From women's rights to the adoption of children and marriages arranged at birth, the tablets include all kinds of civilizational and social data from Anatolia 4,000 years ago.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
4,000-Year-Old Tablets Found In Turkey Include Women's Rights
From women's rights to the adoption of children and marriages arranged at birth, the tablets include all kinds of civilizational and social data from Anatolia 4,000 years ago.
Struggling To Stay Relevant, Rand Paul Takes Chainsaw To US Tax Code
Pretender hopeful Kentucky Senator Rand Paul released a
video showing how much he hates the U.S. Tax code. In the bizarre 51
second video, the Republican unleashes his latest gimmick to
stay relevant in the Republican cabal pretender race. He wants to be the candidate
who can devise the most creative way to kill the tax code.
In the video,
Rand Paul finds three different ways to demolish the pages of the U.S.
tax code. He uses a wood chipper to shred the pages, starts a fire to
burn the pages, and he saws the tax code into paper “sawdust” with a
chainsaw. He does so while sporting an oxymoronic “Detroit
Republican” T-shirt, because nothing says Detroit, like a white
Libertarian-leaning idiot from Kentucky who was raised in East Texas.
Presumably, Rand Paul thinks America needs a leader
strong enough to defeat reams of paper with a chainsaw. It may seem like
overkill, but maybe he just isn’t familiar with a conventional pair of
scissors.
In the circus-like atmosphere of the republican cabal primary where Donald Trump is lapping the field
with his loud, unhinged brand of crazy, Rand Paul is struggling to
return to his past glory as the pied piper for the Republican fringe.
The tax code may seem an easy and inviting
target. However, fellow anti-tax zealot whisperer Ted Cruz hasn’t
gained much traction with his calls to make the tax code so simple you
can fill out your income taxes on a postcard. Rand Paul wants to reduce
the tax code to one page, but if it still fits on an 8 by 11 sheet of
paper then Ted Cruz has outflanked him on the anti-tax issue.
The problem for Paul, Cruz, and Trump is that they
are more interested in style than substance. Now in fairness, Rand Paul
at least has explained what his tax plan is. He proposes a 14.5 percent
“flat tax” that includes exemptions at the lowest levels of the income
pyramid. While this may sound superficially appealing to many voters,
the catch is by eliminating income taxes, capital gains taxes, payroll
taxes, estate taxes, and tariffs, Rand Paul’s plan is simply
unsustainable unless it also includes massive cuts or the elimination of
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the defense budget and social
programs.
His tax plan simply doesn’t bring in enough revenue
to cover necessary budget items, and it would likely morph into a value
added tax that would place the highest tax burden on low and middle
income Americans, while the wealthy reap the main benefits of his plan.
Behind the symbolic gimmick of ripping apart the tax code, Rand Paul’s
plan is impractical at best, and an economic disaster waiting to happen,
at worst.
The
Republican primary has taken on a carnival like atmosphere from the
beginning. The emergence of Donald Trump as a viable candidate has only
intensified the cartoonish nature of the republican cabal race. However, Rand Paul
seems to have adopted the “if you can’t beat him, join him” strategy.
His latest video represents Rand Paul’s desperate attempt to stay
relevant in a race to attract republican cabal voters, where the goalposts keep
moving, making it harder and harder for candidates to maintain their
appeal to the ever expanding teabagger Republican cabal lunatic fringe.
Trumpalooza Madness and Do the Kochs Stand Inside or Outside the Trump Bubble?
Trump ran right over objections to his treatment of John McCain,
including a call for him to drop out, and saw his support grow, not
diminish…
In the wake of the John McCain fiasco, Donald Trump’s lead has risen to double digits. His bubble, like the so-called Bernie Bubble, refuses to burst, though MSNBC’s Steve Benen notes that there are suggestions that the ripple of outrage has just not yet been reflected in the polls.
So far, Trump has just bombastically insulted and
lied his way past all opposition, in true Republican presidential
candidate fashion. It’s fun to watch from the outside. As I argued before, they built that.
And if Barack Obama is not Reagan, and thankfully never aspired to be, Donald Trump is more than willing to take that soiled mantle upon himself:
The Des Moines Register, however, seemingly either
doesn’t recognize Trump’s inner Reagan, or doesn’t think a Reagan redux
is a great idea: they told Trump to not only apologize to John McCain but to drop out of the race for president.
Trump’s response, posted to Facebook,
was typical: the editors of the Des Moines Register are “sophomoric”
and mean to the guy who calls everybody names (poor Donald!):
I am not at all surprised by the Des Moines Register’s sophomoric editorial. It was issued immediately after the release of the ABC News/Washington Post poll showing me with 24% and an eleven-point lead over my nearest rival. As one of the most liberal newspapers in the United States, the poll results were just too much for them to bear. The Des Moines Register has lost much circulation, advertising, and power over the last number of years. They will do anything for a headline, and this poorly written “non-endorsement” got them some desperately needed ink.On the campaign trail in Iowa, a state whose people I have truly gotten to know and love, I have been treated very badly by the Des Moines Register. They were uneven and inconsistent, but far more importantly, very dishonest. They would rarely write the facts or report what really took place. They never captured the energy of each event and it is a constant battle with them by my representatives to get an accurate count of the large crowds I draw. They know the very impressive numbers and either reduce them or don’t report them at all. It is always wonderful to have the support of a newspaper, even a failing one, but this has only given me more motivation to fight harder in Iowa and Make America Great Again!
There are many factors at play here: Democrats watch
this new Reagan and smile and rub their hands in glee. The Republican cabal has gotten exactly what it deserves, and just what it has been
building for since President Obama was elected: a genuine demagogue with
populist appeal.
And perhaps worse, from a Republican standpoint, and
because nobody seems to be talking about it, somebody the Koch brothers
cannot buy.
It is significant that David Koch was not all that hot on Donald back in 2011, noting then
that “Donald’s political positions over the last 10 years have been
highly variable and unusual.” In as back-handed a compliment as The
Donald himself could have delivered, Koch said, “He’s a wonderful guy,
but I don’t think he should run for office.” He went on to opine that
“at some point I think he’s going to drop out of the race when he
realizes that he’s really not qualified to be President.”
Of course, Trump’s message is similar,
if aimed at others: “A number of my competitors for the Republican
nomination have no business running for president. I do not need to be
lectured by any of them.”
No word yet from the Kochs on Trump this year – they
seem to be holding their cards (and their dollars) close to their chest
(and who can blame them as the number of Republican cabal candidates rises to 16), all of which means this race is likely to become more and more interesting.
You’ve got to wonder how the Koch boys feel about
this: here they are, set to buy the country for a cool billion, and out
of nowhere comes Trump, showing that not just money talks, but
obnoxiousness. And what about the religio-wingnuts? Are they about to
have their dreams of theocracy snatched out of their greedy, lying
little hands just as it seems within reach through the likes of Ted “I’m
the Messiah” Cruz?
Right now, it is Cruz and the others who are
sideshows, and what really matters is that at some point, the interests
of the Kochs and that of Donald Trump must come into conflict. Already, Trump has poached the Koch’s Americans for Prosperity for his New Hampshire campaign.
Who
will come out on top? The New Ronald Reagan, fresh to the game, or the
guys who have already staked their claim by buying Congress?
Dallas ‘Christian’ Fire-Rescue Racist Threatens To ‘Delay Treatment’ To Black People
His Facebook page is full of “christian values.” Surprise, surprise, those values apparently don’t apply unless you’re white.
Federal Appeals Court Upholds Ruling Overturning North Dakota’s Strict Anti-Abortion Law
Because there is no genuine dispute that H.B. 1456 generally prohibits abortions before viability — as the Supreme Court has defined that concept — and because we are bound by Supreme Court precedent holding that states may not prohibit pre-viability abortions, we must affirm [the lower court ruling].
H. B. 1456 which was passed in 2013 by a Republican dominated legislature and signed into law by GOP Governor Jack Dalrymple, would have made it a Class C felony for a doctor to perform an abortion
if the fetus had a detectable heartbeat. Had the law been
implemented it would have effectively banned abortions as early as six
weeks into a pregnancy.
The Supreme Court has defined fetal viability as
occurring around the 24th week of pregnancy. The 1973 Roe v. Wade
Supreme Court ruling essentially prohibits states from banning abortions
prior to the point of fetal viability. The appeals court argued that
the North Dakota law was clearly unconstitutional because it violated
the constitutional precedent set forth by the Supreme Court.
North Dakota has only one clinic in the entire state
the provides abortion services. Had H.B. 1456 gone into law, some North
Dakota women would have been in a situation where they were more than 7
hours driving time away from the nearest clinic that would perform
abortions after the 6th week of pregnancy.
The
court’s ruling affirms that women have a right to choose whether or not
to terminate their pregnancy during the first trimester. North Dakota’s
overzealous legislature was attempting to push through a law that
clearly violated a woman’s right to choose, even in the earliest stages
of her pregnancy. Thankfully, the appeals court on Wednesday put an end
to that law, and upheld a woman’s right to choose in the state of North
Dakota.
Saturday, July 25, 2015
The Daily Drift
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CNN Tells us that Obama is No Reagan, Like it’s a Bad Thing
CNN showed its Fox News side in unfavorably comparing Obama to a
Reagan who never existed, claiming Reagan is a transformational
pretender…
It is amazing the hold Ronald Reagan has over some Americans. John Blake, writing at CNN, claims that “This may be President Obama’s time, but it’s still Ronald Reagan’s era.”
Yes, Ronald Reagan, the idiot Republicans most like to lie about,
when they’re not lying about Obama. Who could ever forget, as Scott
Walker has reminded us, how Reagan ended the Cold War by busting not the
Bolsheviks, but unions? Or Sarah Palin sodomizing his legacy on his 100th birthday?
Blake ignores uncongenial facts and instead argues that,
Obama has helped negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, normalized relations with Cuba, and watched his approval ratings recently hit a two-year high after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Obamacare. But has he become a “transformational” pretender like Ronald Reagan?
Then, to illustrate his complete lack of bias, Blake cites Tom Nichols, a political blogger and author of a column “Fantasyland: Obama Is No Ronald Reagan“: “He’s simply plowing the ground Reagan cleared 30 years ago.”
In a sense, you have to admit Nichols has a point:
We are still trying to dig ourselves out of the mess Reagan made of the
country. As far as being no Ronald Reagan, we can be thankful for that.
This is a man about whom actor James Garner said,
"I was a vice president of the Screen Actors Guild when he was its president. My duties consisted of attending meetings and voting. The only thing I remember is that Ronnie never had an original thought and that we had to tell him what to say. That’s no way to run a union, let along a state or a country."
As for Barack Obama, Garner said, Adlai Stevenson
was “the most intelligent presidential candidate we’ve ever had. I think
Obama runs a close second.”
So perhaps the question should be less one of “Can
Obama hold Reagan’s jock-strap” to one of “Can a political meatpuppet be
a transformational pretender”?
That depends on how you define “transformational.”
Blake is using it as a positive, but isn’t destruction also
transformational? In that sense, the shrub, another political
meatpuppet, is transformational. He destroyed Iraq, and very nearly his
own country at the same time, bringing the world’s economy crashing down
for good measure.
Blake claims that four things define
transformational presidents (technically, riding a velociraptor while
slaughtering America’s enemies is not one of them):
“Reagan helped tilt the nation away from FDR’s New
Deal in a way that no pretender had done before, historians say. When
Reagan declared in his inaugural speech that government wasn’t the
solution but the problem — and backed it up with small-government,
anti-tax policies — he took on FDR.”
How is this possible when Reagan raised taxes 11 times from 1981 to 1989 and actually grew the size of government? Fact: Obama in 2011 had 273,000 fewer federal employees
than Reagan. Far from cutting the size of government, he added a new
department – Veterans’ Affairs – and increased defense spending. Reagan,
compared to Obama, was a “tax and spend liberal” out of Republican nightmares.
Yet Blake cites Charles Gallagher, a sociologist at
La Salle University in Pennsylvania: “He single-handedly defined
government as something that was bad.” Yes, it was so bad that we needed
more of it.
Transformational presidents deliver great lines:
Because President Obama hasn’t said something as catchy as “Mr.
Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Never mind that somebody as
intellectually vapid as the Reagan Garner depicts could never have come
up with that himself. Reagan, Blake says, was dubbed “‘The Great
Communicator.’ But what about Obama? Any memorable words?” Blake can’t
think of any. But then, Obama has original “big syllable” thoughts of
his own and isn’t an actor playing a part (take that, Jeb).
Transformational presidents poach followers from the enemy camp:
“Reagan was a master at persuading people who didn’t normally vote
Republican to vote for him in such great numbers that a new term was
invented: Reagan Democrats.”
Blake cites Jennifer Walsh, a political science
professor at Azusa Pacific University in California as saying “There is
no such thing as an Obama Republican.” Well, a very good reason for this
is that Obama is black, and the Republican Party is driven by high
levels of racism and guided by Fox News, factors that would preclude
Republicans becoming supporters of the “anti-colonialist Kenyan Muslims
terrorist sympathizer” that is Obama. This is not a fair comparison at
all.
Remember, when Obama outperformed Reagan on the economy? Fox News immediately cried, “Benghazi!” They didn’t mention the economy.
Transformational presidents become beloved figures:
Reagan, Blake says, “became one of the nation’s most beloved presidents
because people simply liked him. Even his enemies responded to Reagan’s
geniality.” Well, meatpuppet. Yet even Reagan blogger Nichols admits
that Obama could cure cancer and people wouldn’t like him.
Blake argues that “Reagan made wingnuttery cool. He strengthened the Republican cabal.” I don’t know about that. Bill Maher compared JFK
to James Bond, while Reagan is Matlock. We might be defining “cool”
differently, or perhaps Republicans just don’t know what “cool” is.
Obama “however, doesn’t fire up the Democratic base
like Reagan did his party, some historians say.” Right. He didn’t fire
it up enough to win two elections. Blake says Sanders and Warren are
better at firing up the Democratic base. Only problem here is that
neither of them have become president yet, so they’re not really part of
the conversation, however much you may like them. And, after all, Trump
fires up the Republican base. So let’s leave non-presidents out of it.
What is interesting is that as Blake makes this claim about how well loved Reagan was compared to Obama, Obama has become more popular than the shrub and equal to Reagan,
and he has a far-better sense of humor. Sorta takes the wind out of
your sails, doesn’t it, Mr. Blake? And let’s not forget that Reagan’s
memory is so blessed in California that they set his statue on fire. It’s all the rage today in expressing love.
Blake lists his four transformational qualities, but I wonder if giving America a persecution complex and victim mentality is also a transformational quality? Or how about Reagan welcoming religio-wingnuts into government
by telling them he was one of them, pushing creationism not only as
governor of California but as president? That’s pretty transformational
too.
I wrote
of the Republican war on science. It was Reagan who made this “cool”
too: “They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They
are wrong. I say there are simple answers to our problems and they are
found within the covers of the bible.”
Simple answers for a simple man.
That is the Reagan legacy. If Reagan is going to be
called transformational, we are going to have to take the bad with the
good, and there is a lot of bad, even by Republican standards, if they
would only admit to the historical Reagan, and forget the Reagan of
their dreams.
Let’s Take Them Up On Their Challenge To Choose Between Liberal And Wingnut Women
by Charles Topher
It’s no secret that wingnuts are shallow, misogynist
creatures who put very little value in women. The Republican cabal is allowed to
continue its war on women’s healthcare rights while ignoring calls for
wage equality because their base won’t penalize them for considering
women “less than.”Nowhere is this fact more true than on social media, where memes like the one below show exactly what wingnuts value about women:
Or, those of us with any kind of real-world sensibilities did anyway.
For the sake of argument, let’s do a three-way tag match and have a little fun with the insane logic that a book can be judged by its cover. To keep things fair, we’ll use one TV personality and two politicians from each side and have ourselves a little side-by-side comparison.
Round 1 – Janet Napolitano Vs. Sarah Palin, both former governors.
Janet Napolitano is
a graduate of Santa Clara University with a Juris Doctorate from
the University of Virginia. She served as US Attorney for the district
of Arizona and Arizona’s Attorney General before being elected governor
of Arizona, serving from 2003 to 2009. She was then appointed Secretary
of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013 and has since served as the
President of the University of California. Napolitano is considered a
front-runner should a seat on the US Supreme Court become vacant while a
Democrat is in office.In 2000, Napolitano spoke at the Democratic National Convention shortly after having a mastectomy. She refused to allow cancer to define her, and as a survivor has gone on to continue a brilliant career as a politician and educator.
Sarah Palin got a degree in journalism after hopscotching to four different schools in six years. She did a short stint as a sportscaster and after marrying well, helped her husband with his fishing business. After falling backwards into a career in politics as mayor of Wasilla, Palin somehow managed to get elected Governor of Alaska, but quit halfway through her term because John McCain needed a woman the base would find attractive as a running mate.
Sarah Palin has never accomplished anything of consequence, was recently let go as a commentator for Fox News, gave up on a subscription-based failure of a TV channel and got dropped from reality TV for being too boring.
In 2008 Palin winked at the crowd at the republican national coven and coined the phrase “youbetcha,” which had already been coined before.
Winner: Napolitano
Round 2 – Nancy Pelosi vs. Michele Bachmann, US House Of Representatives.
Nancy Pelosi,
a Notre Dame graduate, began serving in the House in 1987. Her notable
career of nearly thirty years includes a year as House minority whip and
four years as Speaker Of The House from 2007-2011. She currently serves
as House Minority Leader. Pelosi has stood firm
on her beliefs that women should control their own healthcare choices,
that religion has no place in public schools and has been vehemently
opposed to any kind of military action against Iran since the Bush
administration first suggested it in 2007 as the next phase of their
plan to take over the oil-rich world.Pelosi is credited with spearheading the Affordable Care Act, which has now provided healthcare to more than 30 million previously uninsured Americans, as well as the federal minimum wage increase of 2007.
Michele Bachmann, a graduate of Oral Roberts University, is a nutcase. Not even her master’s degree in tax law from William and Mary can compensate for her batshit crazy religious views, which have skewered any chance she ever had of being considered a rational human being. A founding member of the now dying teabagger caucus, Bachmann has stood firm on her beliefs that women need to be regulated at every level of government to save zygotes and that schools should dump the “junk science” of evolution in favor of creationism and prayer.
Bachmann, who has never been taken seriously by anyone, also stood up for whatever financial reform the Koch brothers stood for, as long as they continued to feed her the insanity that they were doing it all for Jesus. She isn’t credited with spearheading anything of consequence other than witch hunts and wild accusations that the President was spending billions of dollars to have the entire Navy escort him to India.
Winner: Pelosi
Round 3 – Rachel Maddow vs. Dana Loesch, television personalities.
Rachel Maddow
is the first openly gay recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship, which helped
her earn a doctorate in political philosophy from Oxford University,
considered by many to be the best school in the world. A brilliant commentator,
Maddow’s talents moved her through the ranks of radio, ultimately
landing her with a television show that has blossomed into a bastion of
liberal politics on MSNBC. Maddow’s insights have been sought after for
years, and her contributions to television and radio have certainly no
gone unnoticed, earning her the following awards:- Emmy Award in the Outstanding News Discussion and Analysis category for “The Rachel Maddow Show” episode “Good Morning Landlocked Central Asia!”
- Maddow won a Gracie Award in 2009, presented by the American Women in Radio and Television.
- On March 28, 2009, Maddow received a Proclamation of Honor from the California State Senate, presented in San Francisco by California State Senator Mark Leno..
- In July 2010, Maddow was presented with a Maggie Award for her ongoing reporting of healthcare reform, the murder of Dr. George Tiller, and the anti-abortion movement.
- In August 2010, Maddow won the Walter Cronkite Faith & Freedom Award, which was presented by the Interfaith Alliance. Past honorees included Larry King, Tom Brokaw, and the late Peter Jennings.
- In February 2012, Maddow was presented the John Steinbeck Award by the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University.
Dana Loesch is a college dropout who built a successful radio show on a voice wingnut men just love. A liberal that campaigned for Bill Clinton, Loesh says she became a wingnut when she became a mother because she no longer agreed with the political ideologies of liberals. That happened to coincide with her marriage to a moron Republican. After 9/11, Loesch went all the way to the “I hate muslim” lunatic fringe. After a brief stint as a commentator on CNN during a time when the network tried a move further toward the lunatic fringe, her fear mongering and hate landed her a show on The Blaze, the propaganda sellout machine of fake crier Glenn Beck. She’s received some honorable mentions from right-wing media but never won an award of consequence from anyone with any credibility.
Winner: Maddow
It seems the wingnut theory that women who present better (to some) physically makes them somehow superior is yet another side-effect of the stupidity virus that runs rampant in their circles. Memes like this degrade women for no reason and provide nothing other than a sexist point of view.
Political Corruption, Like Cream, Rises to the Top in North Carolina
Republican political corruption in North Carolina is even worse than you thought, as the Paul Foley episode reveals…
by Kevin Welos
Cream isn’t the only thing that apparently rises to the top; in North Carolina political corruption does as well.
On July 13th, the North Carolina Republican
Legislature’s effort to codify voter suppression went on trial in
federal court in Winston-Salem, Carolina. Before the trial began,
Reverend William Barber, head of the North Carolina NAACP, led between
3,5000-6,000 people in a peaceful protest, part of an ongoing series of
protests known as “Moral Monday”. Rev. Barber called the case “our
Selma” because the voter ID law and its related provisions, passed by
the North Carolina General Assembly, have severely limited the right to
vote for most minority voters and, in some instances, disenfranchised
them.
In what can only be described as a moment of true serendipity the Associated Press
also broke a story about the efforts of Paul Foley a private attorney
for the North Carolina Republican Party and member of the North Carolina
Board of Elections, efforts to disenfranchise Democratic voters in
North Carolina.
Relationship not disclosed for seventeen months
The story of Paul Foley’s duplicitous nature
actually began almost immediately after his appointment to the State
Board of Elections. According to various media outlets, including the Charlotte News & Observer, Winston-Salem Journal and the Greensboro News & Record,
shortly after Foley was appointed, he helped oversee an investigation
into campaign donations made by Internet sweepstakes businessmen Chase
Burns and wife. Mr. Burns and his wife made contributions of
approximately $235,000 to various N.C. elected officials, including the
Governor, House and Senate leaders. These contributions were all made
to aid in the lobbying effort to legalize online sweepstakes gaming.
Unfortunately, throughout the 17 months Mr. Foley helped oversee the
investigation in to Mr. and Mrs. Burns’ contributions, he failed to
mention to the Board of Elections that his law firm was paid $1.27
million by Mr. Burns and his company for legal services. Though in an
extremely interesting twist, it was recently revealed by the Winston-Salem Journal
that Governor Pat McCrory’s chief legal counsel, Bob Stephens, was
aware of Mr. Foley’s conflict for over a year and also said nothing.
The Charlotte Observer reports that
Foley “expressed strong interest in the Burns case,” and asked
questions, “making it clear he thought it should be finished as quickly
as possible.” Seventeen months later after the investigation began,
board of elections staff members discovered that Foley’s law firm
represented Mr. Burns. It was only after Mr. Foley’s conflict came to
light, that he said he would recuse himself from the case. However,
despite his alleged recusal, Mr. Foley continued to press the staff of
the Board of Elections for information regarding the investigation into
Mr. Burns’ political contributions. In fact, according to an article in
The Charlotte Observer, Mr. Foley went so far as to suggest he be
permitted to see the staff’s report before it became public so he could
alert his law firm.
Mr. Foley made a statement on at the beginning of a
state Board of Elections meeting that “At the time the law firm received
the significant legal fees from IIT [Mr. Burns’ software company], I
was an employee, not a partner, at the law firm. I never attempted to,
and had no reason to, attempt to influence the direction or outcome of
the investigation.” Mr. Foley’s dubious statement becomes even more
suspicious given that Mr. Foley worked closely with at least two of the
attorneys from his law firm who worked on the team for Mr. Burns. In
fact, one such attorney, Richard Dietz, was described by Mr. Foley as
his “best friend.” Mr. Dietz left the law firm in 2014 following an
appointment by Governor McCrory to the Court of Appeals.
It should also be noted that in addition to Mr.
Foley’s firm doing work for Mr. Burns’ company, Paul Foley’s wife’s firm
also received payments totaling $28,000 for legal fees. While there is
no indication that Mr. Foley’s wife worked with Mr. Burns, it certainly
raises some questions.
While the attorney general’s office conducted an
investigation and decided that Mr. Foley did not improperly influence
the investigation into Mr. Burns, the office left it to other agencies
to determine whether Mr. Foley was truthful in his other statements.
Voter suppression efforts proven
On Tuesday, July 14, 2015, the Associated Press,
after reviewing hundreds of e-mails, reported that, in 2014, Paul Foley
worked closely with the two Republican members of the Watauga County
elections board to eliminate a voting site of the campus Appalachian
State University. This voting site was the only site in Watagua count to
vote Democratic in both the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections and
the 2012 governor’s rate.
In August, 2014 the state board unanimously voted to
eliminate the voting site. Mr. Foley, again, failed to disclose to the
state board his involvement with the plan to eliminate the site.
A lawsuit contesting the elimination of the voting
site was brought in Wake County Superior Court by a group of Democratic
voters in Watagua County. The Wake County Superior Court judge ordered
that the Appalachian State University site be restored, and the board
approved the reinstatement on October 24, 2014. However, in another
interesting twist, the NORTH Carolina Supreme Court allowed the lawsuit
to be reviewed by the North Carolina Court of Appeals; the same North
Carolina Court of Appeals where “best friend” to Paul Foley, Richard
Dietz was appointed by the Governor just three months earlier. The case
is currently before the N.C. Court of Appeals.
Foley refuses governor’s request that he resign but later resigns
Following what can only be described as an Alexander
level terrible, horrible, no good, very bad few days for Paul Foley
Governor McCrory made two separate request for Foley to from the North
Carolina Board of Elections. Foley, apparently not interested in
falling on his sword for McCrory rebuffed both of the Governor’s calls
for his resignation. Mr. Foley released a statement that he did “not
believe it is appropriate for the governor to ask a member of an
independent board with on-going oversight authority over him to resign.”
Later McCrory told media outlets
he would take steps to have Foley removed, citing a North Carolina
General Statute which allows the governor to remove “any member of a
board, council or committee from office for misfeasance, malfeasance or
nonfeasance.” McCrory spokesman Josh Ellis told the Associated Press
Foley’s potential conflict of interest with the Burns investigation
wasn’t disclosed to the governor. A damning accusation considering the
Governor’s own chief counsel was aware of said conflict for over a year.
However, the clock struck midnight on Wednesday, , however, Foley sent
in his resignation.
A Culture of Corruption in North Carolina
Whether the further investigation into Paul Foley’s
apparent conflict of interests in both the Chase Burns investigation and
the elimination of the Appalachian State voting site will show that his
actions were guided by Governor McCrory, or an attempt by Mr. Foley to
curry further favor with the Governor, remains to be seen. What is
clear is that for Governor McCrory, it certainly pays to keep your
friends close.
The one saving grace for Governor McCrory, at least
for the next 17 months, is that the North Carolina Constitution contains
no known provisions allowing for a recall. Until then, McCrory will
need to depend on his friends in the North Carolina Legislature and
Judicial systems to disenfranchise enough voters to ensure a victory in
2016.
Immigration, Where The Republican Cabal Gets The Constitution Wrong
'We, the people' is not a phrase limited to citizens.
Republicans do not understand the Constitution and they never have or will
This Congressional Food Fight Shows Why Republicans Vote Against Their Own Interests
Who do you think will win this food fight?
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Bad Cops
‘Cancer is a fungus’ Republican threatens Nevada inspectors looking at her home healthcare business
White Supremacists Define ‘5 Types Of Liberal White Men,’ A Must Read Cluster Of Stupid
To see inside the shallow little minds of the ignorant and how they define a “white liberal man” is nothing short of comical.Anti-Gay Religio-Wingnuts Lose Their Minds Over Story From Fake News Site
For the last few weeks, rabidly anti-gay religio-wingnuts have been losing their minds over a story...
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Is The American Century Over?
In "Is The American Century Over?" Joseph S. Nye, Jr. takes an
objective look at the idea of an American century and the claim that it
is over…
In “Is The American Century Over?” foreign policy
analyst Joseph S. Nye, Jr. looks at the question of American dominance.
In doing so, he examines not only what this dominance means, when it
might have begun, and when decline might have set in, but he looks at
America’s neighbors, and likely successors to America’s pre-eminent
position since the fall of the Soviet Union.
China, a Donald Trump bogeyman, is often held up to
be America’s biggest challenger, but Nye points out that right as the
Soviet Union was about to collapse, books were comparing America’s
situation to that of Phillip II’s Spain,
which is to say, things were about to go downhill very rapidly indeed.
Instead, the Soviet Union collapsed, and America became the world’s only
superpower.
Apparently, things are not as simple as they seem.
First of all, when did the American century begin? (There is no
agreement). When did the decline begin? (Again, there is no agreement).
How do you define decline? What sorts of power are we talking about? And
is power absolute or is it more a relative thing, in balance with the
other countries of the world? Donald Trump, like all totalitarian
demagogues, likes simple problems and answers, but Nye shows the world
to be a very complex thing indeed.
As it turns out, there are different sorts of power.
The very terminology we use to define and understand the world bedevils
us, as is often the case. “Hegemony,” Nye tells us, is a misleading
term, and points out that, “there is no general agreement on how much
inequality and what types of power sources constitute hegemony.” If so,
we should hardly be tossing such a loaded term around, let alone
comparing it to another loaded term, “imperial,” because “a formal
empire is not a requirement for hegemony.” Has America imposed its
system on the world, or has it invited others in? The answer is by no
means clear.
Besides, the largest countries in the world have
never been members of whatever it is we are talking about, limiting the
extent to which we can talk of hegemony at all. Hegemony, Nye decides,
is not a useful term because it is too imprecise. And you begin to see
now just how difficult a topic this is. We must first define the
“American Century” if we are to understand whether or not it is in
decline.
But not so fast! What is “decline”? Is it another
ambiguous word and encompasses not only a loss of external power, but
domestic decay (think Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire if you’re
pressed for examples). Nye calls the first “relative” decline and the
latter, “absolute” decline.
Nye – who talks about pop psychology and geo- and
partisan politics, two of which are more about perception than absolutes
– draws on other examples from history’s other empires, Venice,
Portugal, Netherlands, Britain, and Spain – even Rome. You can have
external loss of power yet, like Venice, flourish domestically. If
America is in decline, what kind of decline are we experiencing?
America could be in absolute decline (you definitely
get this idea from the Religious Right) or in relative decline “because
of the rise of others.” In other words, even though no single country
might become more powerful than the United States, we might decline
because we are no longer pre-eminent and are unable to continue the
American order, however that might be defined.
Nye looks at the most likely candidates, including,
of course, China, the European Union, Japan, Russia, India, and Brazil.
There are many factors to consider and Nye looks at them all. He devotes
one full chapter to China (and I won’t give away any details here)
before moving on to ask the big question: is America like Rome.
I have always found comparisons to Rome weak. Rome
declined for far longer than America has even existed. We have not
earned the right to compare ourselves to Rome. When we have inspired
some far distant generation to create a nation of liberty, then we can
talk about a comparison to Rome.
However, Nye dispassionately examines the subject,
as he does all others, looking carefully at our society and culture (and
our culture wars) and, of course, the economy, as well as our political
institutions.
It becomes apparent as you read this book that it is
careless and self-serving for ideologues and religious fanatics to
bandy about talk of America’s decline and fall. It says a great deal
more about their purposes than America’s situation.
Which
only goes to show how useful and important books like this are.
Fortunately, this is not a daunting tome of many hundreds of pages, but a
slim volume of only 146, including notes and suggestions for further
reading. If you want to understand America’s place in the world, and
possible futures, this book is essential reading.
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