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deminks
deminks's Journal
deminks's Journal
February 11, 2013
Last week Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, gave what his office told us would be a major policy speech. And we should be grateful for the heads-up about the speech’s majorness. Otherwise, a read of the speech might have suggested that he was offering nothing more than a meager, warmed-over selection of stale ideas.
To be sure, Mr. Cantor tried to sound interested in serious policy discussion. But he didn’t succeed — and that was no accident. For these days his party dislikes the whole idea of applying critical thinking and evidence to policy questions. And no, that’s not a caricature: Last year the Texas G.O.P. explicitly condemned efforts to teach “critical thinking skills,” because, it said, such efforts “have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”
And such is the influence of what we might call the ignorance caucus that even when giving a speech intended to demonstrate his openness to new ideas, Mr. Cantor felt obliged to give that caucus a shout-out, calling for a complete end to federal funding of social science research. Because it’s surely a waste of money seeking to understand the society we’re trying to change.
Want other examples of the ignorance caucus at work? Start with health care, an area in which Mr. Cantor tried not to sound anti-intellectual; he lavished praise on medical research just before attacking federal support for social science. (By the way, how much money are we talking about? Well, the entire National Science Foundation budget for social and economic sciences amounts to a whopping 0.01 percent of the budget deficit.)
(end snip)
Krugman: The Ignorance Caucus
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/11/opinion/krugman-the-ignorance-caucus.html?_r=0Last week Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, gave what his office told us would be a major policy speech. And we should be grateful for the heads-up about the speech’s majorness. Otherwise, a read of the speech might have suggested that he was offering nothing more than a meager, warmed-over selection of stale ideas.
To be sure, Mr. Cantor tried to sound interested in serious policy discussion. But he didn’t succeed — and that was no accident. For these days his party dislikes the whole idea of applying critical thinking and evidence to policy questions. And no, that’s not a caricature: Last year the Texas G.O.P. explicitly condemned efforts to teach “critical thinking skills,” because, it said, such efforts “have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”
And such is the influence of what we might call the ignorance caucus that even when giving a speech intended to demonstrate his openness to new ideas, Mr. Cantor felt obliged to give that caucus a shout-out, calling for a complete end to federal funding of social science research. Because it’s surely a waste of money seeking to understand the society we’re trying to change.
Want other examples of the ignorance caucus at work? Start with health care, an area in which Mr. Cantor tried not to sound anti-intellectual; he lavished praise on medical research just before attacking federal support for social science. (By the way, how much money are we talking about? Well, the entire National Science Foundation budget for social and economic sciences amounts to a whopping 0.01 percent of the budget deficit.)
(end snip)
January 20, 2013
Joe Scarborough: Republicans Only Kept House Majority Because Of Gerrymandering
MSNBC host and former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough admitted on Sunday that Republicans only kept their majority in the House of Representatives as a result of gerrymandering, noting that the GOP received less votes than Democrats in the 2012 election. Scarborough argued that Republicans must prevent radical ultra-conservative voices from dominating the party’s message and pointed out that the GOP is already losing electoral ground among voters who view it as too extreme and out of touch with middle class Americans:
SCARBOROUGH: William F. Buckley in the 1960s at some point had to start defining the boundaries of conservatism. He went after the John Birch Society, Ayn Rand, George Wallace. That has to happen again with this party because it’s getting smaller and smaller. In this debate, we actually have conservative thinkers, talking about ronald reagan being a RINO — a Republican in name only, because he supported an assault weapons ban. They keep pushing themselves closer and closer to the cliff. But I just have to say one other really important point, because I made a mistake over the past month talking about how Republicans have also won a majority in the House. As this article I was referencing mentioned, we actually got a minority of votes nationwide in House races. It was just gerrymandering from 2010 that gave us the majority.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/20/1474561/joe-scarborough-republicans-only-kept-house-majority-because-of-gerrymandering/
January 18, 2013
There’s a reason they’re call gun “NUTS.” The NRA just lies. These guys should consider teaming up with the religious right, considering the audacity of lies they tell.
You might recall that we reported earlier this week that the NRA had launched an ad/Web site targeting President Obama’s children. The ad claimed – falsely, we now know – that the school the Obama girls attend, Sidwell friends, has “11 armed guards.”
In fact, the school has no armed guards of any kind.
Now, you’d think that when the NRA saw that the source for lie was “Breitbart,” a far right blog known for its sensationalism rather than it’s love of veracity, they’d have double checked. Well, if they did, they double checked with Fox News, because it’s a lie.
(end snip)
The article quotes the Washington Post fact checker.
4 Pinocchios for a slashing NRA ad on security at Sidwell Friends School
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/4-pinocchios-for-a-slashing-nra-ad-on-security-at-sidwell-friends-school/2013/01/16/95b2127a-6032-11e2-9940-6fc488f3fecd_blog.html
NRA lied: No armed guards at Obama girls’ school
http://americablog.com/2013/01/nra-lied-armed-guards-obama-schoo.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Americablog+%28AMERICAblog+News%29&utm_content=Google+ReaderThere’s a reason they’re call gun “NUTS.” The NRA just lies. These guys should consider teaming up with the religious right, considering the audacity of lies they tell.
You might recall that we reported earlier this week that the NRA had launched an ad/Web site targeting President Obama’s children. The ad claimed – falsely, we now know – that the school the Obama girls attend, Sidwell friends, has “11 armed guards.”
In fact, the school has no armed guards of any kind.
Now, you’d think that when the NRA saw that the source for lie was “Breitbart,” a far right blog known for its sensationalism rather than it’s love of veracity, they’d have double checked. Well, if they did, they double checked with Fox News, because it’s a lie.
(end snip)
The article quotes the Washington Post fact checker.
4 Pinocchios for a slashing NRA ad on security at Sidwell Friends School
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/4-pinocchios-for-a-slashing-nra-ad-on-security-at-sidwell-friends-school/2013/01/16/95b2127a-6032-11e2-9940-6fc488f3fecd_blog.html
November 4, 2012
(Washington, DC) Our elections are officially privatized. They are hidden from our view by design.
On November 6, your votes will be cast and tallied on voting machines manufactured and serviced by private companies. The computerized voting machines run on software that is closely held as a trade secret by these companies. Our elections officials are barred from examining the most important aspects of the software. Why? Because those same officials signed away our right to open access and inspection of the voting systems that tell us who won and who lost each and every election. (Image: WikiCommons)
This is the most profound election fraud imaginable. It affects every citizen, all 311 million of us.
(snip)
Watch the Post-Election Polls and Analysis
Rich Charnin has been studying and writing about election for early ten years. He was one of the first researchers to discover the inconsistencies in the media consortium's exit polling and the first researcher to look beneath the surface of the 2004 election. Charnin predicted the exact electoral count of the 2008 election and updates his blog daily.
His latest book, Matrix of Deceit: Forcing Pre-Election and Exit Polls to Match Fraudulent Vote Counts, shows how the media consortium uses their exit polls to ratify questionable elections. The official exit polls released by the networks and major news outlets are adjusted before release to match the official election results. Charnin was the first to point out that that nearly half the official media consortium's state presidential exit polls exceeded the margin of error in favor of Republicans and only three did so in favor of the Democratic presidential candidate. The probability of that happening is one of those unfathomable improbabilities, one in several trillion. Where are the experts, academics, and elections officials who prop-up an indefensible election process? What do they have to say in their defense? Nothing.
(end snip)
John Lewis Injured During March
John Lewis, leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was struck on the head by a state trooper during an attempt to march on the state capitol in Montgomery in March 1965.
http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Multimedia.jsp?id=m-2541
For all of you who poo-poo exit polls. The exit polls you and I see are adjusted - do you understand that? - adjusted to match the results before they are released to the public by the MEdia. It's not the people lying about who they voted for - they are effing cooked before you and I see them.
When Rep. Lewis says he lived it and is now living it again, he speaks the truth.
Election Fraud, November 6 - Watch for Vote Flipping and Fixed Exit Polls
http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/Election-Fraud-November-6-by-Michael-Collins-121104-786.html(Washington, DC) Our elections are officially privatized. They are hidden from our view by design.
On November 6, your votes will be cast and tallied on voting machines manufactured and serviced by private companies. The computerized voting machines run on software that is closely held as a trade secret by these companies. Our elections officials are barred from examining the most important aspects of the software. Why? Because those same officials signed away our right to open access and inspection of the voting systems that tell us who won and who lost each and every election. (Image: WikiCommons)
This is the most profound election fraud imaginable. It affects every citizen, all 311 million of us.
(snip)
Watch the Post-Election Polls and Analysis
Rich Charnin has been studying and writing about election for early ten years. He was one of the first researchers to discover the inconsistencies in the media consortium's exit polling and the first researcher to look beneath the surface of the 2004 election. Charnin predicted the exact electoral count of the 2008 election and updates his blog daily.
His latest book, Matrix of Deceit: Forcing Pre-Election and Exit Polls to Match Fraudulent Vote Counts, shows how the media consortium uses their exit polls to ratify questionable elections. The official exit polls released by the networks and major news outlets are adjusted before release to match the official election results. Charnin was the first to point out that that nearly half the official media consortium's state presidential exit polls exceeded the margin of error in favor of Republicans and only three did so in favor of the Democratic presidential candidate. The probability of that happening is one of those unfathomable improbabilities, one in several trillion. Where are the experts, academics, and elections officials who prop-up an indefensible election process? What do they have to say in their defense? Nothing.
(end snip)
John Lewis Injured During March
John Lewis, leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was struck on the head by a state trooper during an attempt to march on the state capitol in Montgomery in March 1965.
http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Multimedia.jsp?id=m-2541
For all of you who poo-poo exit polls. The exit polls you and I see are adjusted - do you understand that? - adjusted to match the results before they are released to the public by the MEdia. It's not the people lying about who they voted for - they are effing cooked before you and I see them.
When Rep. Lewis says he lived it and is now living it again, he speaks the truth.
July 29, 2012
This morning on Fox News Sunday, Justice Antonin Scalia reiterated just how extremely his Constitutional originalism can be applied. Referring to the recent shooting in Aurora, CO, host Chris Wallace asked the Supreme Court Justice about gun control, and whether the Second Amendment allows for any limitations to gun rights. Scalia admitted there could be, such as “frighting” (carrying a big ax just to scare people), but they would still have to be determined with an 18th-Century perspective in mind. According to his originalism, if a weapon can be hand-held, though, it probably still falls under the right o “bear arms”:
WALLACE: What about… a weapon that can fire a hundred shots in a minute?
SCALIA: We’ll see. Obviously the Amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be hand-carried — it’s to keep and “bear,” so it doesn’t apply to cannons — but I suppose here are hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes, that will have to be decided.
WALLACE: How do you decide that if you’re a textualist?
SCALIA: Very carefully.
(end snip)
A SCOTUS judge/dog whistler on Faux Newz.
Gore won, Fat Tony. Get over it.
Scalia Suggests ‘Hand-Held Rocket Launchers’ Are Protected Under Second Amendment
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/07/29/602491/scalia-rocket-launcher/This morning on Fox News Sunday, Justice Antonin Scalia reiterated just how extremely his Constitutional originalism can be applied. Referring to the recent shooting in Aurora, CO, host Chris Wallace asked the Supreme Court Justice about gun control, and whether the Second Amendment allows for any limitations to gun rights. Scalia admitted there could be, such as “frighting” (carrying a big ax just to scare people), but they would still have to be determined with an 18th-Century perspective in mind. According to his originalism, if a weapon can be hand-held, though, it probably still falls under the right o “bear arms”:
WALLACE: What about… a weapon that can fire a hundred shots in a minute?
SCALIA: We’ll see. Obviously the Amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be hand-carried — it’s to keep and “bear,” so it doesn’t apply to cannons — but I suppose here are hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes, that will have to be decided.
WALLACE: How do you decide that if you’re a textualist?
SCALIA: Very carefully.
(end snip)
A SCOTUS judge/dog whistler on Faux Newz.
Gore won, Fat Tony. Get over it.
July 28, 2012
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study (BEST) is poised to release its findings next week on the cause of recent global warming. A forthcoming NY Times op-ed by Richard Muller, BEST’s Founder and Scientific Director, has been excerpted on a conservative website with the headline, “New Global Temperature Data Reanalysis Confirms Warming, Blames CO2.”
I have spoken with scientists and journalists familiar with BEST’s findings, and the excerpt appears genuine. Here is the money graf:
CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified scientific issues that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Now, after organizing an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I’ve concluded that global warming is real, that the prior estimates of the rate were correct, and that cause is human.
Yes, yes, I know, the finding itself is “dog bites man.” What makes this “man bites dog” is that Muller has been a skeptic of climate science, and the single biggest funder of this study is the “Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation ($150,000).” The Kochs are the leading funder of climate disinformation in the world!
(end snip)
Bombshell: Koch-Funded Study Finds ‘Global Warming Is Real’, ‘On The High End’ And ‘Essentially All’
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/28/602151/bombshell-koch-funded-study-finds-global-warming-is-real-on-the-high-end-and-essentially-all-due-to-carbon-pollution/The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study (BEST) is poised to release its findings next week on the cause of recent global warming. A forthcoming NY Times op-ed by Richard Muller, BEST’s Founder and Scientific Director, has been excerpted on a conservative website with the headline, “New Global Temperature Data Reanalysis Confirms Warming, Blames CO2.”
I have spoken with scientists and journalists familiar with BEST’s findings, and the excerpt appears genuine. Here is the money graf:
CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified scientific issues that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Now, after organizing an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I’ve concluded that global warming is real, that the prior estimates of the rate were correct, and that cause is human.
Yes, yes, I know, the finding itself is “dog bites man.” What makes this “man bites dog” is that Muller has been a skeptic of climate science, and the single biggest funder of this study is the “Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation ($150,000).” The Kochs are the leading funder of climate disinformation in the world!
(end snip)
July 25, 2012
– Lobbyist Richard Hohlt, a bundler for Mitt Romney’s campaign, was the “go-between” for Karl Rove and the late Bob Novak in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, Politico reports.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/07/romney-bundler-was-gobetween-in-valerie-plame-outing-130004.html
Swiss Mitt spent the entire day saying how he wouldn't leak security information for political gain. But his lobbyist surgar daddy can and has.
Morning Briefing: Romney Bundler Involved In Valerie Plane Leak Scandal
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/07/25/580861/morning-briefing-romney-bundler-involved-in-valerie-plane-leak-scandal/?mobile=nc– Lobbyist Richard Hohlt, a bundler for Mitt Romney’s campaign, was the “go-between” for Karl Rove and the late Bob Novak in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, Politico reports.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/07/romney-bundler-was-gobetween-in-valerie-plame-outing-130004.html
Swiss Mitt spent the entire day saying how he wouldn't leak security information for political gain. But his lobbyist surgar daddy can and has.
July 23, 2012
Nickolaus changed software before April election breakdown
Sometime after final testing of Waukesha County's election software - but before the April election - County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus mysteriously changed something in her office's computer programming, according to a consulting firm's report released Tuesday.
Only Nickolaus knows what she did. The consultants can't figure it out, and she's not talking.
But whatever she did, it caused a breakdown in reporting election results that will cost county taxpayers $256,300 to fix, the report says.
(snip)
http://www.jsonline.com/news/waukesha/nickolaus-changed-software-program-before-april-election-breakdown-vl62uqt-162003205.html?ipad=y
Stunning that no investigation will take place. She will not seek re-election, but as in the recall, I suspect she will be around to operate her 'special software'.
July 8, 2012
An Argentine court has convicted two of the nation’s former right-wing dictators, Jorge Rafael Videla and Reynaldo Bignone, in a scheme to murder leftist mothers and give their infants to military personnel often complicit in the killings, a shocking process known to the Reagan administration even as it worked closely with the bloody regime.
Testimony at the trial included a videoconference from Washington with Elliott Abrams, then-Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs, who said he urged Bignone to reveal the babies’ identities as Argentina began a transition to democracy in 1983.
Abrams said the Reagan administration “knew that it wasn’t just one or two children,” indicating that U.S. officials believed there was a high-level “plan because there were many people who were being murdered or jailed.” Estimates of the Argentines murdered in the so-called Dirty War range from 13,000 to about 30,000, with many victims “disappeared,” buried in mass graves or dumped from planes over the Atlantic.
A human rights group, Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, says as many as 500 babies were stolen by the military during the repression from 1976 to 1983. Some of the pregnant mothers were kept alive long enough to give birth and then were chained together with other prisoners and pushed out of the planes into the ocean to drown.
(snip)
emphasis mine
gawd almighty. And you just knew that Abrams knew about it, at the very least.
What Did Reagan Know About the Argentine Dictatorship's Baby Thefts?
http://www.alternet.org/world/156200/what_did_reagan_know_about_the_argentine_dictatorship%27s_baby_thefts/An Argentine court has convicted two of the nation’s former right-wing dictators, Jorge Rafael Videla and Reynaldo Bignone, in a scheme to murder leftist mothers and give their infants to military personnel often complicit in the killings, a shocking process known to the Reagan administration even as it worked closely with the bloody regime.
Testimony at the trial included a videoconference from Washington with Elliott Abrams, then-Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs, who said he urged Bignone to reveal the babies’ identities as Argentina began a transition to democracy in 1983.
Abrams said the Reagan administration “knew that it wasn’t just one or two children,” indicating that U.S. officials believed there was a high-level “plan because there were many people who were being murdered or jailed.” Estimates of the Argentines murdered in the so-called Dirty War range from 13,000 to about 30,000, with many victims “disappeared,” buried in mass graves or dumped from planes over the Atlantic.
A human rights group, Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, says as many as 500 babies were stolen by the military during the repression from 1976 to 1983. Some of the pregnant mothers were kept alive long enough to give birth and then were chained together with other prisoners and pushed out of the planes into the ocean to drown.
(snip)
emphasis mine
gawd almighty. And you just knew that Abrams knew about it, at the very least.
June 18, 2012
After two female legislators were banned from the Michigan House floor last week after saying “vagina” during a debate about an anti-abortion measure, a massive crowd has gathered at the state capitol for a reading of “The Vagina Monologues.” There are an estimated 5,000 people in attendance.
Massive Crowd Gathers For Reading Of Vagina Monologues At Michigan Capitol
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/06/18/501841/massive-crowd-gathers-for-reading-of-vagina-monologues-at-michigan-capitol/After two female legislators were banned from the Michigan House floor last week after saying “vagina” during a debate about an anti-abortion measure, a massive crowd has gathered at the state capitol for a reading of “The Vagina Monologues.” There are an estimated 5,000 people in attendance.
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