World News Korner

Courtesy of Right Wing Watch:

The white nationalist website VDARE is once again demanding credit for an idea that it has been championing for years that has now gone mainstream in the GOP.

Last year, we reported that VDARE writer John Derbyshire (formerly of the National Review) was annoyed that prominent Republicans were failing to credit racist VDARE writer Steve Sailer when they advocated a plan nearly identical to the ‘Sailer Strategy’: that is, the idea that the GOP can only survive by solidifying and growing its white base while alienating people of color. Sailer had been persistently advocating this tactic for over a decade when it suddenly came into vogue among conservatives who opposed the Gang of Eight’s immigration reform plan.

Now, another VDARE writer is upset that more and more immigration reform opponents are pushing another VDARE argument without giving the white nationalists credit. This time, the argument is that steady or increased legal immigration – with or without a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrations – will ruin the Republican party because immigrants are inherently liberal.

In a post on Friday, VDARE writer James Fulford highlights a recent study from the Center for Immigration Studies which argues that Republicans shouldn’t bother with immigration reform because immigrants will inevitably vote for Democrats. Fulford complains that neither the CIS report nor the conservative outlets covering it “manages to credit Peter Brimelow or VDARE.com for saying all this early and often, possibly because it they're scared of Media Matters and the SPLC.” As he notes, VDARE has been pushing the argument since as early as 2001.

Don'tcha hate it when somebody steals all of your good ideas, and doesn't give you credit for them so that they won't be mocked for associating with you?

Of course even without the direct association it has been clear for quite some time that the GOP has become more and more racist as of late. Especially the Tea Party faction who might just as well attend sessions of Congress in white robes and pointy hats.

By the way I happened to bop on over to the VDARE website just to take a look around, and the headline at the top of the page reads:

The Toxic Loves of Jeb Bush: Amnesty and Crony Capitalism

"Crony capitalism" now where I have been hearing that word bandied about for the last few years?

Yeah, but it probably doesn't mean anything though, right?



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Courtesy of TPM:

Republicans are taking no chances when it comes to Obamacare's Medicaid expansion. They're closing every possible door. Under bills passed in Georgia and Kansas recently, even if a Democratic candidate were to pull off an upset and take the governor's seat, they would not be able to expand the program without the consent of the state legislature -- which will almost certainly remain Republican.

In other words, GOP lawmakers have taken steps to guarantee that many of their poorest residents will remain uninsured under the health care reform law, no matter what happens in the gubernatorial election.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) both oppose Medicaid expansion. They both look likely -- if not quite certain -- to win re-election in November. That should make the bills passed by their respective state lawmakers unnecessary, but they seem intent on guarding against even the remote possibility of a Democratic governor.

An explanation offered by a GOP lawmaker in Kansas, where the bill was signed into law by Brownback last week, points to the motive.

“Governor Brownback’s not always going to be the governor. It’s my fervent hope he’s going to be the governor for four more years after this one, but he may or may not be,” Rep. John Rubin (R) told the Wichita Eagle.

Remember the Medicaid expansion for the first three years will cost these states nothing, and after that no more than 10% of the costs.

This is what the CBO had to say about its overall impact on the states that embrace the expansion:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the Medicaid expansion will add very little to what states would have spent on Medicaid without health reform, while providing health coverage to 17 million more low-income adults and children. In addition, the Medicaid expansion will reduce state and local government costs for uncompensated care and other services they provide to the uninsured, which will offset at least some — and in a number of states, possibly all or more than all — of the modest increase in state Medicaid costs. Expanding Medicaid is thus a very favorable financial deal for states.

However not allowing the Medicaid expansion could unnecessarily cost the lives of thousands, and eventually millions who could be covered if these assholes were not so petty and vindictive.

There is literally no hope for the poor in these deeply red states unless they were to rally together and drive the Republican party out with torches and pitchforks.

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Courtesy of Mother Jones:

Warren has already raised $1.2 million this election season for 22 Senate candidates, including Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), according to Warren's political operation. That's a lot of dough. "Most members of Congress are not capable of raising that much for their colleagues…She's a rock star," says Viveca Novak, the editorial director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks the influence of money on politics. And in late March, the Massachusetts senator expanded her 2014 efforts even further, joining up with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), a liberal PAC, to endorse two lucky Senate candidates: Rick Weiland, who is running to replace outgoing Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and Rep. Bruce Braley, who is vying to take the place of retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).

Landing a Warren endorsement is great news for candidates without a lot of name recognition at the national level, says John Halpin, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress. Weiland, the South Dakota candidate, says Warren's endorsement has been "extremely helpful" so far, adding that after Warren and the PCCC sent out their fundraising pitch, "there was quite a spike [in donations] in the first couple of days." (The Weiland campaign does not yet have final fundraising numbers for the initial Warren-PCCC push.)

Officials with the Braley campaign say the same thing. The campaign couldn't give out fundraising details, but an Iowa Democrat familiar with Braley's campaign says, "Let me put it this way. There's a reason why the [Warren] endorsement was rolled out before the March 31 fundraising deadline."

Warren's office says that the senator is spending so much time fundraising for her colleagues "because she believes it is critical for Democrats to maintain control of the Senate." But the back-scratching is good for Warren's political future, too—whether or not she ever runs for president. "I see mixed motives that are not incompatible," says Ross Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. "The hero's wings she wins for campaigning for congressional progressives can be pinned on again in a future presidential effort. It is a win-win for her."

Warren's involvement could also help Democrats running in 2014 by raising party enthusiasm, Baker says. "You get a real progressive hero like Elizabeth Warren involved and she can basically amp up the motivation of the party, and people on the left," he argues.

I don't usually like to compare the amazing Elizabeth Warren to the has been Sarah Palin in any way, but I thought this was another example of somebody having the kind of gravitas that Palin claims to have.

Another thing worth pointing out is that only is Warren the Democratic rain maker right now, she is also somebody who would certainly NOT string supporters along with false promises of a potential presidential run. Like SOME people we could mention.

In fact she has already taken her name out of consideration for 2016. Mostly in deference to Hillary I am sure.

However there is still a part of me that would really love to see that Clinton/Warren bumper sticker. Because DAMN that would be a powerful combination!

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Courtesy of Raw Story:

A Republican candidate for South Carolina lieutenant governor says Christians should remove their children from public schools.

“It’s our hope and prayer that a fresh obedience by Christian families and educating their children according to biblical commands will prove to be a key for the revival of our families, our churches, and our nation,” said Ray Moore, a retired Army Reserves chaplain and president of Frontline Ministries.

Moore told a gathering of Tea Party activists at the April 12 Liberty Rally that Christians must leave the “Pharaoh’s school system” for religious schools or home schools.

“We cannot win this war we’re in as long as we keep handing our children over to the enemy to educate,” he told the crowd.

So apparently this idiot has not heard that there is no evidence supporting the Biblical claim that the Jews were ever Egyptian slaves.

A fact that the children of South Carolina will never learn if this idiot gets his way, and convinces parents to educate them at home or to send them to religious private and charter schools in order to protect them from logic and facts.

Moore, who founded the Exodus Mandate organization and backs the “School Risk Audit” of LGBT tolerance in schools, claims 40 percent of public school students turn away from the church by the end of elementary school, and he claims that number jumps to 80 percent by the end of high school.

“It’s fundamentally and largely responsible because of the public school system we’ve had (for) six or seven generations, when most of us have put our children in the godless, pagan school system,” Moore said. “It cannot be fixed, the socialistic model, and we need to abandon that. As conservatives and Christians, if you think you’re going to win this war you’re in, and leave your children in those schools, it will not happen.”

That's the Republican way alright. Keep them stupid, keep them frightened, and keep them away from contradictory information.

Essentially if the Republican party hopes to survive THAT is the only way to make that happen.

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Courtesy of TPM:

The Boy Scouts of America has revoked the charter of a Seattle troop over its refusal to remove an openly gay troop leader, according to Scouts for Equality.

Geoffrey McGrath, believed to be the first openly gay troop leader, was banned from the Boy Scouts at the beginning of April.

Rainier Beach United Methodist Church's Troop 98 and Pack 98 defended their Scoutmaster, however, and refused to force him out.

"Based on our religious principles, we will continue to act as an autonomous church that does not discriminate," the church's Rev. Monica Corsaro said in a statement to Scouts for Equality. "We will continue to have our Troop meetings here, every Thursday night, with business as usual."

So to be clear the BSA wants this guy discriminated against becasue of his sexuality, and the church that sponsors the local troop refuses to do so.

Well let's hear it for the Rainier Beach United Methodist Church of Seattle, for being so open minded and accepting.

You know it so rarely happens that I am moved to give a positive shout out to a church or religious group that this feels pretty cathartic for me.

Nice to know that not everybody's Bible tells them to hate gay people.

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Courtesy of Raw Story:

Parents in one Virginia neighborhood were outraged on Sunday after their annual Easter egg hunt tradition was upset by white supremacists who had secretly hidden eggs with racist messages for the children to find.

West End parents Brandon and Jackie Smith told WRIC that they discovered the offensive eggs while having an Easter Egg hunt with their 3-year-old son on Sunday afternoon.

“My husband noticed the last Easter egg and I knew it wasn’t one that we put out,” Jackie Smith recalled. “We opened it and it’s got the white supremacist stuff in it.”

Other neighbors also found hate-filled eggs in their yard with messages that said “Diversity = White Genocide” and “Mass immigration and forced assimilation of non-whites into our lands is genocide.”

The notes pointed to the websites WhiteManMarch.com and WhiteGenocideProject.com, a reference to a so-called “worldwide” protest in March that reportedly ended with a very small turnout.

“We don’t want other kids around here who can read being like, ‘Hey mommy what’s the million man white march or what’s the genocide project?’ Most of us don’t want to explain genocide to our 6-year-olds,” Jackie Smith explained.

You know I never did trust that Easter Bunny.

He always looked so shifty.

Of course not all hate groups are being all hate-y.

For instance the KKK in Pennsylvania has volunteered to help out by starting a neighborhood watch:

"You can sleep tonight knowing the Klan is awake?" Fat chance of that.

The groups claims that they will treat not be targeting any specific ethnicity.

You know just the ones with brown skin who look like they don't belong around those parts.

Well the conservatives have been saying for decades that they wanted to bring America back to its traditional values, and it looks like they are getting their way. The traditional values of racism, oppression, vigilantism.

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A little Neil deGrasse magic at the Grand Canyon.

Courtesy of the LA Times:

Many scholars over the centuries had pondered just how old our Earth might be, including an Irish archbishop named James Ussher. Ussher started with the Bible, specifically the account of the death of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II in the Second Book of Kings. By tracing the various biblical genealogies — what host Neil de Grasse Tyson calls “counting the begats” — he triumphantly declared that the Earth was born on October 22, 4004 BC, at 6 p.m. on a Saturday.

That is certainly specific; it is also spectacularly wrong. One is reminded of Galileo’s observation about the dangers of using the Bible as a guide to scientific questions. Loosely paraphrased: The Bible teaches us how to get to heaven; it is not a treatise on how the heavens move.

Later scholars turned to the book of nature to unlock secrets that would shed light on Earth's age, specifically the many layers of rock and sediment that represent various epochs in Earth’s geological history. Instead of counting the begats, scientists could count the layers. But even that method didn’t prove accurate enough.

A fragment of meteorite retrieved from Canyon Diablo held the answer. Such objects are relics from the formation of the solar system, including Earth, and they contain many different elements, notably uranium, a radioactive substance that over time decays into lead. In the 1940s, a physicist at the University of Chicago named Harrison Brown thought it might be possible to determine the age of the Earth by counting the lead isotopes in such a meteorite.

Brown tasked his protege, Clair Patterson, with the experiment to determine the age of the earth, and after overcoming numerous obstacles, he finally did.

The episode demonstrated with great detail the process by which Patterson reached the conclusion that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and then compared it to the completely unscientific counting of "begats" performed by Archbishop Usher, using the Bible as his sole source of data.

This served to illustrate just how meticulous the scientific process had been, especially when compared to what was essentially uneducated guessing.

Interestingly enough his work with determining the age of the earth, revealed to Clair Patterson that there was an inordinate amount of lead in the environment. Which was a deadly toxin to human beings.

This realization ultimately led to him discovering that the most egregious source for this poison was the exhaust pipes of our very own automobiles.

Of course this led to conflict with the gas companies who brought in their own experts to discredit him, he lost his funding, and was the victim of character assassination for years. (Sound familiar?)

Ultimately, as we all know, the lead was removed from our gasoline, our paint, and many other products in order to protect the environment and protect us as well.

I felt that Cosmos did a great job of undermining the Creationist argument for a young planet, while providing evidence for how those with a vested interest in arguing against certain scientific findings are willing to spend vast amounts of money, and utilize political muscle, to change the narrative.

It was a very good, and very important, program. Which should inspire some fundamentalist backlash in 3..2..1

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