DonViejo

DonViejo's Journal

August 29, 2015

Top Jeb fundraisers leave campaign amid troubling signs

The move comes amid weak poll numbers and concerns that Bush's torrid fundraising pace has slowed.

By Alex Isenstadt and Marc Caputo

08/29/15, 06:26 AM EDT

Three top Jeb Bush fundraisers abruptly parted ways with his presidential campaign on Friday, amid internal personality conflicts and questions about the strength of his candidacy, POLITICO has learned.

There are different versions of what transpired. The Florida-based fundraising consultants — Kris Money, Trey McCarley, and Debbie Aleksander — have said that they voluntarily quit the campaign and were still working with Bush's super PAC, Right to Rise Super PAC. Others said the three, who worked under the same contract, were let go because they were no longer needed for the current phase of the campaign.

None of the three responded to requests for comment. Bush spokesman Tim Miller would only say that “Governor Bush has the widest and deepest fundraising operation of any candidate in the field. Ann Herberger — a longtime aide with more than two decades of experience in state and national politics — will continue to lead the operation in Florida with our team in Miami.”

The departures came at a time of uncertainty for the Bush. While he has had massive success raising money for his Super PAC, he is overseeing an official campaign that has many more staffers but far less money. Earlier this week, the New York Times revealed that it had taken steps to rein in some of its spending and had gone so far as to cut some employee salaries. And POLITICO reported one Bush fundraiser expressed concerns about the slowing pace of the campaign’s fundraising after Bush’s shaky debate performance.

The Bush campaign wasted no time seeking a replacement for the three fundraising consultants and has reached out to Meredith O’Rourke – one of Florida’s top Republican fundraisers who briefly worked for Chris Christie’s campaign in May but left it in July. O’Rourke, who wouldn’t comment, helped Gov. Rick Scott raise about $100 million for his 2014 reelection campaign and also works for Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who’s likely to run for governor in 2018.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/jeb-bush-president-2016-fundraisers-problems-213156#ixzz3kE3EktsU

August 29, 2015

Donald Trump Stumbles Through Explaining His Opposition To Gay Marriage

-snip-

In an interview with Bloomberg, Trump was asked: “If you had a son or daughter or grandchild who was gay or lesbian, how would you explain to them your opposition to same-sex marriage?”

Without missing a beat, Trump replied, “Well, it’s the way it is. I wouldn’t speak to them at all about it, other than they are who they are and I want them to be happy and I will love them and I will cherish them.”

“I’ve gone to gay weddings,” he continued. “I’ve been at gay weddings. I have been against it from the standpoint of Bible, from the standpoint of my teachings as growing up and going to Sunday school and going to church and I’ve been opposed to it.”

Ah, yes. The old “But I’m not a homophobe, my best friend is gay!” excuse. Honestly, we wouldn’t expect anything less from the Donald.

-snip-

http://www.queerty.com/donald-trump-stumbles-through-explaining-his-opposition-to-gay-marriage-20150828?

August 29, 2015

Does GOP’s Aggressive Conservatism Risk Alienating a Diverse Republican Base?

Thomas Edsall notes the shift in the current Republican presidential contest to an “aggressively conservative posture stands in direct contrast to the party’s previous five presidential nominees, all of whom sought during their campaigns to play down social issues.”

“To win the presidency, Republicans clearly need to improve their numbers among women, but their approach on reproductive issues appears likely to make that goal difficult.”

“The conflicts over reproductive rights within both the Republican Party and within the social conservative movement are inevitable. They result from the fact that the ideological purity — the moral absolutism — of the anti-abortion movement conflicts with the far more complex views and the pragmatism of the electorate, including many conservative Republicans.”

“For decades, the Republican Party found political success fighting a rear-guard action against the sexual and feminist revolutions. What remains to be seen is whether the flare-up of pronounced anti-abortion stands and objections to key forms of contraception represent a deepening determination on the right to fight to the bitter end or whether they are more like the burst of flame in a match just as it is about to go out.”

more
http://wonkwire.com/2015/08/27/does-gops-aggressive-conservatism-risk-alienating-a-diverse-republican-base/

August 29, 2015

2016 Campaign Television Tracker

This is pretty great: The 2016 Campaign Television Tracker records how many times each presidential candidate was mentioned on each of the major television networks.

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http://politicalwire.com/2015/08/28/2016-campaign-television-tracker/

August 29, 2015

A Message To Kentucky Clerks Likely Trying To Become Rich Off Bigotry: #GoFundYourself

August 28, 2015 By Allen Clifton

-snip-

If you ask me, this is all just one giant scam by these clerks hoping to get rich off bigotry. They have absolutely no legal leg on which to stand when it comes to this issue. The Supreme Court ruled that these bans violate the Fourteenth Amendment rights of Americans – case closed. Yes, it really is just that simple.

So, one could ask, why not just quit? These clerks are government employees, not religious figures. They’re not there to carry out their duties based upon their religious beliefs. They’re elected to do a job as instructed to them by the government. And while they’re state employees, state governments cannot violate Constitutional law. Therefore, as government employees, they are required to abide by the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage.

Via CBS News:

Davis has said she will not resign. She can only be removed from office if the state legislature impeaches her, which is unlikely. If she continues to defy a federal court order, a judge could hold her in contempt and order hefty fines or jail time.

Of course these people don’t want to resign - they want to be removed from office or even thrown in jail for defying a federal court order. They want to become famous for standing firm against gay marriage. And why wouldn’t they? There’s a lot of money to be conned out of ignorant Americans made by becoming a famous bigot.

Who recalls the owners of Memories Pizza who became famous after they were the first business in Indiana to deny service to gay citizens under the state’s new anti-LGBT laws (before the laws were amended to prevent discrimination against homosexuals)? After their story went national, a GoFundMe campaign was started that currently sits at $844,397. Yes, these bigoted con artists made nearly a million dollars from this scam.

Then there was Arlene’s Flowers, a florists who refused to make floral arrangements for gay weddings. She managed to raise around $174,000 before GoFundMe shut her campaign down.

Sweet Cakes by Melissa, a bakery in Oregon that refused to make cakes for same-sex weddings, raised about $109,000 in just nine hours before eventually having their scam campaign shutdown as well. This has been a growing trend over the last year or two where bigots are now making themselves famous, seemingly with the goal to “strike it rich” through online fundraisers that often raise huge sums of money.

Thankfully, the website GoFundMe has put in new rules to ban campaigns linked to discrimination. There are still ways around GoFundMe’s new rules (though the website has proven that it’s fairly quick to address concerns over questionable campaigns), plus there are other fundraising websites people can use.

Read more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/message-kentucky-clerks-likely-trying-become-rich-off-bigotry-gofundyourself/?

August 29, 2015

Most Of The Biden Speculation Is Malarkey

10:52 AM AUG 28, 2015 A FIVETHIRTYEIGHT CHAT

Another day, another batch of mostly redundant and anonymously sourced stories about whether Vice President Joe Biden will run for president. Some of those stories, however, are getting ridiculous. So FiveThirtyEight’s politics writers met in Slack to pick over the latest Biden coverage, our own assumptions and the state of the 2016 Democratic primary. This is an edited transcript of the conversation.

micah (Micah Cohen, senior editor): So, the will he/won’t he speculation about Joe Biden hasn’t slowed down, but do either of you buy the argument that a Biden run could actually help Hillary Clinton?

hjenten-heynawl (Harry Enten, senior political writer): I don’t think it would be particularly helpful to Clinton. Forget about all the BS about whether Clinton runs better when she’s in trouble. Personally, I never got that. If she were so good at running when she was in trouble, then why did she lose in 2008?

Rather, why would Biden run? Sure, he’s in his 70s and this is his last shot, but he also has a family to take care of. He’d likely only run if he concludes he has a better than nominal chance of winning. And that conclusion would be quite different from what the current metrics, such as endorsements, suggest. Biden may have an insight on the invisible primary that isn’t visible to the rest of us.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): The irony is that the media has exaggerated all sorts of threats to Clinton, who remains in good shape for the nomination. But then you have the one thing that would be a tangibly bad sign for her campaign — the vice president of the United States running for the nomination against her! — and there are lots of “smart takes” about how it could help Clinton.

hjenten-heynawl: What we’ve argued this entire time is that Sen. Bernie Sanders has a weakness among the party actors (i.e., he doesn’t have any endorsements), and that he has no longtime connections to the Democratic Party (remember, he’s not a Democrat). Biden, on the other hand, has been in major federal office in Washington since 1973. He’s someone who could conceivably reach out to all members of the party. He’s already polling better among African-Americans than Sanders, for instance.

micah: Let’s break this down a little: Both of you seem to think Biden entering the race is inherently bad for Clinton — he’d be the most serious competition for the nomination she’s faced. But would there be a couple side benefits, like that by giving the media a horse race to cover, there would be less focus on Clinton’s scandals?

natesilver: Well, first of all, it’s not just that Biden would be a more formidable competitor to Clinton than Sanders. I don’t know that Biden would be all that great a candidate, in fact. But Biden running would signal that concern about Clinton among Democratic Party elites had gone from the bedwetting stage to something more serious.

more
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/most-of-the-speculation-about-a-joe-biden-presidential-run-is-malarkey/?ex_cid=newsletter-fivethirtyeight

August 29, 2015

Katrina Washed Away New Orleans’s Black Middle Class

By BEN CASSELMAN

Ten years ago, shortly after the floodwaters subsided, James Gray stood in the ruins of his New Orleans home and tried to salvage what remained of his belongings. They fit inside a handbag.

“I don’t know if my wife will ever get over that,” Gray said recently.

But Gray and his wife have since restored the New Orleans East home where they have lived for more than 20 years. Most of their neighbors have returned, too. And Gray, who now represents the neighborhood on the City Council, points to other evidence of rebirth in a district that has long been home to much of the city’s black middle class: a gleaming new hospital, which opened last year; new schools open or under construction; national chains such as Wal-Mart and CVS that are returning after years of absence.

“All of those things are bigger, prettier, shinier than what we had before the flood,” Gray said. “I think we suffered a lot, [but] I think we have recovered far better than any of the experts thought we would recover.”

The improvements to Gray’s neighborhood, however, don’t tell the full story of New Orleans in the decade since the city’s levees failed to hold back Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters. The numbers paint a more equivocal picture, particularly when it comes to the black middle class that has long been a core part of the city’s cultural identity. New Orleans’s economy is in many respects stronger today than it was the day before the levees broke. Yet the city’s remarkable recovery has, to a troubling degree, left behind the African-Americans who still make up the majority of its population. Black New Orleanians are less likely to be working than when the storm hit in 2005 and are more likely to be living in poverty. Black household incomes, adjusted for inflation, have fallen. And the earnings gap between black and white residents has grown.1

more
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/katrina-washed-away-new-orleanss-black-middle-class/?ex_cid=newsletter-fivethirtyeight

August 29, 2015

Italian lesbian author gets papal blessing

Source: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
28 AUG 2015 AT 17:04 ET

Pope Francis has sent his blessing to a lesbian author of children’s books dealing with same-sex families, wishing her and her wife well in their work, it emerged on Friday.

-snip-

Francesca Pardi, who writes and publishes books such as “Why you have two mummies”, wrote to Francis in June after the publishing company she runs with her wife came under fire from Christian groups. She included examples of her works, some of which have recently been controversially withdrawn from nurseries and primary schools by a new mayor in Venice.

“My books present different types of families without setting any of them up as a model,” Pardi told AFP, praising the pope for having responded in a manner that showed “respect and dignity” towards her, her wife and their four children.

-snip-

In his message, the pope wished the two women “ever more fruitful work in the service of young generations and in spreading authentic human and Christian values.”

-snip-

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/italian-lesbian-author-gets-papal-blessing/

The headline has been revised @ RawStory; from what I have posted originally, to:

Vatican scrambles after Pope Francis offers blessing to lesbian childrens’ book author

August 29, 2015

UPDATED - BREAKING: Official Misconduct Charge Filed Against Renegade Clerk Kim Davis...

Source: JoeMyGod

BREAKING: Official Misconduct Charge Filed Against Renegade Clerk Kim Davis By Rowan County Government

Late this afternoon the Rowan County, Kentucky government filed an official misconduct charge against anti-gay clerk Kim Davis. Lexington’s CBS affiliate reports:

The Rowan County Attorney’s Office said on Friday that it has referred to the Attorney General’s Office a charge of official misconduct against Davis. A release from the county attorneys office says, “Kentucky Bar Association rules of the Supreme Court of Kentucky prohibit the Rowan County Attorney’s Office from prosecuting Davis” because they are involved in current litigation with Davis. “Typically, the Attorney General’s office refers conflict cases to a prosecutor from another county,” the release says. The release also says Rowan County Government and the Rowan County Attorney’s Office cannot take any other action against Kim Davis. “Kentucky state government is the only entity that can move to have Kim Davis removed as Rowan County Clerk,” the release says. A spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s office told WKYT they are looking into the matter. The referral of charges comes after Davis refused to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple Thursday morning.

Republicans silent as Obama orders pay raise for the military

Source: Examiner

Over the last seven years since the start of the financial crisis during the Fall of 2008, wages have only been modestly increased. While the president can only do so much when it comes to wages in the private sector, he has more wiggle room when it comes to government positions, most notably the military.

The salary for members of the military fluctuates depending on rank and position, but the general consensus is that they are too often underpaid. As PayScale.com notes, the average salary for a United States Solider is $39,688 per year, plus additional funds for housing and food. According to USA Today on August 28, President Obama has ordered an "across the board" base pay increase for federal civilian workers and military members.

The increase will take place on January 1, and will include a one percent raise for civilian workers, and a 1.3 percent increase for members of the military. Earlier this year, House and Senate Democrats proposed an increase of 3.8 percent for all federal workers, but it failed to gain any traction in a a Republican controlled House. Congress was made aware of Obama's decision after the president sent two letters to lawmakers explaining his decision. The 1.3 percent increase is the largest raise given to federal workers since 2010, as the economy has improved.

Following the president's announcement, Republicans have yet to comment. Normally the party that champions support for the military, Republicans don't appear to be in lock stop with congressional Democrats to put together a pay increase that surpasses what Obama has ordered.

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Read more: http://www.examiner.com/article/republicans-silent-as-obama-orders-pay-raise-for-the-military

Profile Information

Name: Don
Gender: Male
Hometown: Massachusetts
Home country: United States
Member since: Sat Sep 1, 2012, 03:28 PM
Number of posts: 60,536

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