By Jon Perr

Here are two helpful reminders for apoplectic conservatives: Until Barack Obama shows up on a U.S. aircraft carrier in a flight suit and an over-sized cod piece, no GOP loyalist can criticize him for boasting about the operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. And no Republican can claim that "other presidents and candidates like myself" would have ordered that high-risk mission in Pakistan. After all, in 2008 John McCain said he wouldn't. Mitt Romney said we shouldn't. And despite his tough-talk about getting Bin Laden "dead or alive," George W. Bush simply couldn't.

On Friday, the still bitter McCain declared, "Shame on Barack Obama for diminishing the memory of September 11th and the killing of Osama bin Laden by turning it into a cheap political attack ad." For his part, the 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney scoffed that "even Jimmy Carter would have given that order." Unfortunately for the Republican propaganda machine, we know that neither John McCain nor Mitt Romney would have supported the Special Forces strike deep in Pakistan. We know this, because they told us so.

( •McCain Said He Wouldn't Go After Bin Laden in Pakistan.
•Romney Said We Shouldn't Go After Bin Laden in Pakistan.
•Bush Couldn't Get Bin Laden, Period.

McCain Said He Wouldn't Go After Bin Laden in Pakistan.

Throughout 2007 and the first half of 2008, candidate McCain repeatedly pledged he would hunt down the Al Qaeda chieftain and "follow him to the gates of hell." For example, in May 2007, McCain described himself as the dog that'll hunt:

"We will do whatever is necessary. We will track him down. We will capture him. We will bring him to justice, and I will follow him to the gates of hell."

In January 2008, McCain reassured suspicious South Carolina voters as well, just in case they had missed his earlier promises on the point:

"My friends, I want to stand before you now and tell you that if I have to follow him to the gates of hell I will get Osama Bin Laden and I will bring him to justice. I will get him!"

And in perhaps his best performance of tough-talking, political pandering, McCain told workers at a small weapons factory in New Hampshire:

"I will follow Osama Bin Laden to the gates of hell and I will shoot him with your products."

But when Senator Barack Obama explained he would pursue Osama Bin Laden and his top lieutenants across the Afghan border, John McCain said no.

On August 1, 2007, then Senator Barack Obama delivered a major speech on foreign policy. In addition to pledging to unilaterally launch strikes against Bin Laden and other high-value targets in Pakistan, Obama promised he would ramp up the U.S. effort in the under-resourced effort across the border in Afghanistan. In July 2008, Obama explained:

"The greatest threat to that security lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train and insurgents strike into Afghanistan. We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as President, I won't. We need a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO to secure the border, to take out terrorist camps, and to crack down on cross-border insurgents. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights."

Then in an October 2008 presidential debate with John McCain, Obama declared simply. "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority."

In response, John McCain (the same John McCain who throughout 2003 and 2004 proclaimed "Nobody in Afghanistan threatens the United States of America" and "Afghanistan, we don't read about anymore, because it's succeeded") mocked Obama.

For the rest of the campaign, Senator McCain insisted that unlike Senator Obama, he would not "take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights," as this exchange with CNN's Larry King revealed:

KING: If you were president and knew that bin Laden was in Pakistan, you know where, would you have U.S. forces go in after him?

MCCAIN: Larry, I'm not going to go there and here's why, because Pakistan is a sovereign nation. I think the Pakistanis would want bin Laden out of their hair and out of their country and it's causing great difficulties in Pakistan itself.

In February 2008, on the same day the Washington Post reported on the Bush administration's accelerated use of drones to target terrorist targets within Pakistan, John McCain blasted Obama's hard line on Al Qaeda's safe havens:

"Will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested invading our ally, Pakistan?"

(As Media Matters noted, USA Today dutifully reported that McCain was "ridiculing comments Obama has made" without adding the correction that Obama had said no such thing about "invading" Pakistan.)

Romney Said We Shouldn't Go After Bin Laden in Pakistan.

From the beginning, candidate Romney, like the GOP's eventual nominee John McCain, not only opposed but mocked Obama's approach. While McCain blasted Obama's hard line on Al Qaeda's safe havens in the tribal areas, Romney protested:

"I do not concur in the words of Barack Obama in a plan to enter an ally of ours... I don't think those kinds of comments help in this effort to draw more friends to our effort..."There is a war being waged by terrorists of different types and nature across the world," Romney said. "We want, as a civilized world, to participate with other nations in this civilized effort to help those nations reject the extreme with them."

That might seem like an incongruous statement coming from the same Mitt Romney who in November said of our "ally" Pakistan, "We need to help bring Pakistan into the 21st century, or the 20th for that matter." It's more comical still coming from the same Mitt Romney who told Chuck Todd of MSNBC that he now supports the very kind of operation to take out Osama Bin Laden he once opposed:

"I think in a setting like this one where Osama bin Laden was identified to be hiding in Pakistan, that it was entirely appropriate for this president to move in and to take him out," Romney replied, later adding that "In a similar circumstance, I think other presidents and other candidates, like myself, would do exactly the same thing."

(As it turns out, it wasn't just candidate Romney who got weak at the knees at the prospect of ordering unilateral U.S. strikes in Pakistan. In 2005, President Bush did as well, cancelling a special forces operation designed to "snatch and grab" Ayman Al Zawahiri and other senior Al Qaeda leaders.)

Of course, Romney's confusion about whether to respect or not respect Pakistani sovereignty may have something to do with his past reversals about whether or not killing Osama Bin Laden even mattered:

In May 2007, Romney alarmingly—and erroneously—equated Sunni and Shiite, friend and foe, the guilty and the innocent across the Islamic world.

"But I don't want to buy into the Democratic pitch, that this is all about one person, Osama bin Laden. Because after we get him, there's going to be another and another. This is about Shia and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate."

Even regarding that "one person, Osama Bin Laden," Romney struggled. After insisting in May 2007 that "It's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person," Romney reversed course just three days later and declared of Bin Laden, "He's going to pay, and he will die."

]]> Politics McGyver http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5841 http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5840&goto=newpost Wed, 02 May 2012 01:21:07 GMT For the past decade or so, Republicans have been thrilled to label Democrats as "WEAK" on Defense, just because George W. Bush went to War with the WRONG country! Notice, that when President Barack Obama finally captured and killed Osama bin Laden, he was NOT in Iraq!

However, for anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together, The FACTS are VERY Clear:

1. The 9/11 Terrorist Attacks Occurred Under Republican (G.W. Bush's)Watch

2. 15 of the 19 Terrorists Responsible For 9/11 Were Saudi Arabian Citizens

3. G.W. Bush And Dickhead Cheney Then Decided To Bomb Iraq. (?)

4. G.W. Bush Stood At Ground Zero And Promised The American People That "I Hear You, And The People Who Did This Will Hear Us SOON!"

5. And just six months after 9/11, Bush in a press conference stated that Bin Laden was not a top priority for his administration. Asked whether Bush thought capturing Bin Laden was important, Bush scolded those who cared about Bin Laden for not “understand[ing] the scope of the mission” because Bin Laden was just “one person,” whom Bush said, “I really just don’t spend that much time on“

6. Ten Years Later, Democratic President Barack Obama Gave The Order To Attack and Kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, just as he said he would Do during his Campaign for President!"

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA QUOTE: "The greatest threat to that security lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train and insurgents strike into Afghanistan. We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as President, I won't. We need a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO to secure the border, to take out terrorist camps, and to crack down on cross-border insurgents. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights."

Republicans complain and criticize President Obama for listing the Pursuit, Capture and Killing of the Man Responsible for the deaths of 3,000 Innocent American Men, Women and Children on American Soil, on his Resume....I guess they forget the Campaign Ads showing Bush and The Burning World Trade Center during the 2004 Election? Oh and does ANYONE remember Bush on The Sub With The "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" SIGN in the background???? :rolleyes:

HYPOCRITE, THEY NAME IS "STILL" REPUBLICAN!!!!

President Obama has every right to remind the Country how HE handled Osama bin Laden, it counters ALL the Nasty comments made by Republicans these past 3 years, saying how Democrats have been Weak On Defense....NOW, the shoe is on the other foot! ]]> Politics McGyver http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5840 http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5839&goto=newpost Tue, 01 May 2012 23:50:07 GMT Outside the sunny East Room of the White House, some 200 spouses and parents of military-service members are waiting in line. It's a slow march to the front, but nobody seems to mind: First Lady Michelle Obama and vice-presidential spouse Jill Biden have planned an elegant tea in their honor and are intent on greeting each, one by one. And so the guests present themselves. They laugh, cry, show pictures. They say, "Thank you." They whisper tales of pain and loss — "My husband came back from Iraq, then died....I lost my son....I'd like you to have this pin.…" In return, Obama and Biden offer a hug, a squeeze of the hand, a promise of prayer. And always, a "Thank you, thank you."

It's a scene the two have played out over and again during the past two years, but there's a particular poignancy to this moment: Just five days before, U.S. commandos had raided a compound in Pakistan, killing Osama bin Laden — the man behind the 9/11 attack that led to the war still rocking the lives of so many being honored this day. Biden later praises those special forces as "heroic," but really, she says, heroes are right in this room — living testaments to why, just weeks earlier, she and Obama had kicked off their Joining Forces campaign to rally support for military families.

By their lights, the idea is a no-brainer: Americans simply need to show more love for the families of those who serve. Making sure the country gets what that means (hint: it's not just about waving the flag) is now priority number one for Obama, 47, and Biden, 60. And while neither woman suffers a shortage of things to do — there's Obama's Let's Move! campaign to fight childhood obesity, and Biden's work on behalf of community colleges, for starters — it's this, they say, that most deserves their collective spark.

When AARP The Magazine sat down with them in the cozy comfort of Biden's office, the military-families campaign was top of mind. But the women also talked about 9/11, the death of Osama bin Laden, their high-profile roles in this administration, their families, aging, health, sacrifice, even running for office. At times philosophical, at times playful, Obama and Biden appeared purposeful, relaxed in each other's company — and clearly grateful for their privileged place in an extraordinary time.

Q: It's been a decade since the tragic events of 9/11. Where were you that day, and what went through your mind when the towers fell?

Jill Biden: Well, I remember I was getting ready for school. I had a 10 a.m. class to teach, and Joe was on the train going down to Washington from Wilmington. I called him and said, "You're not going to believe this." We were just shocked.

Michelle Obama: I'll never forget, because it was Malia's first day of preschool. It was a beautiful, crisp, bright day. And I remember feeling optimistic that my little girl was going off to school, and the world for her was just opening up. We were in the car, and I had NPR on and thought, "What does this mean for my daughter's life now? Has the world fundamentally been changed? Are we now a nation at war?" So for me it was about the future.

How You Can Help


Not sure how to help a military family — or what to do to commemorate the National Day of Service and Remembrance? You'll discover hundreds of great ideas and links by going to the internet and doing a search of Helping Military Families.

Create the Good
With the military-families "how-to" tool kit, learn how to give a lift to families in your local community. And find hundreds of other creative options for helping people every day — whatever their needs.

Joining Forces
Send thank-you messages to military-service members, discover ways to help them and their families, and learn how businesses, government agencies, and associations are helping them with jobs, education, and health-related issues.[/size][/b] ]]> Politics McGyver http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5839 http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5838&goto=newpost Tue, 01 May 2012 15:00:07 GMT http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/rupert-murdoch-not-fit-run-news-corp-u-121230751.html Excerpt By Dylan Stableford Senior Media Reporter... http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/...121230751.html

Excerpt

By Dylan Stableford

Senior Media Reporter

The parliamentary committee that's been investigating U.K. phone-hacking and media ethics released its much-anticipated report on Tuesday in London, concluding Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman and chief executive, is "not fit" to lead a major international media company.

Murdoch, the select committee found, "turned a blind eye and exhibited willful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications."

The report also concluded James Murdoch, Rupert's son and former head of News Corp.'s British publishing unit News International, showed a "willful ignorance" of the phone-hacking activity that occurred on his watch.

The committee went on, charging that Les Hinton, former News International chairman, Colin Myler, ex-editor of News of the World, and former legal counsel Tom Crone were "complicit" in the phone-hacking cover-up. (According to the Guardian, all three may be called to apologize to Parliament, something that hasn't happened in 50 years.)

However, the committee that released the report was divided on its Murdoch findings, with conservatives members wanting to soften the language about the family. They were outvoted.

End excerpt


Murdoch is the guy who owns Fox News, the guiding light for Limbaugh, Hannity and the Republican party.

I might add that "conservative" has a much more REAL meaning in the U.K. than it has become to mean here, where it's overtly gravitating to extremisn, hatred and violence among the GOPbaglemmings. ]]> Politics Bilge Rat http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5838 http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5837&goto=newpost Sun, 29 Apr 2012 22:11:22 GMT Let’s just say it: The Republicans ARE The Problem.

PART (1)

By Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, Published: April 27

Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates.

It’s not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted.

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.

It is clear that the center of gravity in the Republican Party has shifted sharply to the right. Its once-legendary moderate and center-right legislators in the House and the Senate — think Bob Michel, Mickey Edwards, John Danforth, Chuck Hagel — are virtually extinct.

The post-McGovern Democratic Party, by contrast, while losing the bulk of its conservative Dixiecrat contingent in the decades after the civil rights revolution, has retained a more diverse base. Since the Clinton presidency, it has hewed to the center-left on issues from welfare reform to fiscal policy. While the Democrats may have moved from their 40-yard line to their 25, the Republicans have gone from their 40 to somewhere behind their goal post.

What happened? Of course, there were larger forces at work beyond the realignment of the South. They included the mobilization of social conservatives after the 1973Roe v. Wade decision, the anti-tax movement launched in 1978 by California’s Proposition 13, the rise of conservative talk radio after a congressional pay raise in 1989, and the emergence of Fox News and right-wing blogs. But the real move to the bedrock right starts with two names: Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist.

PART TWO CONTINUED IN NEXT POST!!! ]]> Politics McGyver http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5837 http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5836&goto=newpost Thu, 26 Apr 2012 20:33:42 GMT *Earlier this week, nearly 90 faculty members at the Jesuit university declared in a letter to Mr. Ryan that, “We would be remiss in our duty to you... Earlier this week, nearly 90 faculty members at the Jesuit university declared in a letter to Mr. Ryan that, “We would be remiss in our duty to you and our students if we did not challenge "your continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan that decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick, and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest few.”

On Thursday, Mr. Ryan shot back that Pope Benedict XVI has said government debt is a concern for future generations. Mr. Ryan has also made a moral case for his budget by arguing it would help poor people become independent.

The group declined to comment on Mr. Ryan’s speech Thursday. END OF QUOTE!!

Well, I'll comment: The American Publics dissatisfaction with Ryan's Budget, is NOT with the fact that he reduces the debt, it is with the fact that "HE REDUCES THE DEBT ON THE BACKS OF THOSE WHO CAN LEAST AFFORD IT!

Ryan's plan, cuts medicare, medicaid, social security, food stamps ALL while GUARANTEEING TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY!

You don't have to be a fucking Rocket Scientist to see BLATANT ANTI-CHRISTIAN policies in Ryan's Plan!!! What you DO see, is TYPICAL REPUBLICAN HYPOCRISY, CUTTING TAXES FOR THE RICH AND PAYING FOR IT WITH SERVICE CUTS TO THE POOR!!!

THAT IS "NOT" WHAT JESUS WOULD DO! ]]> Politics McGyver http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5836 http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5835&goto=newpost Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:09:54 GMT As JimV has been "ever so gently" reminding us for months now, it would be a HUGE uphill battle for Democrats to regain the House of Representatives. However, it appears that "With The Help of The Diminishing REBPUBLICAN Brand," it is now looking much more hopeful for Democrats!


By Michael O'Brien

The battle for control of Congress this fall will be more closely fought than many Republicans had predicted in the heady days following their 2010 midterm landslide victories, according to those most closely involved in the campaign.

House Speaker John Boehner’s comments this week that the GOP has a “one-in-three” chance of losing the House sent shockwaves through the political establishment. “We've got a fight on our hands and our hands need to be prepared,” Boehner told reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, doubling down on his warning.

While the Ohio Republican’s admonition was mostly meant to guard against complacency among donors and lawmakers, it reflects a more grim assessment of the GOP’s chances in the House and Senate.

Republicans now privately expect to suffer a handful of losses in the House, expected partly to be a natural outgrowth of the receding Republican wave from 2010. And while the party remains optimistic in its chance to regain the Senate, Washington Republicans believe it wouldn’t be by any commanding margin.

"This is going to be an election that comes down to jobs, the economy and pocketbook issues. This is going to be a referendum on the president’s economic policies and how it translates down to congressional districts," said Brad Dayspring, a former spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor , R-Va., who now works for the Young Guns Action Fund, the super PAC founded by former aides to Cantor and GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy.

"It’s going to be whether Republicans can be trusted again to govern in a responsible manner," he said.

Forty-six percent of registered voters in April's NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll said they would prefer a Democratic Congress as the outcome of this fall's elections, versus 44 percent who said they’d prefer a Republican one. That's a closer margin for Republicans than in previous months, but general anti-incumbent fervor is running high, too.

Speaker John Boehner says Republicans have a 1 in 3 chance of losing the house, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer predicts the Democrats will take the 25 seats needed to win back a majority.

“Fairly or unfairly, House Republicans have become the face of Congress, and right now a root canal is more popular than Congress,” said Doug Thornell, a former aide on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Gone is the optimism from Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, the Republican in charge of his party’s campaign efforts in the House, from early 2011, when he predicted an expanded majority in November’s elections.

One Republican veteran of the party’s past campaign efforts pointed to two moments from the intervening 15 months that tarnished the party’s brand: the impasses associated with raising the debt ceiling and extending an expiring payroll tax cut.

"I don’t think that Republicans have had the opportunity to showcase what they are capable of doing; it’s hard to do with only one house in Congress," said the Republican. "But when they did have opportunities, they didn’t necessarily make the most of them."

The GOP entered the 2012 cycle with some built-in advantages. Down-ballot victories in 2010 helped the party shore up some seats through Census-mandated redistricting efforts, and Democrats must defend more seats (23) than Republicans in the Senate.

But Democrats argue that they have made inroads over the past year in recruiting top-flight candidates and defining Republicans, especially in reference to the controversial GOP budget in 2011.

"Nobody would have thought after we lost 63 seats in the House that we would fast-forward 18 months that we would have the candidates we have on 'Red to Blue,'" said one House Democratic campaign operative, referring to the party's initiative to flip Republican seats in November.

Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking Democrat in the House, pegged the odds of retaking the House even higher. "I think it's 50-50," he told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

To accomplish that feat, Democrats must win a net of 25 seats to retake control of the House. (Republicans caution that, because they expect to win at least a few seats, their opponents must win 35-40 seats to have a real chance of re-taking the House.)

By contrast, Republicans need a net gain of just four seats to win back the Senate.

Republicans are eager to stress the plethora of opportunities that could allow the party to accomplish its goal of winning the upper chamber. But they caution that the early projections last year that saw the GOP as competitive in over a dozen races were irrationally exuberant.

"The expectations were out of whack a year ago, and conversely, people's perspectives were out of whack, too," said one GOP strategist familiar with the party's campaign efforts in the upper chamber.

Republican candidates have struggled to get traction in states like Michigan, and few good GOP candidates have emerged in battlegrounds like Florida, Ohio, or Pennsylvania — despite potentially vulnerable Democrats facing re-election this fall.

"I think that after 2012, people will look back and see there were missed opportunities not only in 2012 but in 2010, as well," said the veteran GOP operative of the party's campaign efforts, alluding to the instances last cycle in which Tea Party-affiliated candidates failed in winning competitive races.

Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe's decision to retire complicated Republicans' efforts to stymie losses, and Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown's re-election campaign is a virtual toss-up.

“We were not handed a friendly map at the beginning of this cycle but we went out and aggressively recruited great candidates in open and Republican-held seats, our incumbents built strong campaigns, and we are now more bullish than ever about keeping the majority,” said Matt Canter, the spokesman for Senate Democrats’ campaign arm.

At the same time, though, Republicans point out they could still lose a number of contests and still wrest the majority from Democrats if they're able to score victories in places like Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and Montana — states traditionally friendly to Republicans.

For all of presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney's talk of shrinking the size of government and repealing the president's health reform law, much of it depends on whether the GOP can retain control of the House and win back the Senate. On the flip side, Republican control of one or both chambers could also grind to a halt President Barack Obama's attempt to restructure taxes in a manner that shifts more burden to the wealthy.

To that end, both parties expect the presidential race to affect these downballot races. The Obama campaign's sophisticated turnout efforts in states like Virginia, Nevada and Ohio — to name a few — could help propel Democrats' House and Senate candidates to a margin of victory.

In the same manner, Boehner's admonition this week focused partly on minimizing losses in so-called "orphan" states and districts, where the presidential race isn't being fought tightly. The GOP made gains in three such states — New York, Illinois and California — last cycle, and their ability to keep control of the House might hinge in part on their effectiveness of holding onto some of those seats.

Another major variable involves the full advent of super PACs, the unlimited campaign funds on both sides which can spend millions to pummel candidates whom they oppose. American Crossroads and its non-profit arm, Crossroads GPS, spent with great effectiveness in 2010, and have already gone on the attack in 2012, most recently announcing a $1.2 million blitz against five Democratic Senate candidates.

“My biggest fear at both the House level and the presidential level is all of these outside groups coming in and spending tons of money,” Thornell said. “There are clearly now more of them, and they’re going to have millions of dollars. That’s going to be a huge challenge.” ]]> Politics McGyver http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5835 http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5834&goto=newpost Thu, 26 Apr 2012 04:09:16 GMT http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=CZ-4gnNz0vc

Says it all ]]> Politics JIMV http://www.boiseweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5834