DonViejo
DonViejo's JournalTrey Gowdy’s Benghazi setback: New humiliation for GOP’s scandal hunter
As the GOP's Benghazi committee schedules its first hearing, another committee finds no evidence of a conspiracySIMON MALOY
In case you were at all concerned that the relative lack of Benghazi news of late meant that the issue was finally receding after nearly two years of intensive and fruitless investigation, fear not: in just a few short weeks, Benghazi-mania will live and breathe again. Rep. Trey Gowdy, chair of the House select committee tasked with beating whatever Benghazi bushes and dead horses remain, announced on July 30 that his committee’s first hearings will take place in September. If past is prologue, then Gowdy’s people will likely take advantage of the slow August news cycles and leak a few stripped-of-context tidbits to some bored and easily misled reporters. With the midterms bearing down, you’ll have all the necessary ingredients for yet more obsessive Benghazi “scandal” coverage.
It’s still not clear, though, what exactly anyone hopes to learn from Gowdy’s investigation, given that Benghazi has already been scrutinized several times over by several different congressional committees, all of which concluded that Benghazi was a tragedy, but there was no administration conspiracy, and no cover-up. And the day after Gowdy announced when his first hearings would be held, yet another committee reached the same conclusion.
On July 31, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence voted in favor of releasing a declassified version of its findings from its investigation into Benghazi. Almost immediately, the top-ranking Democrats on the committee started broadcasting the report’s conclusions. Ranking member Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger released a statement saying:
more
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/04/trey_gowdys_benghazi_setback_new_humiliation_for_gops_scandal_hunter/
GOP bill would give adoption agencies the right to discriminate against same-sex couples
By Eric W. Dolan
Monday, August 4, 2014 9:57 EDT
Legislation introduced to Congress would allow religious adoption and foster care providers to deny services to same-sex couples, single parents, and people of other faiths.
Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) announced the introduction of The Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act of 2014 last week. They said the legislation would ensure faith-based agencies could continue to provide services without violating their sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.
The legislation was drafted in response to the growing legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. Catholic agencies in Massachusetts, Illinois, California, and the District of Columbia have shut down their adoption and foster care programs after being required by state law to provide services to same-sex couples.
Nineteen states now allow same-sex couples to legally marry.
more
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/04/gop-bill-would-give-adoption-agencies-the-right-to-discriminate-against-same-sex-couples/
Sen. Ted Cruz’s dad wants pastors to hand out biblical voting guides in church to save America
By Eric W. Dolan
Monday, August 4, 2014 12:02 EDT
During a speech in Texas last week, Rafael Cruz, the father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), encouraged religious leaders to “restore America” by distributing biblical voting guides in church.
“When government ceases to work towards those ends it is our right, and it is I believe our duty, to remove that government and replace it with another government,” the conservative pastor said July 31 at Trinity I.S.D. Auditorium, paraphrasing the Declaration of Independence.
The event was promoted by the Trinity County Republican Party of Texas.
“And we have an unprecedented opportunity to do that right now in these next elections,” Cruz continued. “But we cannot do that if we sit at home. I want to encourage of all of you, I want to repeat what I said to the pastors this month, every church in America needs to have a voter registration table in the lobby.”
more
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/04/sen-ted-cruzs-dad-wants-pastors-to-hand-out-biblical-voting-guides-in-church-to-save-america/
Nate Silver: GOP Has 60 Percent Chance Of Winning The Senate
By SAHIL KAPUR Published AUGUST 4, 2014, 12:08 PM EDT
In his latest forecast, statistics whiz Nate Silver gives Republicans a roughly 60 percent chance of winning control of the Senate in the November elections.
"Summing the probabilities of each race yields an estimate of 51 seats for Republicans. That makes them very slight favorites — perhaps somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-40 — to take control of the Senate, but also doesn't leave them much room for error," Silver wrote at FiveThirtyEight on Monday.
The statistician who rose to fame for correctly forecasting the outcome of prior elections noted that his latest analysis is similar to his previous Senate forecasts which give Republicans a slight edge.
Republicans need to win 6 seats in the Nov. 4 elections order to retake the majority. The fundamentals favor them in several key contests.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nate-silver-gop-60-percent-change-winning-senate
Nate Silver: GOP Has 60 Percent Chance Of Winning The Senate
Source: TPM
By SAHIL KAPUR Published AUGUST 4, 2014, 12:08 PM EDT
In his latest forecast, statistics whiz Nate Silver gives Republicans a roughly 60 percent chance of winning control of the Senate in the November elections.
"Summing the probabilities of each race yields an estimate of 51 seats for Republicans. That makes them very slight favorites — perhaps somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-40 — to take control of the Senate, but also doesn't leave them much room for error," Silver wrote at FiveThirtyEight on Monday.
The statistician who rose to fame for correctly forecasting the outcome of prior elections noted that his latest analysis is similar to his previous Senate forecasts which give Republicans a slight edge.
Republicans need to win 6 seats in the Nov. 4 elections order to retake the majority. The fundamentals favor them in several key contests.
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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nate-silver-gop-60-percent-change-winning-senate
McConnell On Rand Paul 2016 Run: Most 'Creditable' Since Henry Clay
By CAITLIN MCNEIL Published AUGUST 4, 2014, 11:25 AM EDT
Now that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has thrown his support behind Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) during his re-election bid, McConnell is trying to return the favor.
During a speech at Fancy Farm, McConnell told the crowd that Paul would be a formidable candidate if he chose to run for president in 2016.
"If he chose to run, he would be the most creditable candidate for president since Henry Clay," McConnell said, according to the Huffington Post.
Henry Clay, known for brokering multiple compromises during his time representing Kentucky in Congress, ran for president three times— in 1824, 1832, and 1844 — but never won.
more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mcconnell-rand-paul-henry-clay
Nuclear Option Fallout: Obama Adding Judges Faster Than Bush, Clinton
By SAHIL KAPUR Published AUGUST 4, 2014, 10:42 AM EDT
President Barack Obama has already confirmed more circuit judges than his two predecessors did by the end of their sixth year in office, thanks in large part to Senate Democrats nuking the 60-vote threshold in November for most nominees.
Before the Senate left town for recess last week, it confirmed the president's 52nd circuit nominee, Pamela Harris, to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, by a vote of 50-43. At the end of his sixth year, George W. Bush confirmed 51 circuit judges; Bill Clinton confirmed 50 circuit judges.
The Senate has been historically unproductive in the 113th Congress but Democrats have worked to speedily confirm Obama nominees before the November elections, when Republicans have a serious chance at regaining control.
Harris was also the 22nd female appellate judge appointed by Obama, the highest for any president.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obama-judges-bush-clinton
Justice Kennedy Opened the Door to Same-Sex Marriage, Will He Walk Through Next?
Geoffrey R. StoneTwenty-nine consecutive judicial decisions in the past year have held bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional. This is nothing short of extraordinary.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit this week held unconstitutional a Virginia law prohibiting the recognition of same-sex marriage. This was the twenty-ninth consecutive judicial decision in the past 12 months holding that such are laws unconstitutional. This is nothing short of extraordinary. How did we get to this point?
In 1996, only 27 percent of Americans supported the legalization of same-sex marriage. In that year, Congress, by overwhelming majorities, enacted the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denied federal marriage benefits to legally-married same-sex couples and authorized states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.. In the years since then, more than 30 states have amended their state constitutions expressly to forbid the recognition of same-sex marriage.
In supporting these laws, our elected representatives were fearsome in their contempt for same-sex marriage and their condemnation of homosexuality. Oklahoma Congressman Tom Coburn declared “homosexuality is based on perversion.” Florida Congressman Charles Canady thundered that only opposite-sex marriage “comports with . . . our Judeo-Christian moral heritage,” and Indiana Congressman Stephen Buyer proclaimed that the very notion of same-sex marriage constituted “an attack upon God’s principles.” Georgia Congressman Bob Barr warned that “the flames of hedonism . . . are licking at the very foundations of our society.”
Nonetheless, today, only 18 years later, 55 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage. But that doesn’t explain the avalanche of judicial decisions invalidating laws prohibiting marriage by same-sex couples right and left. There are lots of laws that the majority of people don’t like that courts don’t hold unconstitutional. Unpopular and unconstitutional are not the same thing.
- See more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/03/justice-kennedy-opened-the-door-to-same-sex-marriage-will-he-walk-through-next.html#sthash.ro3gWwmv.dpuf
Peggy Noonan: America is divided because Obama is “out there dropping his g’s”
The WSJ columnist says the country can't come together until the president starts enunciating properlySIMON MALOY
Peggy Noonan is worried about America. Again. The Wall Street Journal columnist’s newest worry arises, as is so often the case, from “a conversation this week with an acquaintance of considerable accomplishment in the political and financial worlds” who thinks America is going to break apart into red and blue factions. “I think a lot about the general subject of what deeply divides us,” Noonan writes, “occasionally with a feeling of some alarm.”
Like any pundit worth her salt, Noonan assumes that her own personal sense of alarm is shared by the country as a whole, and after many paragraphs of gauzy ruminations on the nature of political division, she finally arrives at her point: “No nation’s unity, cohesion and feeling of being at peace with itself can be taken for granted, even ours. They have to be protected day by day, in part by what politicians say. They shouldn’t be making it worse. They shouldn’t make divisions deeper.”
And who are we to blame specifically for these deepening divisions?
In just the past week that means:
The president shouldn’t be using a fateful and divisive word like “impeachment” to raise money and rouse his base. He shouldn’t be at campaign-type rallies where he speaks only to the base, he should be speaking to the country. He shouldn’t be out there dropping his g’s, slouching around a podium, complaining about his ill treatment, describing his opponents with disdain: “Stop just hatin’ all the time.”
more
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/01/peggy_noonan_america_is_divided_because_obama_is_out_there_dropping_his_gs/
House votes to approve border security measure
Source: Washington Post
House Republicans managed Friday to overcome deep divisions within the party and passed a measure to address the child-migrant surge at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The bill would provide emergency funding to deal with the crisis and speed up the deportations of most border crossers. A second measure, scheduled to be voted on later Friday, would rescind President Obama’s authority to decide whether to deport certain illegal immigrants in the United States.
The measures are unlikely to ever become law, as the White House, most Democrats and immigration advocates strongly oppose the proposals.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-gop-moves-closer-on-immigration-bill-ahead-of-recess/2014/08/01/11084a2e-1983-11e4-9e3b-7f2f110c6265_story.html
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Name: DonGender: Male
Hometown: Massachusetts
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