hue
hue's JournalCory Booker Sworn In As U.S. Senator
Source: HUFF POST POLITICS
WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker was sworn in as a Democratic senator from New Jersey on Thursday, taking the oath of office, exchanging hugs with Vice President Joe Biden and acknowledging the applause of friends and family members seated in the visitor's gallery that rings the chamber.
Booker became the second African American in the Senate, alongside Republican Tim Scott of South Carolina.
Booker, 44, was elected to fill out the term of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who died earlier this year.
His first day in office was a busy one. Before taking the oath of office, he and his mother met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Minutes after being sworn in, he participated in his first roll call vote, supporting an attempt by Democrats to advance the nomination of Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C. to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Booker also was to meet later in the day with President Barack Obama at the White House.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/31/cory-booker-sworn-in_n_4181861.html
Krystal Ball On Texas Governor's Race
Krystal Ball exposed Greg Abbott on MSNBC “The Cycle.” She provides a funny but fact based analysis of his idiocy. Greg Abbott is currently Texas Attorney General. He is running in the Republican Gubernatorial primary that he is likely to win.
It is common knowledge that education in Texas compares poorly with other states. Texas is the state with the highest percentage of uninsured residents. It has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation.
Krystal Ball said Greg Abbott is attempting to solve nonexistent problems in lieu of real problems. In effect Greg Abbott is addressing phantom problems when Texas has severe social and economic problems.
Krystal Ball: Greg Abbott Makes Wendy Davis Texas Governorship Possible (VIDEO)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/30/1251933/-Krystal-Ball-Greg-Abbott-Makes-Wendy-Davis-Texas-Governorship-Possible-VIDEO?detail=facebook#Krystal Ball exposed Greg Abbott on MSNBC “The Cycle.” She provides a funny but fact based analysis of his idiocy. Greg Abbott is currently Texas Attorney General. He is running in the Republican Gubernatorial primary that he is likely to win.
It is common knowledge that education in Texas compares poorly with other states. Texas is the state with the highest percentage of uninsured residents. It has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation.
Krystal Ball said Greg Abbott is attempting to solve nonexistent problems in lieu of real problems. In effect Greg Abbott is addressing phantom problems when Texas has severe social and economic problems.
Greg Abbott has never found intentional voter fraud in Texas. Yet his party instituted a Voter ID law. That Voter ID law was blocked by the US District Court in Washington. Greg Abbott used the Supreme Court’s ruling making Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional as his license to discriminate. This law will discriminate against women, minorities, and the elderly disproportionately.
Greg Abbott has been wasting Texas taxpayer dollars for some time now. He wasted time and taxpayer money investigating ‘curriculums indoctrinating children’. He has irresponsibly sued the Obama administration 25+ times. Here is what Politifact says.
Here’s a typical workday for Texas’ attorney general: "I go into the office, I sue the federal government and I go home," Greg Abbott was quoted as saying to a tea party group in an April 30, 2013, Associated Press news story. …
John Nichols: Scott Walker's unintimidated rewrite of his own history
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/john_nichols/john-nichols-scott-walker-s-unintimidated-rewrite-of-his-own/article_5c5da199-a64e-5f6f-a812-fd51fa0bae10.htmlThere is a case to be made that the most shameful moment in Scott Walker’s frequently shameful tenure came in February 2011, when he was recorded casually discussing the idea of using agent provocateurs to stir up trouble during the mass demonstrations to protest his assault on labor rights.
Now he’s making that episode even more shameful by claiming it was all a big misunderstanding.
In the book he hopes will make him a competitor for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, "Unintimidated: A Governor's Story and a Nation's Challenge," Walker claims that "we never — never — considered putting 'troublemakers' in the crowd to discredit the protesters."
That is what Walker must write if he wants to make a play on the national political stage. There is no way that someone who considered using deliberate provocations — in order to create a false impression of peaceful political foes — would be taken seriously as a potential commander in chief.
The problem, of course, is that what Walker is now saying conflicts with what he was saying in private and public two and a half years ago.
US Budget Deficit Down to $680B, Lowest in 5 Years
Source: abc NEWS
For the first time in five years, the U.S. government has run a budget deficit below $1 trillion.
The government says the deficit for the 2013 budget year totaled $680.3 billion, down from $1.09 trillion in 2012. That's the smallest imbalance since 2008, when the government ran a $458.6 billion deficit.
The deficit is the gap between the government's tax revenue and its spending. It narrowed for the budget year that ended on Sept. 30 because revenue rose while spending fell.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-budget-deficit-680b-lowest-years-20732055
Let's see this as front & center main stream media news!!
LUX results: Dark matter hunt nears final phase
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24733131Scientists could be nearing the final phase of the search for dark matter: the enigmatic substance thought to make up a quarter of our Universe.
The first results from a particle detector called LUX show it is the most powerful experiment of its kind.
It did not detect any dark matter during its first run, but scientists say it is poised to probe deeper than ever before during its second in 2014.
It has also ruled out earlier hints of dark matter shown by other experiments.
Dr Chamkaur Ghag, a collaborator on the LUX experiment from University College London, said: "If the dark matter is out there and if it interacts the way we think it does we should really start seeing it now."
Not finding any direct evidence for dark matter particles would mean that physicists would have to "go back to the drawing board", he added.
Missing matter
Dark matter is thought to make up 27% of the Universe. But astronomers have only been able to infer its existence through the gravitational effects it has on visible matter in the Universe; no-one has ever directly detected it.
Citizen Voices Matter - Sustainable Economic Alternatives to Open-Pit Mining
This is the story of Hermit Creek, Landis and Steven Spickerman's organic, family farm, which is located near the proposed mine site. In 2013, public officials ignored the community's objections when they passed a law deregulating iron mining in the state, but you can help to make these voices be heard.
Marquette Poll: Scott Walker faces close reelection race in 2014
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/writers/jack_craver/marquette-poll-scott-walker-faces-close-reelection-race-in/article_1d4d4e3e-40ca-11e3-a8eb-0019bb2963f4.htmlWisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is still expected to be reelected in 2014, but not by much. The most recent statewide poll from Marquette University Law School puts the governor two points ahead likely Democratic challenger Mary Burke, 47-45.
As Prof. Charles Franklin, the poll's director, pointed out on Twitter, Walker's approval number has hardly budged in the 20 months since Marquette began its public opinion survey at the height of the recall election campaign in 2012. The most recent poll shows 49 percent of registered voters approve of the job he's doing and 47 percent disapprove, evidence that few in the Badger State haven't formed an opinion about the governor, whose aggressive conservatism has elevated the profile of state politics since his election in 2010.
The good news for Democrats is that their likely nominee, Madison school board member Mary Burke, is running neck-and-neck with Walker, even though she is still largely unknown.
Another relatively unknown candidate, state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, also picks up 45 percent of the vote to Walker’s 48 percent in a potential match-up, adding to the perception that Democratic-leaning voters are likely to vote for anybody over Walker. That has not been the case in past elections, including the three landslide reelection victories by former Gov. Tommy Thompson, in which he picked up a large share of Democratic voters.
Wisconsin Reporter says new John Doe investigation focused on conservative groups
Source: The Cap Times
A conservative news website is reporting that right-wing organizations are the target of a new John Doe probe launched by the Milwaukee County district attorney.
"For the second time in three and a half years, a Democrat District Attorney of Milwaukee County has launched a secret investigation into conservatives, with the apparent goal of bringing down Gov. Scott Walker," writes Wisconsin Reporter, which is part of a national network of conservative investigative news websites run by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, a libertarian group based in Virginia.
Targeted organizations include the Republican Governors Association, the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity, a group largely financed by Charles and David Koch. WR reports that Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf is investigating these groups for alleged campaign finance law violations, likely in connection with efforts that benefited Gov. Scott Walker or legislative Republicans.
It is not surprising, perhaps, that Wisconsin Reporter broke the news. The Franklin Center has close ties to the organizations that are alleged targets of the investigation. The website regularly coordinates events with Americans for Prosperity and Eric O'Keefe, the CEO of WR's parent organization the Sam Adams Alliance, was until recently the director of Club for Growth Wisconsin.
The revelations come on the heels of a record fine levied in California against two groups with close ties to the Kochs for illegally funneling money to other groups fighting tax measures and supporting a measure that sought to cripple the ability of unions to spend money on political activities. In both instances, the Koch-supported initiatives lost.
Read more: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/writers/jack_craver/wisconsin-reporter-says-new-john-doe-investigation-focused-on-conservative/article_b3c94a06-40b2-11e3-bda1-001a4bcf887a.html
Matt Pommer: Federal judge casts a dark cloud over voter ID rationale
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/matt-pommer-federal-judge-casts-a-dark-cloud-over-voter/article_84123f52-3ff9-11e3-b43a-0019bb2963f4.htmlA highly respected federal appeals court judge has cast a dark cloud on Republican efforts to make it harder to vote.
In a new book, U.S. Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner said he made a mistake when he voted to uphold an Indiana law requiring a photo ID or other accepted means of identification in order to cast a ballot. Posner, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and sits on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, is a widely respected jurist. His statements were stunning: judges seldom admit they make mistakes.
Posner wrote the 7th Circuit majority opinion in “Crawford v. Marion County Election Board” in 2007; it was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court the following year.
"I plead guilty to having written the majority opinion,” Posner wrote in his new book, “Reflections on Judging.” He said that the Indiana law in the Crawford case is “a type of law now widely regarded as a means of voter suppression rather than of fraud prevention.”
Posner’s admission comes while a legal challenge to Wisconsin’s new voter ID law is working its way through the state courts. As was alleged in the Indiana case, Republicans here also use the claim that the voter ID law is aimed at preventing fraud. Gov. Scott Walker has suggested that voter fraud is widespread in Wisconsin, contending at one point that it could affect 4 percent of the electorate. Yet, there has been no evidence of widespread voting fraud...
Asked by a reporter whether his opinion was wrong, Posner was frank. “Yes,” he replied. “We weren’t really given strong indications that requiring additional voter ID would actually disenfranchise people entitled to vote.”
Profile Information
Member since: Thu Dec 23, 2004, 12:30 PMNumber of posts: 4,949
