Sunday, November 04, 2012 4:48:56 AM
Knock-Knock-Knocking On Hell's Door
By Lila Shapiro
Posted: 10/24/2012 6:02 pm EDT Updated: 10/26/2012 10:02 am EDT
KEENAN ROBERTS didn’t invent the idea of scaring Christian youth into salvation, but he has done more than anyone else to turn it into an industry. For $299—and with the Denver-based pastor’s approval—you can build your own “Hell House,” complete with theatrical scenes of teen suicides and gay marriages gone wrong.
Staged by Evangelical churches predominantly in the South and Midwest, Hell Houses share some of the tropes of classic haunted houses and are most active in the run-up to Halloween, when Americans are most primed for scaremongering. But if haunted house directors generally aim to entertain, Roberts has very a different goal.
“The number one priority is reaching people with the message that sin destroys and Jesus saves,” he explained to Huffington by phone from his church.
The method is effective, according to Roberts. By the time guests reach the final, “heaven” scene (a room draped in silvery cloth) Roberts says around 1 in 4 of the more than 75,000 who have traipsed through his church's production over the last 16 years have either decided to join the christian faith or renewed their commitment to it.
Since 1996, Roberts, pastor of the New Destiny Christian Center in Colorado, has sold more than one thousand Hell House kits to youth pastors and churches. It’s unclear who put on the first-ever Hell House, but Jerry Falwell is generally credited with first popularizing the idea in the 70s, and a documentary made in 2000 brought them further recognition. Roberts’s own Hell House serves as the template for the hundreds of others around the country that are built to the specifications outlined in his kits, which include a DVD of his production, a 300 page instruction manual and a spooky soundtrack.
Roberts’s house typically consists of seven rooms. In each, a different “sin” is played out to its horrid conclusion. Roberts plays a demon. Dressed in a long black robe, with a bumpy grey mask and large black horns, he guides guests from room to room—from a lesbian suicide to a drunk-driving induced car crash to a rave where a church girl takes ecstasy and dies, (the manual suggests the demon tour guide declare here, “just another day at the office!”). The themes vary a bit from year to year, but abortion and damned gay people are constants.
Not surprisingly, since its inception Roberts’s kits have attracted criticism, and not just from gay rights groups and Planned Parenthood. A number of religious groups, including the National Council of Churches, have criticized Hell Houses for their harsh approach. Roberts hasn’t flinched.
“Jesus was so controversial that they killed him,” he said. “You can’t have an impact without a collision.”
Roberts will not provide the media with samples of the kits, which also include guidance for handling media (crucial for both getting out the church’s message and responding to criticism). But over the years, excerpts have leaked online. For the abortion scene, Roberts recommends buying “a meat product that closely resembles pieces of a baby” to put in a glass bowl and suggests the actors portraying the medical staff act “cold, uncaring, abrupt and completely insensitive.”
Roberts knows of only a handful of times that secular groups have managed to purchase a Hell House kit. In 2004, a director in Hollywood posed as a pastor in order to procure a kit, and ended up putting on a farce, starring Sarah Silverman and David Cross, among others. “It was an abomination,” Roberts said. “People have been trying to do damage to Hell House for years, and I always say this: God’s going to have the last word.”
Roberts first put on a low-budget version of a “hell house” in his late 20s, but it wasn’t until 1995, after he’d moved to Colorado, that he made scaring kids for the Lord a regular part of his mission. He sent out press releases to media outlets all over Denver. (“And they came like crazy,” Roberts said.)
After nearly 40 churches had reached out to him for guidance, he began to develop his how-to kits. By now, Roberts has sold kits to 26 foreign countries including Australia, and all 50 states.
While Roberts presents himself as a fighter on the front lines of the culture war, he’s only once written an overtly political scene. It featured Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, glow in the dark writing (“Lies” “Lust” “Adultery”) and of course, demons. This year, citing logistical reasons, Roberts said he isn’t putting on a production. If things were different, he said he’d likely add a scene about President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage.
The next step, he says, is Hollywood. “We were real close to a movie once,” he said, “but too many people were scared of it.”
*
Pastor Keenan Preparing Mask
Pastor Keenan preparing mask & make-up as Demon Tour Guide
Demon Tour Guides
Drunk Driving
Gay Wedding Scene
Lesbian Suicide Scene
The Angel of the Lord and the Demon Tour Guide battle over a teenage girl in the Lesbian Suicide Scene.
Death By Meth
Heaven
*
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/24/hell-houses_n_2012207.html [with comments]
--
Hell House
Hell House is a 2001 documentary on a hell house--a Christian-themed haunted attraction--in Cedar Hill, Texas. The film documents the work involved in creating the hell house, the performances themselves, and the personal lives of some of the participants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbhQsRJ6ARw [and see (linked in) http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22jesus+camp%22&oq=%22jesus+camp%22 , http://www.youtube.com/movie?v=tFpDFsguIdc ]
===
Most Republicans Believe In Demon Possession, Less Than Half Believe In Climate Change: Report
By Dominique Mosbergen
Posted: 11/02/2012 4:40 pm EDT Updated: 11/02/2012 8:23 pm EDT
A new poll reveals the majority of registered Republican voters believe that demonic possession is a real phenomenon.
The "Halloween-centric" poll, conducted by Public Policy Polling showed that 68 percent of Republican voters think it's possible to be possessed by demons [ http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/HalloweenRelease%2BResults.pdf ].
Meanwhile, as news website AlterNet notes [ http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/shocking-poll-more-two-thirds-republican-voters-believe-demonic-possession ], only 48 percent of Republicans [ http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/10/16/study_shows_that_more_republicans_believe_global_warming_is_real_than_in.html ] polled in an earlier survey conducted by the Pew Research Center survey said they believe in climate change [ http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/shocking-poll-more-two-thirds-republican-voters-believe-demonic-possession ].
As the election looms ever closer, the topic of climate change and global warming [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/climate-change-hurricane-sandy-global-warming_n_2050516.html ] has been in the air -- with some experts and politicians calling the recent devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy a reality check [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-zeller-jr/hurricane-sandy-link-to-climate-change_b_2059179.html ].
However, while 88 percent of Obama supporters believe that there is "solid evidence that the earth is warming [ http://www.people-press.org/2012/10/15/more-say-there-is-solid-evidence-of-global-warming/ ]," only 42 percent of Romney supporters said that this is true, according to the Pew survey.
In addition, 33 percent of Romney supporters [id.] (compared to 5 percent of Obama supporters) said they believe global warming is "not a problem."
When it comes to demons, however, it seems the Democrat-Republican rift is not quite so wide.
According to the Halloween poll results, 49 percent of Democrats [ http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/HalloweenRelease%2BResults.pdf ] also said they believe that its possible to be possessed by demons. Overall, only 35 percent of the 1,200 registered voters polled [id.] -- including Independent voters and others -- said that demon possession is an impossibility.
Quick Poll
Do you believe in demonic possession? Vote in our poll and tell us your thoughts in the comments below.
Is it possible for people to be possessed by demons?
Yes
17.97%
No
70.19%
Not sure
11.84%
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/demon-possession-republicans-poll-climate-change_n_2066476.html [with comments]
===
Mitt Romney Robocall Warns Christians Obama A 'Threat To Our Religious Freedom'
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
By Amanda Terkel Posted: 11/02/2012 11:27 pm EDT Updated: 11/03/2012 1:37 am EDT
WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney's campaign, in a last-minute robocall, warns voters that President Barack Obama is hostile to the Christian faith.
The robocall, paid for by Romney's campaign, is explicitly aimed at Christian voters. A voter in Fairfax, Va. received it on Friday night, and passed it along to Shaun Dakin of StopPoliticalCalls.org [ http://www.stoppoliticalcalls.org/index.php ].
The spot reminds the listener of Obama's controversial comment in 2008 that some Americans, frustrated by their economic situation, "cling to guns or religion [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/obama-no-surprise-that-ha_b_96188.html ]."
Script of the robocall:
Christians who are thinking about voting for Obama should remember what he said about people of faith: "They ... cling to guns or religion." And remember when Obama forced Christian organizations to provide insurance coverage that was contrary to their religious beliefs?
That's the real Barack Obama. That's the real threat to our religious freedom. Mitt Romney understands the importance of faith and family. That's why so many leaders of the Christian community are supporting Romney.
They know we can't underestimate the threat Barack Obama poses to our faith, our values, our freedom.
The robocall language is stronger than what Romney himself has used on the trail, although the campaign went after Obama during the controversy over whether religiously affiliated groups should be required to cover the cost of contraception in their health care plans at no charge to the employee.
"President Obama used his health care plan to declare war on religion [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/09/mitt-romney-religion-obama_n_1759393.html ], forcing religious institutions to go against their faith," said the narrator in a Romney campaign ad in August. "Mitt Romney believes that’s wrong."
Listen to the robocall:
[static-image vid with the audio embedded]
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/mitt-romney-robocall-christians_n_2068596.html [with comments]
===
Why I'm Voting for Mitt Romney
follow me on twitter @trishapaytas
follow mitt on twitter @MittRomney
my video on why I say NO to birth control (recorded March 6, 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOH6wwWEJZ0
my video on Obama vs The Catholic Church (recorded July 27, 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91wJHbOCwdM
my video on Ted Nugent, Mitt Romney and me (recorded April 18, 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mIAu-Go530
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzvm7zd4Z-s
--
Why I'm Voting For Mitt Romney Video Breakdown
Trisha Paytas (YouTuber/model/actress) shared her voting plans in a YouTube video titled Why I'm Voting For Mitt Romney. Is she for real? Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur break it down on The Young Turks.
Watch the original video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzvm7zd4Z-s [just above]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgWaZ1D1QYs
===
Abortion, Romney and the GOP's Fanatical Fundamentalism
By Ethan Rome
Posted: 10/30/2012 1:16 pm
In the presidential foreign policy debate, Mitt Romney said [ http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/presidential-debate-full-transcript/story?id=17538888&singlePage=true ] the U.S. needs a "robust strategy to help the world of Islam and other parts of the world reject [the kind of] radical, violent extremism" that fuels terrorism. No argument there. But here in America, we're wrestling with a different kind of fundamentalism -- the attack on abortion rights and the ability of women to make their own reproductive health choices, to control their own bodies and to determine how best to plan their own families. Romney isn't fighting this radical extremism -- he's leading it. The Republican position that abortion must be outlawed, even in cases of rape, incest or threat to the health of the mother, is extremism that is tantamount to violence against women.
Isn't it an act of violence to force a woman to carry to term the child of a rapist who commits an unspeakable act of violence against her -- and then to sentence her (in most states) to a lifetime co-parenting the child with her rapist [ http://healthcareforamericanow.org/2012/08/27/more-rapists-could-assert-parental-rights/ ]? Why should the government have the right to intervene in a decision that's so personal, private and life-changing? On top of that, for a woman to even step forward to say she's been raped is an act of courage in our society where the legal process can be humiliating and degrading and often keeps women silent.
But Rep. Paul Ryan doesn't see it that way. Rape isn't an issue in his abortion debate, because the method of conception isn't the point. As we know, Missouri GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin [ http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/20/13378579-doctors-appalled-over-rep-akins-comments-that-legitimate-rape-prevents-pregnancy ] said that when a pregnancy is the result of "a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." It's scary to think about how his beliefs and his ignorance of biology guide him as a policy-maker. Then Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock reinforced the fundamentalist line by saying [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/richard-mourdock-abortion_n_2018934.html ], "When life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen." And Ryan led the way a long time ago with his outrageous comment [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/paul-ryan-abortion-exception_n_1821547.html ] on the floor of the House that you could drive a Mack truck through "the health exception" that would permit an abortion to save a woman's life.
These comments aren't political gaffes -- they are essentially GOP policy statements. Ryan, of course, is the Republican vice-presidential nominee, and his views are enshrined in the party platform adopted at its September convention.
This weekend Newt Gingrich took to the airwaves [ http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/10/29/gingrich_on_mourdock_get_over_it_ladies.html ]. "If you listen to what Mourdock actually said, he said what virtually every Catholic and every fundamentalist in the country believes, life begins at conception," Gingrich said on ABC's This Week.
The Republicans are entitled to believe in whatever they want, and the rest of us should respect that. But Gingrich and the GOP extremists want their beliefs to dictate what every woman in this country can do. The Republicans want to roll back the clock and deny women the right to control their own medical decisions, and therefore the arc of their entire lives. That's truly radical.
Vice President Joe Biden explained an alternative approach [ http://www.npr.org/2012/10/11/162754053/transcript-biden-ryan-vice-presidential-debate ] in his debate with Ryan. He said that his religion defines who he is and that he believes in his church's doctrine on abortion. But he added that he has no business imposing his religious beliefs on others as a lawmaker. That's not an uncommon position for Democrats like Biden, but it's a stark contrast to the extremists who have taken control of the Republican Party.
A record number of Republican Senate candidates want to criminalize abortion, even in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother's health. Republican-dominated state legislatures have legitimized this crusade [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/state-abortion-laws_n_1684825.html ] by passing a record number of measures [ http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-04-25/states-anti-abortion-legislation/54538866/1 ] to restrict women's reproductive health. In Washington, the U.S. House has voted to restrict abortion or access to contraception and other reproductive health services more than 30 times as the Republicans have also tried to take down expanded preventive health services for women included in the Affordable Care Act.
The GOP is embracing an extremism that rejects truth, scientific knowledge and common sense. The Republicans will brook no compromise in their relentless drive to criminalize abortion and revoke access to birth control and other basic reproductive health services.
So what does this say about Mitt Romney? He's said [ http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-mitt-romney-abortion-opposition-20121010,0,6957244.story ] he'd be a "pro-life president," he'd "immediately" remove funding for Planned Parenthood and he'd be "delighted" to sign a bill banning abortion. He won the GOP nomination by pandering to the radical right-wingers who control the Republican Party, and it's clear that he's going to let them run his show.
As anti-tax fanatic Grover Norquist told conservatives [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/13/grover-norquist-speech-cpac.html ] at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, "We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go." All the GOP needs, Norquist explained, is "a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States" so he can sign whatever bills extremists in Congress send his way.
Every person who cares about this issue needs to know that if Romney gets elected he will do everything in his power to help the extremist forces within the GOP take away the right of women to make their own health care decisions and obtain the medical services they need.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ethan-rome/war-on-women_b_2042384.html [with comments]
--
Paul Ryan's Record Opposing Abortion Rights Back In Spotlight (VIDEO)
10/28/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/28/paul-ryan-abortion_n_2035051.html [with embedded video, and comments]
===
Mitt Romney's Stem Cell Position May Put Research Funding At Risk
Republican presidential nominee opposes federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and could cut off funds if elected, which researchers say would disrupt their search for cures.
By Jeffrey Young
Posted: 11/02/2012 11:08 am EDT
With the stroke of a pen, Mitt Romney could slow the advance of embryonic stem cell research that has the potential to bring cures to ailments including diabetes, Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Scientists believe embryonic stem cells could someday be used to repair practically any human tissue. One thing they can't remedy is the dispute about the ethics of the research, which destroys human embryos in the process of deriving the cells. President George W. Bush allowed limited federal funding [ http://stemcells.nih.gov/policy/2001policy.htm ] for embryonic stem cell research in 2001, but scientists complained his restrictions were preventing them from moving forward. In 2009, President Barack Obama relaxed the rules [ http://stemcells.nih.gov/policy ] and funded new projects across the country.
The only thing preventing the funding from being cut off is Obama's executive order, which Romney could unilaterally revoke if he were elected president. Right-to-life activists are likely to pressure him to do so.
"We're in a much better place now under the Obama policy, and it would be very disruptive to go back," said George Daley, the director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Children's Hospital Boston and professor at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
Congress passed legislation twice to give the funding protection under the law but Bush vetoed the bills. Lawmakers, including Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), introduced similar bills during Obama's term in office but Congress has yet to act on the measures. In the meantime, Obama's policy nearly was up-ended in 2010 [ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-22/stem-cell-lawsuit-s-chilling-effect-on-laboratories-already-a-win-for-foes.html ] by a lawsuit that was eventually decided in his favor.
Larry Goldstein, a neuroscientist and director of the University of California San Diego Stem Cell Program, hopes Romney doesn't put the field of embryonic stem cell research in jeopardy. "If we had to abandon the use of human embryonic stem cells, we would be set back years. So if you're an ALS patient, you care that we continue working with human embryonic stem cells," he said.
"One would hope that Gov. Romney would not pick a fight that's going to consume a lot of time, potentially hand him a loss and not actually advance what his primary agenda is, which as I understand it, is economic," Goldstein said. "It would get a lot of folks riled up, myself included. We would fight back."
Making a quick and decisive change to Obama's policy on embryonic stem cell research would be one way for Romney to reward wary abortion-rights opponents for their support, said Jonathan Moreno, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy and a part-time adviser to Obama's Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
"This is an easy thing to give them, so I don't think there's any question that he will do that," Moreno said.
One anti-abortion rights activist said while Romney hasn't promised to revoke Obama's executive order, it's definitely what they want him to do.
"We would like to see the 2009 Obama policy to fund the destruction of human embryos for research rescinded," Carrie Gordon Earll, senior director of Issues Analysis for CitizenLink, an affiliate of Focus on the Family, wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. "I wouldn't be surprised if he rescinds it but have not heard him say that he would."
Romney has said his stance on embryonic stem cell research [ http://www.mittromney.com/issues/values ] is inextricably tied to his views on abortion. In 2004 as governor of Massachusetts, Romney had to consider his position on legislation that would have permitted the cloning of human embryos for medical research. Romney later said his decision to oppose it led to the reversal of his support of abortion rights [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/magazine/mitt-romney.html?pagewanted=all ].
Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul didn't respond to emails requesting comment, but the campaign did provide a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last month that affirmed that position [ http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/how-thompson-baldwin-differ-on-stem-cell-research-im75rfj-174113021.html ]. "Federal funding should be limited to research involving adult stem cells or alternate methods," the campaign told the newspaper, in part.
Adult stem cell research predates experiments using human embryos and has already led to the development of therapies such as the procedure NFL quarterback Peyton Manning underwent [ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2011/09/19/peyton-mannings-stem-cell-hail-mary/ ] to treat his injured neck last year. And scientists like Shinya Yamanaka, who won a Nobel Prize for his work in the field, are creating so-called induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS) -- which could be as powerful as embryonic stem cells -- without destroying any embryos.
Romney's position -- that the federal government should only fund research that doesn't involve embryos -- is based on a misunderstanding of stem cells and of how science works, Goldstein said.
"Had human embryonic stem cell research not been pursued, it is very likely that Yamanaka would not have been able to develop his reprogramming methods with human IPS cells," Goldstein said. Studies in one area inform studies in the others, and if the goal is to develop cures to diseases like ALS, the government shouldn't kneecap scientists, he said.
Some states, like California, finance some embryonic stem cell studies and a few private companies are doing research but those alternatives are no substitute for the resources the federal government can provide, Moreno said.
"If they stop those grants, then that work will stop because there is no -- zero -- private funding for stem cells because it's too speculative. And much of the state funding, such as it is, is already committed," he said.
Goldstein believes the scientific community has a bigger worry than the policy on embryonic stem cell research: The National Institutes of Health's budget has been stagnant [ http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/public-global-health/264319-advocates-lament-shrinking-funds-for-medical-research ] for several years and faces deep cuts, along with all discretionary spending under the types of budgets authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), Romney's running mate.
"The United States doesn't invest enough in science and technology," Goldstein said. "Ryan's thoughts about this are completely neanderthal."
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/mitt-romney-stem-cell-research_n_2052424.html [with comments]
===
Oregon Health & Science University DNA Experiment Yields Great Promise And High Ethical Risks
In this image made available by the Oregon Health & Science University, a faint white blotch in the tube at right is DNA that has been removed from a human egg, center. The red dot is from a laser used in the procedure. Scientists have successfully transplanted DNA between human eggs and grown them into early embryos. Someday that technique that may let children avoid inheriting certain diseases - and give them genes from another woman besides Mom.
(AP Photo/Oregon Health & Science University)
By Nick Budnick
Posted: 10/26/2012 7:40 am EDT Updated: 10/26/2012 7:40 am EDT
PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) Future generations could be stripped of mutations like hereditary blindness or maternal diabetes, after a breakthrough study at Oregon Health & Science University.
But the new technique is also one short step from genetic design of future generations, said Marcy Darnovksy of the California-based Center for Genetics and Society. "These powerful new technologies have a whole bunch of wonderful and appropriate uses -- and a number of ways they can be misused."
The researchers, led by OHSU biologist Shoukhrat Mitalipov, modified unfertilized eggs for the first time, a technique that offers great promise as well as ethical pitfalls. Such research is banned in many countries.
Three years ago, the Russian-born Mitalipov made headlines with experiments that created monkeys with genetic material from three parents. Now, his team has done it with human cells, setting the stage for possible experiments with humans.
The procedure dealt with what's called mitochondrial DNA, the small part of the cell that turns food into energy. Mitochondrial disorders can lead to neuropathy (a type of dementia) and nervous system disorders such as Leigh disease.
In a study published Wednesday (Oct. 24) in the journal Nature, the OHSU team described successfully transferring DNA from donor cells into other donor cells, fertilizing the eggs to create 13 tiny early embryos of roughly 100 cells each. These pre-embryos, called blastocysts, were converted to embryonic stem cells for future research.
Key to the technique: replacing the defective mitochondrial DNA with healthy genetic material from the egg of a second woman.
Four monkeys produced this way from Mitalipov's 2009 experiment remain healthy, showing the process is "not only effective but also has no side effects," he said.
Mitalipov stresses that mitochondrial DNA is different from the nucleus DNA that determines physical traits like eye and hair color, or even intelligence and personality. He notes an ethics commission in the United Kingdom has pronounced this kind of research ethical, and the OHSU research was sanctioned by an internal review board.
The research is prohibited in some other countries, but permitted in the U.S, although the government doesn't allow federal funding of it. Mitalipov was not allowed to use his federally funded laboratory in Hillsboro, Ore., instead doing the work in a duplicate lab set up in OHSU's South Waterfront complex in Portland.
OHSU contributed more than $500,000 toward the research, and $150,000 came from the LeDucq Foundation in France.
Only a few groups pursue this research, including one in New York and another in the United Kingdom, where the country is mulling over legalizing this type of technique.
"I think we are the most advanced. Hopefully this will make us leaders in human embryo and stem cell research in the United States and the world," Mitalipov said Wednesday.
The Food and Drug Administration seems open to a small clinical trial transplanting modified embryos into women to study their offspring, meaning it could be offered in a few years in clinics, he added. But he thinks the United Kingdom will fund trials sooner than in the U.S., due to heightened interest there.
Critics, however, say the OHSU technique needs rigorous and lengthy examination, and should provoke more countries to discuss what sorts of research should be pursued.
Darnovksy says that replacing mitochondrial DNA is not that far from replacing DNA in the cell's nucleus -- leading to the highly controversial possibility of "designer babies." She says four healthy monkeys does not rule out nuances that may only emerge in future generations.
"It is a biologically extreme procedure. You're taking apart an egg and putting it back together," she said. "In the real world, there are slippery slopes, and this one is really slippery with a lot of grease on it. We need brakes to slow ourselves down."
Jonathan Kimmelman, an assistant professor of biomedical ethics at McGill University in Montreal, says the battle lines on genetic engineering have relaxed in recent years. But he says there's evidence that mitochondrial DNA may play a role in brain function as well as metabolism.
He agreed that if mitochondrial gene therapy is approved, it will be hard to say no to the more controversial cousin of modifying nucleus DNA.
"There's no reason why we should say yes to one and no to the other," he said.
(Nick Budnick writes for The Oregonian in Portland.)
Copyright 2012 Religion News Service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/26/oregon-health-science-university-dna-experiment_n_2020863.html [with comments]
===
Mormon Missionary Applications Soar By 471 Percent
Missionaries Sister Khanitta Puttapong, center left, and Sister Christina Wong, center right, talk to Casey Ahlstrom, left, and Jason Mondon in Temple Square during the 182nd Semiannual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City on Sunday, Oct, 7, 2012.
(AP Photo/The Salt Lake Tribune, Kim Raff)
By Peggy Fletcher Stack / The Salt Lake Tribune
Posted: 10/25/2012 6:53 am EDT Updated: 10/25/2012 6:53 am EDT
SALT LAKE CITY (RNS) Mormon apostle Jeffrey R. Holland predicted that lowering the age limits for young Mormon missionaries would trigger a "dramatic" uptick in their numbers.
Turns out, "dramatic" was an understatement. Try a 471 percent jump in applications -- so far.
Just two weeks since Mormon President Thomas S. Monson announced that young men could go on full-time missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at age 18 (down from 19) and young women could go at 19 (down from 21), the Utah-based church has seen applications skyrocket from an average of 700 a week to 4,000 a week.
"Slightly more than half of the applicants are women," LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter said Monday (Oct. 22).
That represents a massive shift. Typically, women make up fewer than a fifth of the LDS missionary force, which currently stands at more than 58,000 worldwide.
Ultimately, Mormon leaders hope more missionaries will translate into more converts. Indeed, that may happen.
Matt Martinich, who tracks LDS growth, said in the past 33 years, he found each missionary has baptized -- on average -- six converts, though that number has dipped to five during the past decade.
The church reported 281,312 converts last year. If it sustains the current ratio of one missionary for every five converts a year, Martinich said, there would be 300,000 such baptisms when the number of missionaries reaches 60,000; 350,000 if the number of missionaries reaches 70,000; and 400,000 if the proselytizing force reaches 80,000.
This missionary age adjustment could generate as many as 15,000 more young male missionaries and 7,500 more female missionaries in the first year, Martinich said in a report at http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com .
Copyright 2012 Religion News Service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/mormon-missionary-application-increase-471-percent_n_2011973.html [with comments]
===
Obama or God?
::::OPEN ME
my interview from today I did with What's Trending
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E8vklzT4V0
my video on why I say NO to birth control (recorded March 6, 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOH6wwWEJZ0
my video on Obama vs The Catholic Church (recorded July 27, 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91wJHbOCwdM
my video on Ted Nugent, Mitt Romney and me (recorded April 18, 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mIAu-Go530
this will be one of my last political video for this election (unless something really starts eating me again) I just wanted to get this out there, one last and final time. I have people's attention, now I want you to listen.
giveaway and beauty videos will resume tomorrow!
thanks for understanding, thanks for being sweet, and thanks for all your continued support through it all :)
::::MORE TRISH ON THE WEB!!!!!!!
tweet me @trishapaytas
like me on facebook http://www.facebook.com/OfficialTrishaPaytas
find me on tumblr! http://www.trishapaytas.tumblr.com
instagram: trishapaytas
king of the web http://kingofweb.com/users/blndsundoll4mj
::::MY ONLINE STORES
my jewelry boutique
http://localhooker.bigcartel.com
my tshirts!!!
http://www.trishapaytas.spreadshirt.com
karmaloop clothing (enter repcode blndsundoll4mj at checkout for 20% off your first purchase)
http://www.karmaloop.com/?rcode=blndsundoll4mj
::::CONTACT ME!!!!!!!!
Trisha Paytas
P.O. Box 19102
Encino, CA 91416
for business and bookings tpaytas@hotmail.com
::::CHECK OUT MY OTHER YOUTUBE CHANNELS!
http://www.youtube.com/blndsundoll4mj
http://www.youtube.com/andiekaufman
http://www.youtube.com/iphonetrisha
http://www.youtube.com/thecatholicvlogger
http://www.youtube.com/myownrealityshow
ox
Trish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ytGdjf-ync
===
Oklahoma 'Personhood' Ballot Amendment Appeal Rejected By Supreme Court
* Order issued without comment by court
* Oklahoma top court had struck measure from ballot
Posted: 10/29/2012 1:57 pm EDT
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an attempt by anti-abortion activists to place what they call a "personhood amendment" on the Oklahoma ballot to define an embryo as a human being from the moment of conception.
The anti-abortion group Personhood Oklahoma had appealed to the Supreme Court, challenging the Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision in April to strike down the ballot initiative.
The ballot question would have asked Oklahoma voters to amend the state constitution to expand the definition of a human being to include a fertilized egg. The state's highest court said the proposed constitutional amendment was "clearly unconstitutional" because the U.S. Supreme Court already had decided the issue.
Passage of a personhood law or constitutional amendment would have the effect of banning abortion in the state, both supporters and critics have said.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union and local abortion rights groups sued in March to keep the proposed initiative off the November election ballot.
On appeal to the country's highest court, Personhood Oklahoma argued that the state court's decision to block the initiative took away their supporters' rights to free speech and to participate in the democratic process. But the U.S. Supreme Court, without comment, refused to hear the case, according to an order issued Monday.
Abortion rights groups welcomed the court's decision.
"Pure and simple, these tactics are an affront to our nation's Constitution and a bald-faced attempt to foreclose women's access to a full range of reproductive healthcare," Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement.
Keith Mason, the president of Personhood USA, said the group and its local affiliates would go on trying in Oklahoma and other states to pass such a law through the legislature or the ballot box.
Similar initiatives were successful in placing personhood questions on the ballot in Colorado and Mississippi, but voters in both states defeated the amendments.
The case is Personhood Oklahoma v. Barber et al, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-145.
(Reporting by Terry Baynes in New York; Editing by Howard Goller and Cynthia Osterman)
Copyright 2012 Reuters
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/oklahoma-personhood-supreme-court_n_2040290.html [with comments]
===
Joe Donnelly Building Lead [over Richard Mourdock] In Indiana, Polls Show
11/02/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/donnelly-indiana-poll_n_2063743.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
===
Michele Bachmann Describes Herself As Bipartisan, 'Independent Voice' In Campaign Ad
11/02/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/michele-bachmann-ad-independent-voice_n_2068150.html [with video of the ad embedded, and comments]
===
Heartbeat: My Involuntary Miscarriage and 'Voluntary Abortion' in Ohio
By Tamara Mann
Posted: 11/01/2012 10:30 am
On June 19, the state of Ohio declared that I had a voluntary abortion. My rabbi and my doctors disagreed. I simply wanted to be pregnant.
The ordeal began two weeks earlier; I was in stirrups. The sonogram technician needed more images. When she got them she looked ashen. "You should see a doctor today," she emphasized as she handed me the printed image of my 13-week-old baby or fetus, I still don't know what word to use. "But there is a heartbeat. Thank god there is a heartbeat," I mumbled. I had been here before. But last time, during my first pregnancy, there was no heartbeat.
I waited. I overheard the technician as she looked at the screen with the doctor, "this is bad, this is really bad." He wasn't my doctor, but he had a soft voice with a southern kick that I liked. He saw me, gestured for me to come to his office, and referred to the ailing life in my belly as a baby. "This isn't good," he whispered. "It's really not. Let me show you." He was kind but clear. "The organs are not inside the baby's body. The hands and feet are curled, actually one limb seems to be stunted or missing. The neck isn't right. This really doesn't look good." I looked at the expanded sonogram on his desk. I saw the hands turned in, the area that he referred to as the organs, the dead space where there should be a limb. Minutes ago, I had looked at this same image and smiled. "I don't understand," I replied. "What do I do now?" "Why don't you wait a week," he offered. "I don't understand," I repeated, "can the baby survive? Can these problems be solved? I don't understand exactly what you are telling me." "No, I don't think so," he said finally, "but there are always miracles."
I was withered, but functional. I knew this could happen and knew that I could recover. I had been blessed with a healthy child in between and felt, in my Nana's words, "Why should this be easy?" I decided to wait out the week. Looking pregnant, I returned to work, still hoping that maybe with more quiet time, with more love, next week the baby would be better. As I sat down at my desk, my own doctor called. To him, it was a fetus. "Tamara, I have looked at the scans and I have shown the scans to doctors in my office. I want to tell you that we all agree that this fetus is not compatible with life. It will not survive the pregnancy. You should get it removed immediately. The longer you wait the more risks are involved." I hung up the phone.
The idea of "removing" my baby, my fetus, while its heart was still beating was simply unbearable. Was it living? Was it still growing? Would I be stopping the heartbeat, cutting short its life? And what do I do after the operation? Do I bury it? I didn't understand what I had inside of me and I didn't understand what I should do. I called a dear friend, an Orthodox rabbi, who I knew would be both compassionate and firm. After consulting with his rabbi, he said the case was clear. In situations where the mother's health is at risk and the fetus (he explicitly said fetus) is not viable, Jewish law errs on the side of the mother's health. I should have the operation and I should not bury the fetus -- it is not a life.
The next morning I got the following message, "Because your fetus still has a heartbeat, it has been our experience that insurance companies in Ohio will not cover the costs of the operation. They consider it an optional abortion. Our office suggests that you go to Planned Parenthood, which will only run you $800. If you go to the hospital it will be over $10,000." I was stunned. What did my insurance company want, for me to have a dangerous late-stage miscarriage or go through the risks of labor to give birth to a stillborn? And why this obsession with the heartbeat as the sole marker of life? What about organ and brain function, what about viability? At that moment, I was extremely grateful for Planned Parenthood. But I still didn't want to go there. I wanted to support them, but I didn't want to have an abortion. I didn't even want to have anything that seemed like an abortion. I wanted to be pregnant. I wanted to have a baby.
My home morphed into a crazy lair of pencil scribbling, tissues and phone numbers. For three days we fought. My husband, my parents and my doctors made phone calls, wrote letters and tried every avenue possible to get the insurance company to change their mind. Finally, three days later, we got the news. Because of my doctor's carefully crafted letter, my insurance company would cover the procedure.
I thought the political nightmare was over. I thought I could start the process of mourning. I was wrong.
Another phone call, this time from the office of the OBGYN performing the procedure. You must come in 24 hours in advance. "Why?" "To sign a consent form." "What consent form?" Silence. "Well, you only don't have to sign it if you were raped." I was still completely confused. "I wasn't raped. I don't understand. What are you talking about?" "You are having an optional abortion right?" "No. I am having a therapeutic D&C (dilation and curettage operation to remove the fetus and womb lining) to remove a non-viable fetus." "But the baby is alive?" "Well, according to my religious faith, that is not so." "Is there a heartbeat?" "Yes." "Then, I am sorry to say, you are having an elective abortion and you must sign an informed consent 24 hours before the operation."
Roe v. Wade gave states the right to regulate abortion. State laws can mandate that doctors describe the risks of abortion and receive the informed consent of a woman before proceeding. In Ohio, a physician must meet with the pregnant woman 24 hours before the operation to explain the procedure, give the state sponsored materials on alternatives to abortion and receive a signed form stating that the pregnant woman "consents to the particular abortion voluntarily, knowingly, intelligently, and without coercion by any person...." There are "medical necessity" exceptions to this ruling, but due to custom more than statute, the sign of a heartbeat trumps other prognoses.
While Ohio is not the only state preoccupied with the heartbeat, it seems to be one of the most committed. On March 3, 2011, two pregnant women received ultrasounds in a state committee hearing. As Charles Lewis of the National Post reported, "The lobbying effort to end abortion in the United States moved into strange new territory Wednesday as two fetuses were presented via ultrasound to a packed committee room of the Ohio state legislature." State legislatures looked on as "a technician used a probe to show images of each woman's fetus on a portable screen. A heart monitor was used to project the sound of the beating heart of each fetus, nine and 15 weeks." This display was in service of the Heartbeat Bill, a piece of legislation that would make abortion illegal once a heartbeat could be detected. The bill passed the House but not the Senate.
In the vice presidential debate, Paul Ryan continued in this tradition, explaining his pro-life decision as a matter of "reason and science." He continued, "You know, I think about 10 ½ years ago, my wife Janna and I went to Mercy Hospital in Janesville where I was born, for our seven week ultrasound for our firstborn child, and we saw that heartbeat." What is going on here? Why have so many people settled on the heartbeat as the best marker of life in-utero? This is not science. It is the tyranny of a metaphor.
There is little consensus among biologists, doctors and ethicists on when life begins. The language here can be tricky. There all sorts of things they agree are alive -- from cells, to animals, to people. But that is not what they mean when they discuss life in utero. In this case, they mean life as something endowed with humanness, and worthy of rights, something closer to personhood. A brief look at the literature reveals a litany of standards for determining personhood: conception (day 1), implantation (day 6-7), detectable heartbeat (approximately week 6), detectable brain activity (approximately week 8), quickening (when the mother can feel the fetus moving), development of the cerebral cortex (at the end of the first trimester), viability outside the mother's body (now as early as 24 weeks with medical support), when the head is visible during labor, and when the baby takes its first breath. Smart, thoughtful people genuinely disagree. Even the Supreme Court had this to say about the issue in 1973: "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciples of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus...."
In Judaism, the dominant metaphor for life is not the heartbeat -- it is the breath. In Genesis 2:7, God breathes life into man: "Then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man become a living soul." Even that final word, soul, nefesh, can be translated as breath. My own rabbi's rabbi, Dov Linzer, explained it to me in this way. The definition of life can also be understood through our definition of death. At the end of life, the Talmud speaks almost exclusively about breathing. Breath was used as an indicator for life. The Shulchan Aruch says to test for a dying person's breath to know whether or not they are alive. So, if death is the absence of breath, life is the presence of breath. Life, personhood, is marked when the baby takes its first breath.
While a fetus is not considered actual life, Jewish law does acknowledge a continuum between potential and actual life, which guides, among other considerations, including the health of the mother, abortion rulings. According to Rabbi Linzer, the presence of a heartbeat, in itself, is not an important Jewish legal marker in determining the viability of life in utero. Even in the strictest ruling, he related to me, the fetus has to be able to live for a day outside of the mother's womb to be considered a viable life. The definition of potential life, he said, "is fully dependent on it being able to be born."
Life is not instantaneous. It is an arduous, miraculous, process. So many steps have to align -- so much has to go exactly right for a baby to take its first breath. When we start to think of life this way, the pro-choice/pro-life debates seem to me almost cruel. Neither accurately explains the moral nuance of each individual's situation or honors the complexity of creation. I wish we could reframe the debate and talk more about what it would mean to honor the sanctity of life. To honor the actual lives of pregnant women and the potential lives they hold within them.
On June 19, I sat down in another doctor's office and, as was required of me, read the pamphlet, "Fetal Development and Family Planning." I looked at pictures of fetuses at 12 and 14 weeks. I learned that at 12 weeks "a doctor may be able tell if it is a boy or a girl," and at 14 weeks "the head is erect and the legs are developed." The doctor was kind and she didn't make me watch the sonogram. She told me how lucky I was that my insurance would cover this and that she had a patient just a few months ago with my prognosis that had to give birth to a stillborn.
The next day, I had the operation. In the hospital, nurses, many of whom told me that they leaned toward pro-life, sympathized with my situation. Together, we chatted about the D&C, about how complicated it can be to have a child, and about how difficult this kind of a miscarriage can be. In those hours the debate between pro-choice and pro-life dissolved into one much more subtle and specific, one between the health of a mother and the viability of a fetus. One that felt like it was just about me.
When the anesthesia wore off, my two friends, who had traveled to be with me for the operation, told me that the doctor had come in. What did she say? She said the operation went very well. She also said that they did a sonogram before the operation. Tamara, she said, the heartbeat had already stopped.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tamara-mann/heartbeat-involuntary-miscarriage-and-voluntary-abortion-in-ohio_b_2050888.html [with comments]
===
John Koster: No Abortion for Survivors Of "The Rape Thing"
October 28, 2012: Tea Party Congressional Candidate John Koster explains why he opposes abortion in cases of incest and "the rape thing." When asked about the devastating consequences this would have for survivors, his response was "crime has consequences." Warning: this is disturbing if you believe women should have any control over their bodies.
UPDATE: For press inquires, contact Press@FuseWashington.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU_tqVz_bcs [via/more at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/john-koster-the-rape-thing_n_2051752.html (with comments)]
===
Hindus And Muslims Most Likely To Abstain From Premarital Sex According To New Study
By Jeanie Groh
Posted: 10/28/2012 8:21 am EDT
(RNS) With their "True Love Waits" jewelry, conferences and T-shirts, Christians may be the face of the abstinence movement, but Muslims and Hindus are more likely to abstain from premarital sex.
That's the conclusion of a new study in the American Sociological Review, which also found that Muslims and Hindus -- at least in the developing world -- are more likely than Christians and Jews to refrain from extramarital sex.
"All major world religions discourage sex outside of marriage, but they are not all equally effective in shaping behavior," said Amy Adamczyk of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who co-authored the study with John Jay doctoral student Brittany E. Hayes.
Drawing on the Demographic and Health Surveys funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the study included data from 31 developing nations collected between 2000 and 2008. The authors focused on individuals' responses to questions on religious affiliation, marital status, and sexual behavior outside of marriage.
Adamczyk said the study evolved from another study she was doing that found countries with large Muslim populations have very low rates of HIV and AIDS. "I was trying to figure out why that would be," she said. One reason she considered was lower rates of sex outside of marriage.
The authors hypothesized that the larger the proportion of Muslims and Hindus in a country, the lower the rates of premarital and extramarital sex.
Adamczyk and Hayes found that 94 percent of Jews in the nations they studied reported having premarital sex, compared to 79 percent of Christians, 65 percent of Buddhists, 43 percent of Muslims and 19 percent of Hindus.
As for extramarital sex, 4 percent of Jews reported having sex outside of marriage, compared to 3 percent of Christians. Less than one percent each of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists reported having extramarital sex.
"In many countries around the world -- but in Muslim countries specifically, there's just much less interaction between the sexes," said Adamczyk. "It's just going to be much less likely that they're going to meet a potentially romantic partner."
The Rev. Paul Sullins, a sociologist at the Catholic University of America, said the study's findings are not surprising, because much of the data comes from conservative Islamic nations.
"The burqa really works," Sullins said. "When you cover your women head to toe with cloth to keep them from being viewed by men outside their family, and you keep them strictly segregated from men throughout their growing years until they get married, you're going to have less premarital sex."
Suzy Ismail, a marriage and divorce counselor and the author of several books on Muslim marriage, said low rates of premarital and extramarital sex among Muslims are rooted in the religion.
"For Muslims, any form of zinna (fornication or adultery) or anything that leads to zinna is religiously prohibited," Ismail said. "In consistently reminding others and oneself of the importance of modest dress, modest actions, and modest interactions, Muslims tend to inculcate the concepts of sexual morals from a young age."
Copyright 2012 Religion News Service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/premarital-sex-hindus-muslims-abstain_n_2030650.html [with comments]
--
Religion and Sexual Behaviors
Understanding the Influence of Islamic Cultures and Religious Affiliation for Explaining Sex Outside of Marriage
http://asr.sagepub.com/content/77/5/723.full
===
YG Network [Young Guns Network], Conservative Group, Says Women Should Vote For 'The Cute One'
Rep. Sean Duffy, a.k.a. "the cute one"
11/01/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/yg-network-young-guns-women-vote-for-the-cute-one_n_2051420.html [with comments] [the YouTube of the ad at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=errkE2orSmk ]
===
Todd Akin Gets Fresh National Republican Funding For Advertising
11/01/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/todd-akin-republican-funding_n_2051876.html [with comments]
--
Todd Akin Campaign Features Rape Victim In Ad Targeting Women
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/todd-akin-ad_n_2059088.html [ad at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doY2YSU8FBY ] [with comments]
===
David Cicilline, Rhode Island Democratic Congressman, Linked To Child Molester In GOP TV Ad
10/31/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/david-cicilline-child-molester_n_2050630.html [with the ad embedded, and comments]
===
Rabbi Leiter Blames Hurricane Sandy on Gays, Marriage Equality
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-rabbi-blames-hurricane-sandy-gays-marriage-equality
Rabbi Noson Leiter of Torah Jews for Decency blames Hurricane Sandy on gays and lesbians, calling it "divine justice" for New York's marriage equality law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB6MPcZ1Nn8 [via/more at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/hurricane-sandy-new-york-gay-marriage-law-rabbi-noson-leiter_n_2050450.html (with comments)]
===
Mark Regnerus, Gay Parenting Study Sociologist, Defends Research In New Interview
Posted: 10/31/2012 9:35 am EDT
The Texas sociologist who sparked controversy earlier this year with a heavily-criticized study of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) parenting [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/debra-umberson/texas-professors-gay-research_b_1628988.html ] is speaking out about his findings, but whether his remarks truly constitute a defense is questionable.
Mark Regnerus, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, tells Focus on the Family's Citizen magazine [ http://www.citizenlink.com/2012/10/26/friday-5-mark-regnerus/ ] that while he stands behind his work, he would do a few things differently, particularly in terms of language used in the findings, if given the opportunity.
"I’d be more careful about the language I used to describe people whose parents had same-sex relationships," Regenus told the magazine. "I said 'lesbian mothers' and 'gay fathers,' when in fact, I don’t know about their sexual orientation; I do know about their same-sex relationship behavior."
He also noted:
"Finding someone whose parent had some sort of same-sex relationship as they were growing up is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I got taken to task for leaning on young adults’ assessments of their parents’ relationships. I didn’t ask them whether they thought their mom was a lesbian or if their dad was gay. Because, in part, self-identity is a different kind of thing than behavior, and lot of people weren’t 'out' in that era. I think we can all think of moms and dads when we were growing up that we either knew or suspected were gay or lesbian, but never 'came out of the closet,' so to speak."
Though criticized by a number of high-profile sociologists [ http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/six-more-sociology-phds-call-for-retraction-of-regnerus-anti-gay-study/news/2012/10/23/50968 ], Regnerus' study -- which was partly funded by the Witherspoon Institute, which has ties to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) -- has received nonetheless received praise from several conservative pundits. Among them was the American Family Association [ http://www.afa.net/ ]'s Bryan Fischer, who noted that news that University of Texas would be conducting an investigation into Regnerus' study was proof that "the homosexual lobby is vicious, they are venomous, [and] they are filled with hatred," according to Right Wing Watch [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/fischer-gay-biological-parents-should-be-denied-custody-and-only-allowed-supervised-visits ].
Meanwhile, Darren E. Sherkat, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, called Regnerus' findings "bullsh*t," noting that the paper's loose definition of "lesbian mothers" and “gay fathers” should have “disqualified it immediately,” according to The Chronicle of Higher Education[ http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/controversial-gay-parenting-study-is-severely-flawed-journals-audit-finds/30255 ].
Added Wendy Simonds, a sociology professor at Georgia State University [ http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwsoc/2753.html ]: "Regnerus’s 'data' on gay and lesbian parents are unrepresentative of gay and lesbian parents, and, in my view, are presented so as to advance a homophobic agenda.”
The American Medical Association and the President of the American Sociological Association have also put their names to documents which called Regnerus’ methodology scientifically unsound, according to The New Civil Rights Movement [ http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/six-more-sociology-phds-call-for-retraction-of-regnerus-anti-gay-study/news/2012/10/23/50968 ].
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/mark-regnerus-gay-parenting-study-defense_n_2045960.html [with comments]
===
One Man Guides the Fight Against Gay Marriage
Frank Schubert, second from left, in a post-meeting prayer. He is leading the campaign against same-sex marriage initiatives in four states.
Matt Roth for The New York Times
By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: October 9, 2012
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — In the roiling state-by-state war over same-sex marriage [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/same_sex_marriage/index.html ], the campaign against marriage rights has been masterminded largely by one man.
Frank Schubert, a former corporate public relations executive, ran the $40 million, come-from-behind push for Proposition 8 [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/californias_proposition_8_samesex_marriage/index.html ] in California in 2008. He went on to mount successful campaigns to defeat same-sex marriage in Maine and North Carolina. Now, with marriage initiatives on the ballot in Maryland, Minnesota, Washington State and Maine, Mr. Schubert is the chief strategist in all four at once.
Gay rights leaders despise Mr. Schubert, who has devoted himself to the issue in recent years, for what they call his misleading arguments. They have also learned to fear him for messages that are less openly harsh than those voiced by many other opponents of gay rights: a strategy aimed at reassuring the moderate voters who decide such elections that barring gays and lesbians from marriage does not make them bigots.
Citing polls showing growing public acceptance and armed with more than $25 million, gay rights leaders hope to win their first ballot victory for same-sex marriage on Nov. 6. But they are bracing for a rush of Schubert-designed television ads in the four contested states.
“Everyone has a right to love who they choose,” says an ad now running in Minnesota, “but nobody has a right to redefine marriage.”
Telling voters they are not prejudiced if they vote against same-sex marriage is “diabolically smart and creative,” said Fred Sainz, vice president for communications of the Human Rights Campaign, a national advocacy group for gay rights. “He is putting lipstick on the pig of discrimination.”
For his part, Mr. Schubert, who has a lesbian sister raising two children in a domestic partnership, says, “It’s hurtful to know that many people think I dislike gays and lesbians and wish them harm.”
He spoke during an interview here in Maryland’s capital, where he was making last-minute tweaks to television ads and meeting with local organizers in what seems likely to be a close race.
Mr. Schubert expects to spend some $12.5 million over all, with one-third of the total provided by the National Organization for Marriage, the largest private group financing campaigns against same-sex marriage. In Minnesota, the Catholic Conference is providing $1 million.
His opponents have raised $25 million so far, a tally that includes $4.4 million from the Human Rights Campaign and a donation of $2.5 million in Washington State from the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife.
In the six states that permit it, and the District of Columbia, same-sex marriage was mandated by courts or approved by the Legislature. But every time the issue has been on the ballot, in 32 states in a row, voters have come out against same-sex marriage. (Thirty states have constitutional amendments defining marriage as solely between a man and a woman, and another 11 have laws restricting marriage).
“If the other side succeeds this fall, I’m certain that it will open up a whole new front,” Mr. Schubert said, predicting that groups in California, Oregon and elsewhere would be emboldened to bring forth public referendums.
Mr. Schubert, 56, attended Catholic schools in Sacramento, Calif., where he still lives with his wife. At age 22, he was chief of staff to a Republican assemblywoman. He entered public relations and became known, in the world of political consultants, for winning dozens of issue-oriented ballot campaigns on behalf of corporations: defeating proposals to increase tobacco taxes and to require restaurants to offer health insurance to employees.
He had not thought much about the marriage issue, he said, before he was tapped in 2008 to run the Proposition 8 campaign, which was mounted by religious conservatives to override the California Supreme Court decision permitting same-sex marriage. With a budget of $40 million, more than matched by opponents, he mounted a campaign with button-pushing ads.With that victory, Mr. Schubert won national attention, and his life took a sharp turn.
“The more I learned about the marriage issue, the more committed I became,” he recalled.
He threw himself into the cause, teaming with the National Organization for Marriage [ http://www.nationformarriage.org/ ], which pays him a retainer for strategic advice. Brian S. Brown, the organization’s president, praised Mr. Schubert in an interview as “the best in the business.”
This year, as his activism began to turn off corporate clients, Mr. Schubert left Schubert Flint Public Affairs, the consulting firm he founded in 2003, and started a new one, Mission: Public Affairs [ http://missionpublicaffairs.com/ ], which he says will be entirely devoted to social causes.
“I think God has a plan for our lives,” Mr. Schubert said of his shift. While the new focus is not as lucrative as corporate work, he continues to do well, receiving monthly fees of $10,000 to $20,000 from each of the four state campaigns and earning a commission on the voluminous ads he places on radio and television.
Mr. Schubert said that while he tailors messages to each state, certain themes have proved effective: that marriage between a man and a woman is the tested foundation of a stable society, that children do best when raised by a married father and mother, and that “it is possible to respect the rights of gays and lesbians without redefining marriage.”
“This is a difficult argument,” he said, “because it sounds as if we’re saying gay couples can’t have loving relationships or care for children, which is not the case.”
Gay rights leaders counter that they are not seeking to redefine marriage but to end discrimination. They say that the claims about child-rearing are unfounded and that while Mr. Schubert may profess a lack of personal prejudice, his sponsors have often vilified homosexuals.
“They’re trying to soften the rhetoric as it becomes clear that our society now frowns on being openly antigay,” said Mr. Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign.
In each of the four states, Mr. Schubert is working with a local team that will mount the “ground game,” mobilizing volunteers to knock on doors and run phone banks. He creates the advertising and approves the message.
Here in Maryland [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/us/in-maryland-gay-marriage-seeks-a-yes-at-the-polls.html ], the Rev. Derek McCoy is chairman and daily supervisor of the campaign to overturn, in a referendum, the Legislature’s adoption of same-sex marriage this year. At the recent meeting, Mr. Schubert and Mr. McCoy nodded approvingly as staff members described enlisting more Hispanic pastors and Seventh-day Adventists.
Conservative black pastors like Mr. McCoy have led the battle against same-sex marriage in this state, where Democrats dominate and more than 20 percent of voters are black. But securing the minority vote became more complicated when President Obama and the N.A.A.C.P. both endorsed a broadening of marriage rules.
Mr. McCoy said that in his experience most blacks remained firmly opposed. “I tell people that it’s fine if you want to vote for the president,” he said, “but vote what you feel on marriage.”
Mr. Schubert already has his eye on the next year or two, when he sees marriage battles brewing in Rhode Island, New Jersey and several other states. And he is talking with potential clients about campaigns to protect religious liberty and fight abortion.
But for now, he knows, the task is to extend that unbroken record of ballot victories in four states where, he notes, gay rights advocates are sure to outspend him. “To be sure, these are all deep blue states, so no doubt we have a challenge,” he said. “That said, at 32-0, I still like my chances.”
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/us/politics/frank-schubert-mastermind-in-the-fight-against-gay-marriage.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/us/politics/frank-schubert-mastermind-in-the-fight-against-gay-marriage.html?pagewanted=all ]
===
Marriage on the Ballot
Editorial
Published: October 30, 2012
The freedom to marry is a fundamental right that should not have to be won or defended at the ballot box. In fact, ballot initiatives are a bad way to write or rewrite laws of any kind. Unfortunately, that is the reality of American politics, which is why same-sex marriage measures on the Nov. 6 ballot in Maine, Washington, Maryland and Minnesota could turn out to be pivotal in the struggle for marriage equality.
Thanks to court rulings and legislative victories, same-sex marriage is now legal in six states and the District of Columbia, and polls show that a majority of Americans support the legalization of marriages for gay, lesbian and bisexual couples. But same-sex marriage has never won a ballot referendum.
The measure in Maine probably has the best chance of winning. Three years ago, Maine voters rejected a marriage-equality bill [ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/us/05marriage.html ] that had been approved by the State Legislature. But, instead of giving up, supporters of the freedom to marry went right back to knocking on doors, raising money, honing their arguments and organizing for a new vote this fall to legalize same-sex marriages.
Although recent polls of likely Maine voters are encouraging, the outcome is still far from certain. Historically, polls on such ballot tests have been misleading, and anti-marriage forces are waging a loud propaganda campaign. They are running television commercials [ http://www.wgme.com/news/top-stories/stories/wgme_vid_13810.shtml ] suggesting that marriage-equality opponents would be unfairly “fired, sued, fined and punished” if the referendum passes, and that it is possible to treat gay and lesbian couples fairly while still excluding them from the right to marry. It would help if the state’s two supposedly moderate Republican senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, who is retiring, would stand up against forces of intolerance within their party by publicly supporting the referendum.
In Washington State, voters will be deciding whether to let stand the authorization of same-sex marriage handily approved by the Legislature [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/us/washington-state-set-to-legalize-same-sex-marriage.html ] and signed into law by the state’s Democratic governor, Christine Gregoire [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/us/washington-gay-marriage-legalized.html ], in February. As in Maine, opponents of marriage equality are trying to make the fallacious argument that marriage equality would somehow harm heterosexual couples. They also insist that the domestic partnership scheme approved by voters in the state three years ago goes far enough.
The state’s Roman Catholic leaders have played a vocal role in trying to turn out a big “no” vote by Catholic parishioners. But major corporate players in the Seattle area, including Microsoft, Amazon and Starbucks, are supporting the measure. That is an encouraging development for the future of the issue nationwide.
Same-sex marriage also stands a chance of prevailing in Maryland, where the same-sex marriage law was narrowly approved by both chambers of the Legislature [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/us/maryland-gay-marriage-bill-sent-to-governor.html ] and signed in March by the state’s Democratic governor, Martin O’Malley. But the law was put off when opponents gathered sufficient signatures to toss the issue to a voter referendum.
If the law is approved by voters, the victory will owe much to the vigorous campaigning of Mr. O’Malley, the momentum created by President Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality and efforts, including by the N.A.A.C.P., to bolster support among blacks, who make up nearly 30 percent of Maryland’s residents.
The issue before Minnesota voters is whether to double-down on the state’s existing law outlawing same-sex marriage by enshrining the antigay ban in the State Constitution. With polls showing a tight contest, it is hard to believe that a majority of Minnesotans would opt to place their state so sharply on the wrong side of fairness.
*
Related
Supporters of Same-Sex Marriage See Room for Victories (October 31, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/us/politics/gay-marriage-supporters-hope-to-win-in-4-states.html
Times Topic: Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions, and Domestic Partnerships
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/same_sex_marriage/index.html
Related in Opinion
Frank Bruni's Blog: Maine's Marriage Hero (October 18, 2012)
http://bruni.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/maines-marriage-hero/
City Room: Mayor Lends Hand to Gay-Marriage Push in Maryland (October 12, 2012)
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/12/mayor-lends-a-hand-to-gay-marriage-push-in-maryland/
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/opinion/marriage-on-the-ballotsame-sex-on-the-ballot-in-4-states.html [with comments]
===
Kyle Wood Assault 'Unfounded,' As Wisconsin Volunteer Recants Claim Of Hate Crime Attack
By Sarah Bufkin
Posted: 10/30/2012 4:06 pm EDT Updated: 10/30/2012 8:30 pm EDT
A former full-time volunteer for Wisconsin state senator and U.S. House candidate Chad Lee (R) recanted his claim Monday that he had suffered a beating and threats for his sexuality and political affiliation. Kyle Wood [ http://host.madison.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/volunteer-for-chad-lee-recants-story-of-attack-for-being/article_93cfc308-2220-11e2-8351-001a4bcf887a.html ], 29, had originally reported to the Madison, Wis., police that a man had broken into his apartment and proceeded to assault and threaten him on Oct. 24.
"I was getting ready for work and there was a knock at the door," Wood said in an email to The Daily Caller [ http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/25/wisconsin-gop-campaign-worker-hospitalized-after-apparent-gay-bashing-assault/ ]. "I opened it, and a guy wrapped a ligature around my neck, slammed my head into the doorway, and smashed my face into a mirror, telling me 'You should have kept your [f****t] mouth shut.'"
He also said that someone had vandalized his car earlier that week, spray-painting it with abusive comments like "house-trained republican f****t" and "traitor."
Wood had worked full-time for Lee's campaign as the Republican candidate runs for the House seat left vacant by outgoing Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). Lee's opponent, state Rep. Mark Pocan (D), is openly gay and holds a substantial cash advantage [ http://www.waow.com/story/19924808/pocan-has-cash-edge-in-wis-house-district-2-race ].
The story, which the right-leaning Daily Caller first reported on Oct. 25, spread to the state media and across the Internet. Wood gave interviews to local talk show host Vicki McKenna and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Christian Schneider. The Journal-Sentinel has since removed the interview [ http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/purple-wisconsin/176334541.html ] from its site.
Lee's campaign confirmed that it would no longer employ Wood after learning of his reversal.
"A deeply troubled volunteer misled police, news outlets and our own team in regards to events that he alleged," the campaign said in a statement [ http://host.madison.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/volunteer-for-chad-lee-recants-story-of-attack-for-being/article_93cfc308-2220-11e2-8351-001a4bcf887a.html ] released Monday.
Wood has refrained from commenting since his interview with the police on Monday afternoon. Following that meeting, the police department updated its incident report to reflect that the previously reported claim was "unfounded [ http://www.cityofmadison.com/incidentReports/incidentDetail.cfm?id=13821 ]."
Madison Police Capt. Joe Balles notes [ http://host.madison.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/volunteer-for-chad-lee-recants-story-of-attack-for-being/article_93cfc308-2220-11e2-8351-001a4bcf887a.html ] that the Republican staffer could face criminal prosecution for the false reporting of a hate crime, but that the department also does not want to deter residents from coming forward in the future.
"We're in the victims business," Balles told Isthmus [ http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=38133 ], an alternative Wisconsin newpaper. "We really need victims to come forward. We don't take matters like this lightly."
When Wood first contacted The Daily Caller with the story, he submitted photos detailing the injuries he sustained to his face and neck. It is unclear whether Wood inflicted the injuries on himself [ http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/10/gay-republican-recants-allegation-he-was-attacked.html ] or if he simply made up the political backstory to an unrelated violent act.
The issue of falsely reported hate crimes also came into play before the 2008 presidential election. In October of that year, a Republican campaign volunteer for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) carved a backwards "B" [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/24/mccain-supporter-who-clai_n_137484.html ] into her own cheek and told police that a black man had done it after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/30/kyle-wood-assault-gay-republican-wisconsin_n_2044888.html [with comments]
===
Jack Wu, Friend Of Westboro Baptist Church, Spends No Money In Ed Board Race, Could Win Anyway
Jack Wu, the GOP candidate vying for a spot on the Kansas State Board of Education, has neither raised money nor spent any. However, some say the "R" by Wu's name will be enough to secure him a certain number of votes in his conservative district.
By Meredith Bennett-Smith
Posted: 11/01/2012 6:50 pm EDT Updated: 11/01/2012 6:55 pm EDT
Jack Wu, who's been associated with the highly controversial Westboro Baptist Church, is vying for a spot [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/02/jack-wu-kansas-westboro-directions_n_1933522.html ] on the Kansas State Board of Education. The anti-evolution, fundamentalist Christian candidate has raised no money, and spent none, according to recently released campaign records, but some say that may not matter in his conservative district.
According to the Associated Press, Wu said he has always planned to spend nothing [ http://cjonline.com/news/2012-10-31/kansas-education-board-challenger-spends-nothing ] on his campaign in the state's 4th District. Wu, the GOP candidate, recently had to file his official campaign reports, and the documents confirm he has collected only $5 in cash contributions, received $9.99 in donated goods and services, and spent zero.
“I don’t like asking for money,” Wu told AP. “It’s not my style.” In comparison, Wu's opponent, the incumbent Democrat Carolyn Campbell, so far has raised $16,000, and spent about $12,300.
But in the conservative district, the "R" (for Republican) by Wu's name is enough to assure him a certain number of votes [id.], Kansas Democratic Party Chairwoman Joan Wagnon told AP. In little-known races, she said, voters tend to stick to party lines.
However, the Kansas Board of Education election is attracting more attention than normal this year due to a couple of factors.
Among those is Wu's connection to the widely unpopular Westboro Church [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/westboro-baptist-church-hurricane-sandy-east-coast_n_2039564.html ]. According to Raw Story, Wu has said he attends their services, but is not a member [ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/31/westboro-baptist-candidate-for-kansas-board-of-education-only-raises-5/ ]. The Topeka-based organization is infamous for picketing the funerals of military service members and carrying obscene, anti-LGBT signs.
Additionally, five of the board's 10 spots are on the ballot this year, with three contested races. The elections are being watched by education experts because of their possible role in an emerging conflict over science standards for public schools [ http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/Science-debate-shadows-Kan-school-board-hopefuls-3984592.php ], according to The San Francisco Chronicle. This year, the board may vote on new standards regarding both evolution and climate change.
According to his website [ http://www.jpwu.info/2.html ], Wu is running in order to "to throw out the crap that teachers are feeding their students and replace it with healthy good for the soul knowledge from the holy scriptures."
Let's be specific. Evolution should never be taught in public schools as science. Evolution is false science! God made the heaven and the earth and created humans from the dust of the earth! The very bad teachers that teach that men descended from apes via evolution need to have their teaching licenses revoked. Yes, students should be taught that God created everything.
Clay Barker, executive director of the Kansas Republican Party, said Wu "does not have any connection or been in contact with the Kansas Republican Party, other than filing as a Republican — something the party has no control over," according to the Topeka Capital-Journal [ http://cjonline.com/news/2012-06-20/wbc-devotee-seeks-state-board-ed-seat ].
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/jack-wu-westboro-baptist-church-money-race_n_2060212.html [with comments]
===
Psychic pair fail scientific test
30 October 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20145664
===
Catholic Bishop Who Compared Obama To Hitler Orders Anti-Obama Letter Read From Pulpit
Bishop Daniel Jenky
By Ian Millhiser on Nov 1, 2012 at 9:00 am
Last April, Bishop Daniel Jenky, a Catholic bishop from Illinois, delivered a homily claiming that President Obama “now seems intent on following a similar path” to Adolf Hitler [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/17/466053/catholic-bishop-claims-obama-is-following-a-similar-path-to-hitler/ ] because of his “radical, pro abortion and extreme secularist agenda.” On Wednesday, he came within a hair of ordering every priest under his supervision to campaign for Mitt Romney.
In a letter, Jenky told the priests in his diocese “{b}y virtue of your vow of obedience to me as your Bishop, I require that this letter be personally read by each celebrating priest at each Weekend Mass, November 3/4.” The letter leaves little doubt that Jenky wants Obama out of the White House [ http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/peoria-bishop-orders-catholics-polls ]:
Neither the president of the United States nor the current majority of the Federal Senate have been willing to even consider the Catholic community’s grave objections to those HHS mandates that would require all Catholic institutions, exempting only our church buildings, to fund abortion, sterilization, and artificial contraception. . . . Nearly two thousand years ago, after our Savior had been bound, beaten, scourged, mocked, and crowned with thorns, a pagan Roman Procurator displayed Jesus to a hostile crowd by sarcastically declaring: Behold your King. The mob roared back: We have no king but Caesar. Today, Catholic politicians, bureaucrats, and their electoral supporters who callously enable the destruction of innocent human life in the womb also thereby reject Jesus as their Lord. They are objectively guilty of grave sin.
For those who hope for salvation, no political loyalty can ever take precedence over loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ and to his Gospel of Life. God is not mocked, and as the Bible clearly teaches, after this passing instant of life on earth, God’s great mercy in time will give way to God’s perfect judgment in eternity.
I therefore call upon every practicing Catholic in this Diocese to vote. Be faithful to Christ and to your Catholic Faith.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops proclaimed that the federal budget must place “[t]he needs of those who are hungry and homeless, without work or in poverty” first — adding that the Republican budget authored by vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan “fails to meet these moral criteria [ http://www.usccb.org/news/2012/12-063.cfm ].” Pope Benedict XVI, for his part, called for more robust government involvement to combat wealth inequality [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/04/10/461673/ryan-budget-ignores-catholic-teaching/ ]. Yet Jenky seems completely unmoved by these prongs of Catholic doctrine.
Jenky’s opposition to birth control all puts him wildly out of step with his flock. 82 percent of Catholics [ http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/05/23/489006/82-percent-of-catholics-birth-control/ ] say birth control is “morally acceptable,” and 54 percent of Catholics [ http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/10/22/1062691/poll-religiously-affiliated-organizations-should-provide-contraception-coverage/ ] believe religiously affiliated organizations should be required to offer health plans to their employees that include contraception coverage.
© 2012 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/11/01/1120731/catholic-bishop-who-compared-obama-to-hitler-orders-anti-obama-letter-read-from-pulpit/ [with comments]
===
Nones Form Biggest Slice Of Obama's Religious Voters
Supporters hold banners and a doll as President Barack Obama shakes hands with supporters during a campaign event at Triangle Park in Dayton, Ohio, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012, the day after the last presidential debate against Republican Presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
By Lauren Markoe
Posted: 10/23/2012 9:26 pm EDT Updated: 10/23/2012 9:26 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (RNS) The largest slice of President Barack Obama's religious coalition -- at 23 percent -- is not very religious.
They're the "nones," also known as unaffiliated voters, according to a new American Values Survey by the Public Religion Research Institute.
Gov. Mitt Romney's biggest bloc of religious voters are white evangelical Protestants, at 37 percent, followed by white mainline Protestants and white Catholics, each at 19 percent. Comparing the candidates' supporters, the more diverse religious and nonreligious coalition that's favoring Obama tends to be younger and growing, which could make it easier for Democrats to win elections in the future.
But there's a down side for Obama, said Dan Cox, PRRI's research director.
"The people most likely to support him are the least likely to vote: Latinos, the millennials (voters 18-29), and the unaffiliated," Cox said.
The study, a comprehensive pre-election survey on the religious and political preferences of American voters, co-authored by the Brookings Institution, zeroes in on the unaffiliated, dividing them into three distinct categories. The report also delves into the Catholic vote, and finds a hardening of the divides within it.
White Catholics today have a stronger preference for Romney than Obama, 54 to 42 percent. That's a wider margin than in 2008, when white Catholics preferred Republican John McCain over Obama, 53 to 47 percent.
With Hispanic Catholics, it's the opposite: a clear preference for Obama, with 71 percent preferring him, compared to 23 percent for Romney.
The survey also highlighted another divide within Catholic voters: those who are more comfortable with their church taking a lead on social justice issues and those who prefer an emphasis on "right to life" issues. About twice as many Catholics (60 percent) fell into the social justice category than the right-to-life category (31 percent.)
Undergirding the various groups' support for candidates is a significant degree of "religious churn in American political life," said Robert P. Jones, PRRI's CEO and founder.
The biggest losers are Catholics. Although nearly one-third (31 percent) of those surveyed said they were raised Catholic, 22 percent currently call themselves Catholic.
On the other end of the spectrum, nearly one in five Americans identify as unaffiliated, but just 7 percent say they were raised that way.
"It's quite remarkable the amount of switching that has gone on," Jones said.
Within this unaffiliated group, which has received considerable attention in recent years, PRRI identified and profiled three distinct subsets:
• "Unattached believers" (23 percent) see themselves as religious despite their lack of formal religious ties. They are more likely than the general population to be black or Hispanic and to have completed less education.
• "Seculars" (39 percent) say they are not religious, and reflect most Americans in their racial composition and educational attainment.
• "Atheists or agnostics" (36 percent) are more likely than the general population to be white and highly educated.
The PRRI researchers noted that each of these subgroups tends to have its own views on questions of religion and ethics. Nearly nine in 10 atheists and agnostics, for example, favor same-sex marriage, compared to seven in 10 seculars and nearly six in 10 unattached believers.
These findings on the unaffiliated echo another study, released two weeks ago by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, which also found that atheists are a minority among the nones, most of whom profess to believe in some sort of higher spiritual power.
Other highlights from the PRRI study:
• About half of Americans say the presidential candidates' religious beliefs are somewhat or very different from their own. For Obama, 49 percent see a disconnect, and for Romney, 53 percent.
• Nearly eight in 10 Romney supporters identify as white Christians, compared to four in 10 Obama supporters.
• There is a big generation gap among white Christians: While seven in 10 seniors put themselves in this category, just three in 10 millennials do.
• Most Americans (56 percent) say religiously affiliated hospitals and colleges should be required to provide health plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost.
The study of 3,003 Americans, conducted between Sept. 13-30, has a margin or error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Copyright 2012 Religion News Service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/23/obama-religious-voters-nones_n_2007247.html [with comments]
===
Romney gives Obama the Chavez-Castro-Che treatment in Spanish
Translation:
NARRATOR: Who supports Barack Obama?
CHAVEZ: "If I were American, I'd vote for Obama."
NARRATOR: Raúl Castro's daughter, Mariela Castro, would vote for Obama.
CASTRO: "I would vote for President Obama."
NARRATOR: And to top it off, Obama's Environmental Protection Agency sent emails for Hispanic Heritage month with a photo of Che Guevara.
CHAVEZ: "If Obama were from Barlovento (a Venezuelan town), he'd vote for Chávez."
ROMNEY: I'm Mitt Romney, and I approve this message.
The Romney campaign aired this Spanish-language ad bashing Obama over Mariela Castro, Che Guevara and Hugo Chavez starting on 10/30/12 in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale media market. The next day, Romney spoke in Miami about uniting the nation. For a translation [inserted preceding this paragraph], click here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/11/positive-campaign-romney-gives-obama-the-chavez-castro-che-treatment-in-spanish-ad.html . For updates on Florida politics, visit http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydm_dfQsNYQ [via/more at http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/01/romney_ad_links_obama_to_che_chavez_and_castro (no comments yet)]
===
Racial Slur On Obama Signs In Texas
11/1/2012
http://www.alan.com/2012/11/01/racial-slur-on-obama-signs-in-texas/ [with comments]
===
Arthur R. Jensen Dies at 89; Set Off Debate About I.Q.
November 1, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/science/arthur-r-jensen-who-set-off-debate-on-iq-dies.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/science/arthur-r-jensen-who-set-off-debate-on-iq-dies.html?pagewanted=all ]
===
Lynched Obama Truck Roams The East Coast
An image of the Obama noose effigy reportedly at a gas station in Jacksonville, Florida.
Source: ronenewstalkcleveland.files.wordpress.com
[ http://ronenewstalkcleveland.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/obama-noose.png?w=420&h=438 ]
The truck seen in Midtown Manhattan in May. (Image via The Blaze)
Source: theblaze.com [ http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IMG_6909-620x360.jpg ]
One man's strange campaign has shocked Americans from Manhattan to Florida.
Not, he says, racist.
Andrew Kaczynski
Posted Nov 1, 2012 12:25pm EDT
A North Carolina resident named VR Phipps is traveling the country in a truck displaying a hanged effigy of President Barack Obama, drawing the shock of local residents and the attention of the Secret Service.
Phipps says he's protesting the murders of family members by local law enforcement. He says that a cover-up has successfully prevented him from getting justice for his family.
"All we want is what Trayvon Martin's family wants. Justice," Phipps says in a video on his YouTube channel [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM804ybqGCE (next below)].
"After two decades of living and working in Manhattan, this average New Yorker believed he had seen everything. Today proved that to be a false assumption," Opelka wrote.
Phipps denied racism was a motivation for the hanging in another video [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvfU3pAjkSk (next below)]
"You say it's racism, well, I tell you it's not. It's absolutely not. We have been hanging people in effigy when George Bush was President. I would have hanged him no problem. It wouldn't have been a problem at all."
In September, the truck was seen in Charlotte [ http://www.wbtv.com/story/19475636/hanging-obama-truck-makes-way-into-charlotte ] during the Democratic National Committee. State troopers told WBTV in Charlotte they stopped the truck for a vehicle equipment violation but issed a warning.
Later in September, the truck was seen [ http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=8820026 ] driving through Goldsboro, North Carolina, shocking residents. The Secret Service told locals they were aware of the truck.
On Tumblr today, a user posted [ http://aka-little-red.tumblr.com/post/34744145604/in-jacksonville-florida-at-the-shell-gas-station ] having seen the truck in Jacksonville, Florida.
Copyright © 2012 BuzzFeed, Inc.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/man-travels-the-country-in-trucks-hanging-obama-fr [with comments]
===
GoDaddy suspends GOP ad firm's websites for anti-Obama texts
By Brendan Sasso - 10/31/12 12:51 PM ET
Virginia-based GOP advertising firm ccAdvertising was behind a flood of anti-Obama text messages sent Tuesday night, according to Web domain records.
By Wednesday morning, GoDaddy, a domain registrar, had suspended the firm's websites for spam and abuse.
ccAdvertising did not respond to a request for comment.
It is unclear how many people received the unsolicited messages, but many people in the Washington, D.C., metro area took to Twitter and other social media sites on Tuesday night to complain about the unusual campaign tactic.
The texts covered a variety of topics, including abortion rights, Medicare and taxes.
"The average American pays at least $2,000 more in taxes than 4 years ago. STOP OBAMA!" one message read.
"Obama endorses the legality of same-sex marriage. Say No to Obama at the polls on Nov 6!" read another.
Jonathan Weisman, a reporter for The New York Times, tweeted [ https://twitter.com/jonathanweisman/statuses/263454175768227840 ] that his 13-year-old daughter received a text reading: "Obama denies protection to babies who survive abortions. Obama is just wrong."
Mike Madden, editor of The Washington City Paper, received [ http://twitter.com/mikemadden/status/263436492788092929/photo/1 ] another: "Re-electing Obama puts Medicare at risk."
The messages came from a variety of websites rather than phone numbers. The sites included informedett.com, aicett.com and gopmessage.com.
Those sites are all registered on GoDaddy.com to Jason Flanary, the chief operating officer of ccAdvertising. Flanary, a Republican, ran for the Virginia state Senate in 2011 but lost.
According to The National Review, Mitt Romney's first presidential campaign hired [ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_38NSETyExIJ:www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/11156/betrayers-mitt-romney+gabriel+joseph+ccadvertising&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari ] the firm in 2007, and it also did work for Mike Huckabee's presidential bid that year.
The Virginia Democratic Party sued ccAdvertising in 2011 to stop a barrage of unsolicited text messages to voters, The Washington Post reported [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/anti-democratic-text-messages-in-northern-va-prompt-lawsuit-complaints/2011/10/31/gIQA0cVdaM_story.html ] at the time.
Political committees have paid ccAdvertising at least $735,000 this election cycle, and outside groups have paid the firm at least $290,000, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
The Virginia-based Life & Marriage PAC paid the firm $15,000 for text message services to oppose Heidi Heitkamp, the Democratic Senate candidate in North Dakota, according to an Oct. 23 filing.
Federal Communications Commission regulations and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 prohibit unsolicited autodialed text messages. Firms are subject to a $16,000 fine for each illegal text message.
The FCC issued [ http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012/db0911/DA-12-1476A1.pdf ] a public notice in September warning campaigns and outside firms that it will "strictly enforce" the anti-spamming regulations ahead of the election.
Revolution Messaging, a liberal campaign firm, filed a petition with the FCC earlier this year asking the commission to clarify that the rules apply to messages sent from websites to phones.
The FCC began seeking comments on the petition last week.
Scott Goodstein, the CEO of Revolution Messaging, said his group filed the petition because thousands of GOP messages were sent from websites to phones ahead of the 2010 election.
He explained that regulations for unwanted text messages are much stricter than for unwanted emails because text messages are more invasive and can cost consumers money if their cellphone plan does not allow for unlimited texting.
"It's silly to say this is sending an email," he said. "It's still going directly to that phone number."
Update at 5:29 p.m.:
Sometime on Wednesday, the registrant for the websites on GoDaddy was changed to "G. Joseph" of Chantilly, Va. The president of ccAdvertising is Gabriel Joseph. The sites were no longer listed on GoDaddy as suspended but they appeared to still be unavailable.
—Megan Wilson contributed.
© 2012 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/265073-gop-advertising-firm-behind-flood-of-anti-obama-text-messages [with comments]
===
Romney to Business Crowd: Obama Sees You As an "Evil"
The GOP candidate—and his wife—are caught on tape at a private fundraiser dismissing the president as not a "grown-up" and an arch foe of commerce.
By David Corn | Mon Oct. 29, 2012 3:03 AM PDT
Ever since I revealed Mitt Romney's 47 percent rant [ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/watch-full-secret-video-private-romney-fundraiser ], tips and tapes have come through the transom—including this [ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/1985-romney-bain-harvest-firms-profits-video ] and this [ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/mitt-romney-video-wythe-glenn-beck-cleon-skousen ]. And another source who asked not to be identified just sent me an audio recording of a private Mitt Romney fundraiser from earlier this year. At this event, Romney didn't decry half of the nation, but he and Ann Romney each expressed disdain for President Barack Obama, with the Republican presidential candidate asserting that Obama considers businesspeople "a necessary evil" and his wife suggesting that the president was not a "grown-up."
On March 27, as Romney was still fighting for the Republican presidential nomination, he and Ann attended [ http://totalbuzz.ocregister.com/2012/03/27/romney-o-c-fundraiser-to-attract-top-republicans/83682/ ] a fundraiser in Irvine, California, at the home of Michelle and David Horowitz [ http://www.tedxorangecoast.com/team-member/david-horowitz/ ], a former cement business owner who runs a private equity fund. The $1,000-per-plate outdoors luncheon (or $2,500 for those wanting to participate in a photo reception with Romney) drew much of Orange County's Republican elite.
Romney mainly delivered his standard stump speech to the 100-person-plus crowd, and he took only three questions. During the more intimate $50,000-per-plate 47 percent fundraiser [ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser ] in May, Romney didn't give much of a speech, and he spent most of his time with these superdonors responding to their queries. (The bigger contribution apparently earns donors more quality time with the candidate.) But at the Horowitzes' home in the exclusive Shady Canyon neighborhood, Romney did make several revealing comments.
After being introduced, the Republican candidate noted that he had been pushed into his second campaign for president by his wife:
David, you mentioned Ann, and the fact that she insisted that I get in this race. That is the truth. I wanted to talk it over with her. And every time I'd say, "Let's talk about the pros and cons," she'd say, "Talk to the hand, talk to the hand. We're just doing this. We've got to do it." And so she absolutely insisted that I get in this because she was convinced that I was the only one that had the capacity to beat President Obama.
[audio embedded]
Romney then asked Ann to say a few words, and she explained that she had been so insistent because she did not consider Obama to be a "grown-up":
You know—the ship's going over the waterfall, it's almost there. And we look what's happening in Greece, and we look what's happening around the world, we look what's happening internationally. This is a frightening world, and we need a grown-up, and we need someone that understands the economy. So I'm glad…Mitt is grown up to you all.
[audio embedded]
(This remark was not a one-off. In August, Ann Romney, talking about the gender gap, said [ http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/31/nation/la-na-nn-ann-romney-clint-eastwood-20120831 ], "I'm hearing from so many women that may not have considered voting for a Republican before that said, it's time for the grown-up to come.")
Romney's pitch to this well-heeled O.C. crowd was heavy on celebrating entrepreneurs. He claimed that Obama and his supporters were opposed to success, declaring, "Heaven help us if we have people who try to divide America between those that have succeeded and those that haven't." And Romney, who possesses not one but two graduate degrees from Harvard, blasted Obama's economic policies for being crafted by Ivy League experts:
What they have in their mind is a vision of America dominated by government, by individuals they respect, people like themselves: highly educated, spent a lot of time in the faculty club at Harvard, and they believe they can guide the economy better than can individuals all pursuing their own dream. It does make sense, after all, that smart people, bureaucrats can sit down and do a better job deciding which type of energy company to invest in, which type of technology to invest in, what kind of health care you should have, who's your provider—all these smart people could do a better job. It makes all the sense in the world as opposed to saying individuals all doing whatever the heck they want, some without education, can go off and build businesses and succeed or fail. And yet that of course, that latter model, is the only one in the history of the world that's ever worked to lift people out of poverty and create permanent prosperity.
Romney repeated his usual found-to-be-false talking points: Obamacare is a government takeover [ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/dec/16/lie-year-government-takeover-health-care/ ]; if it stands, half of the US economy will be "controlled by government [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/mitt-romneys-nonsensical-claim-about-obamacare/2012/06/11/gJQAdGtdVV_blog.html ]." He accused the president of conspiring to cause high energy prices. ("Look, these guys are trying to drive up the price of energy in this country in order for solar and wind to be able to be more economic.")
He dramatically cast the election as a black-and-white contest with Obama waging a "war on business and economic freedom." Romney repeatedly professed his "love" for business and, in particular, the business people before him. Using supercharged rhetoric, he said that Obama had a beef against such people and viewed them as "a necessary evil—and maybe not so necessary":
I'm convinced that if this president is reelected, the war on business and economic freedom will continue. I don't think the president likes you very much. If you're in business, I think he looks at you as a necessary evil—and maybe not so necessary. I love you, all right? I love, I love business. I love people who employ other people, who have dreams and ideas, and are willing to start enterprises, and put people to work—all good things grow from successful enterprises. Businesses—good jobs come from good businesses.
[audio embedded]
Romney went on to bemoan the fact that some businesses preferred to set up shop in China than the United States, but without mentioning that this is often because China has low wages and weak labor rights and environmental protections:
When I heard the head of Coca-Cola say that the business environment in America is less hospitable than the business environment in China, I knew we had a problem. I want to make sure that America has the most attractive business conditions in the world—that every entrepreneur once again says, "I want to be an American." Whether it's energy or regulation or tax policy or labor policy or legal policy or health care policy—I want America to be the best place for business.
[audio embedded]
This seemed a clear indication that Romney would place workplace conditions, environmental protections, and other safeguards a far second to industry imperatives. Moments later, the crowd applauded him enthusiastically.
During the brief Q&A, Romney hailed fracking and denounced the new START treaty Obama negotiated with the Russians as kowtowing to Moscow (though 71 senators voted for its ratification). But perhaps his most heartfelt remark came when he was concluding his talk and told these donors, "I want to let you go back to work so you can earn more money to give to me."
You can listen to the full tape here [ http://soundcloud.com/mother-jones/romney-march-27-2012-full ].
UPDATE: A source who attended the event says there were over 400 people in attendance.
*
More MoJo coverage of Mitt Romney's "47 percent" remarks:
SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser
Romney "47 Percent" Fundraiser Host: Hedge Fund Manager Who Likes Sex Parties
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/09/romney-secret-video-marc-leder-sex-parties
Full Transcript of the Mitt Romney Secret Video
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/full-transcript-mitt-romney-secret-video
Obama Strikes Back—With "47 Percent"
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/town-hall-debate-obama-romney
Who Was at Romney's "47 Percent" Fundraiser?
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/09/romney-47-percent-fundraiser-florida
*
Copyright ©2012 Mother Jones and the Foundation for National Progress
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/romney-fundraiser-obama-business-evil [with comments]
===
Chrysler CEO Restates: No Jobs Moving To China
10/30/2012
http://www.alan.com/2012/10/30/chrysler-ceo-restates-no-jobs-moving-to-china/ [with comments]
--
Ralph Gilles, Chrysler Executive, Lashes Out At Donald Trump
By Bernie Woodall
Posted: 11/01/2012 6:22 pm EDT Updated: 11/02/2012 7:09 pm EDT
A Chrysler executive told Donald Trump in a Tweet on Thursday that the real estate executive and television personality was "full of shit" for repeating a notion that Chrysler is shipping U.S. Jeep production to China, which the automaker refutes.
Ralph Gilles, the head of product design for Chrysler, became the second top Chrysler executive in three days to strongly deny the claim, which was first made by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney last week to a crowd in Ohio.
Trump, from his Twitter account, said, "Obama is a terrible negotiator. He bails out Chrysler and now Chrysler wants to send all Jeep manufacturing to China--and will!"
To which Gilles, from his Twitter account, responded to Trump: "You are full of shit!"
In a second Tweet, Gilles added: "I apologize for my language, but lies are just that, lies."
On Tuesday, Chrysler Group LLC Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne, in an e-mail to employees, also flatly denied Romney's claim.
"I feel obliged to unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China," Marchionne wrote.
Romney, speaking a week ago to a crowd in Defiance, Ohio, said that he had read a news article that said Chrysler's Jeep brand is considering moving "all production to China."
Jeep, Chrysler's global brand, has three U.S. assembly plants, including one in Toledo, Ohio. The others are in Illinois and in Detroit.
Ohio is seen by pollsters as a key "swing" state in next Tuesday's presidential election. It has been the site of intense competition between the campaigns of Romney and President Barack Obama.
After Romney spoke in Defiance, his campaign aired an advertisement that did not repeat the move of production from Ohio but said that Chrysler is considering making Jeeps in China, which Chrysler has said it intends to do.
Marchionne said that any Jeep production in China would be for the Chinese market, and that the company would not take any production away from Chrysler's U.S. plants. Rather, he said, Chrysler is adding jobs and investment at its Ohio plant.
Chrysler has been managed by Fiat SpA since it emerged from its 2009 bankruptcy, when the Italian company took 20 percent ownership. Fiat has since increased its ownership to 58.5 percent.
Marchionne is chief executive of both Chrysler and Fiat.
Copyright 2012 Reuters
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/ralph-gilles-donald-trump-chrysler_n_2060531.html [with comments]
===
Why the October Jobs Report Is Even Better Than It Looks
Nov 2 2012
Here's the lede you'll read in most newspapers today about Friday's jobs report: "The economy added a hearty 171,000 new jobs in October, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9%."
Nothing about that lede is wrong, technically. But it's incomplete, for three reasons.
First, the BLS actually discovered 255,000 new jobs. The payroll survey, one of two used to produce this report, revised its jobs-added estimates in August and September by an additional 84,000, bringing August's total to 192k and September to 148k. For months, it looked like the unemployment rate was falling inexplicably fast. It turns out we were counting jobs added too slowly.
Second, and somewhat counter-intuitively, the fact that the unemployment rate went up is good news about today's economy. Calculated in a second survey of households by the BLS, the rate moved to 7.9% as more people entered the labor force. More people looking for work is good news, but when job seekers grow faster than jobs, the unemployment rate ticks up. The rising unemployment rate doesn't mean the economy is getting weaker. It means discouraged workers are feeling more encouraged because the economy is getting stronger.
Third, although every jobs report is subject to revisions, we're getting a clear picture of a strengthening recovery beyond today's headline. The margin of error for each jobs-added figure is 100,000 jobs. The BLS's initial estimate for August was 96,000. Then it was revised to 142,000. Now it stands at 192,000. So, should we ignore today's news? Not so fast. 170,000 isn't just October's first estimate. It's also our new three-month average. And it's considerably better than the year's average. Things are getting better faster.
[...]
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/why-the-october-jobs-report-is-even-better-than-it-looks/264448/ [with comments]
--
Romney, Business Allies Finish With Strong Argument: Vote With Us, Or You're Fired
By Ryan Grim and Jason Cherkis
Posted: 11/03/2012 1:00 pm EDT Updated: 11/03/2012 1:40 pm EDT
WASHINGTON -- The Mitt Romney campaign and its business allies are driving home a final message unlike one we've seen in past presidential campaigns: Vote Romney, or you're fired.
The pressure on workers [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/28/ceos-urge-employees-vote-romney_n_2018264.html ] in swing states to toe the GOP line hasn't been restricted to any particular industry. Corporate apparel [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/cintas-ceo-scott-farmer-obamacare-email_n_2019292.html ] makers in Ohio, truck stop attendants in Ohio and Virginia, casino employees in Nevada, construction workers in Florida, gift-card purveyors in Colorado and Florida, car-parts makers in Michigan, software technicians [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/14/arthur-allen-romney-email_n_1963965.html ] in Florida and Colorado, coal miners in Ohio, dock manufacturers in Wisconsin, frozen-food packers in Michigan [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/jack-dewitt-mitt-romney_n_2017539.html ], resort staff [ http://gawker.com/5950189/the-ceo-who-built-himself-americas-largest-house-just-threatened-to-fire-his-employees-if-obamas-elected ] in Florida, Virginia and Nevada, and people all over [ http://inthesetimes.com/article/14017/koch_industries_sends_45000_employees_pro_romney_mailing/ ] the country who work -- or used to work -- for Koch Industries or another Koch-owned company have all been given notice by their boss that an Obama victory could lead to layoffs or otherwise harm the company and its workers.
Even workers who'd already been laid off by the Kochs were mailed letters [ http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14117/laid_off_georgia_pacific_workers_told_to_vote_for_gop_congressman_closure/ ] urging them to vote Republican or else "suffer the consequences" of Obama policies that would harm the company.
Romney himself urged conservative business leaders this June to "make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections."
Before the Supreme Court's 5-4 Citizens United decision, it would have been illegal for a boss to tell an employee that "their job and their future" was on the ballot on Election Day. But the court now considers such electoral pressure an expression of free speech.
"Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision," Romney told the business owners associated with the National Federation of Independent Business, a political organization closely aligned [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/23/inside-the-small-business-lobby_n_812831.html ] to the Republican Party.
Romney's push to get businesses to pressure workers on Election Day is relatively new. Marc Wolpow, the former managing director at Bain Capital who worked under Romney, told HuffPost the future politician never pressured underlings to vote a certain way. "He was completely apolitical," he said. "There was absolutely no pressure."
Wolpow thought bosses of all political stripes should stay away from campaigning in employee break rooms and penning endorsements for company newsletters. "I don't think it's appropriate for business owners to pressure their employees one way or the other, nor by the way do I think it's appropriate for unions to do it," he said. (Unions, of course, can't fire workers.)
In the case of Request Foods' CEO's endorsement of Romney [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/jack-dewitt-mitt-romney_n_2017539.html ], it fit neatly into the Michigan company's modus operandi. The company promotes itself as "dedicated to placing priority on Christian principles in every aspect of our business," according to its website. That means quarterly meetings that seem to emphasize GOP politics over business news and chaplains regularly in the office halls, said one former employee.
Romney simply helped reinforce the company's atmosphere. "Just the culture is so right wing," the former employee said. "When they have those workplace chaplains ... They report directly to the head of [human resources]."
Eric Manthei, the logistics coordinator for Request Foods, told HuffPost recently that the CEO's endorsement, which appeared in the company newsletter, did not cause any reaction among employees. "I don't think it was weird at all," he said. "They are very open and transparent with their thoughts and beliefs. All the employees fall in line. They support our business policies."
Until recently, the Romney campaign outsourced to its business allies its message to specific workers. That changed Oct. 25 when Romney himself told Jeep workers, in so many words, that they were going to be fired as a result of Obama's auto bailout. He followed up with ads that continued to imply Jeep would be moving jobs overseas, even after executives at both GM and Chrysler refuted them.
The nearly 3,000 Jeep workers at its two Toledo plants, as well as the suppliers who feed them, woke up to a Toledo Blade story about Romney's announcement. At least a dozen auto workers were concerned enough to call their local union to ask about the situation, said Bruce Baumhower, president of the UAW local 12, which represents the Jeep workers as well as dozens of their suppliers.
On Friday, Romney warned that a second Obama term could bring about a second recession. "The same path means $20 trillion in debt, crippling unemployment, stagnant take-home pay, depressed home values, and a devastated military," he said at a speech in West Allis, Wis. "And unless we change course, we may be looking at another recession."
Baumhower said he's used to hearing politicians promise that the economy will get better under them and would be worse under their opponent -- that, after all, is generally the driving message behind a campaign (along with gay marriage and abortion). But what he saw from Romney was something new.
"I don't think I've ever really seen people running for political office threaten people with their employment," he told HuffPost. "It might be fair game for somebody to say, I can improve the economy. I can grow the jobs market and you'll have more opportunities under me than the other guy. I've heard that. I don't think I've heard anybody come out like this and say: 'You're going to lose your jobs if you don't vote for me.' Pretty ridiculous. But he did."
Baumhower said he reminded the workers that the company was in the middle of a half-billion-dollar investment in expanding production in Ohio, and also that Chrysler had started building cars in China in the '80s -- a plan launched by American Motors, ironically headed at one point by George Romney, Mitt Romney's father.
"I said: 'Don't you remember when the plant's managers, the engineering staff and different folks would go over [to China] for two months at a time to help them launch those plants?' And everybody said: 'Oh yeah,'" Baumhower said, explaining how he eased the workers' worries. "Our members went from fear to anger and people were telling me that it was pretty pitiful that somebody who wants to be commander-in-chief to be stooping down to that to try to win the election."
A private equity executive with a track-record of mass layoffs isn't the most obvious person to entrust with one's job security. One Bain & Co. employee, who worked there after Romney and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that company was so predictable in its consulting advice -- fire people -- that it became an office punchline.
"It was a running joke," he recalled. "'Oh, what are we going to do? We're going to fire people. Of course we are!' It was a joke. That's how we felt about it: 'Okay, let's have some beers on Friday and forget about it.'"
*
Related
Mitt Romney Jobs Report Reaction: Economy Is At A 'Virtual Standstill'
11/02/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/mitt-romney-jobs-report_n_2063880.html
Mitt Romney: Recession May Repeat Under Obama Second Term
11/02/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/mitt-romney-recession_n_2065138.html
*
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/03/romney-voter-intimidation-businesses-bain_n_2068827.html [with comments]
--
When Titans Talk To Dummies: Part One
Multi-millionaire Harvey Golub, played by a dummy, resents Warren Buffet and Obama and argues in Rupert Murdock's Wall Street Journal that his tax rates shouldn't be raised. This is part one of a three part audio program.
Link to MY RESPONSE TO BUFFET AND OBAMA by Harvey Golub: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903639404576516724218259688.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdXcSUd7shI
--
When Titans Talk To Dummies: Part Two
Harvey Golub, as a dummy, resents Warren Buffet and Obama and argues that the tax system is unfair to mega millionaires in his Wall Street Journal Op Ed. Part two of three part audio program.
The Wall Street Journal op ed by Golub: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903639404576516724218259688.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGDHZJvLts8
--
When Titans Talk To Dummies: Part Three
Harvey Golub, as a dummy, makes his final arguments for why millionaires are treated unfairly and Warren Buffet and Obama are wrong. This concludes our three part audio program.
MY RESPONSE TO BUFFET AND OBAMA, Harvey Golub, WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903639404576516724218259688.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hpcMX2NPic
--
Asymmetrical “Uncertainty”
By Paul Krugman
October 31, 2012, 3:15 pm
Ever since it came out, Obama-bashers have loved to cite a paper by Baker, Bloom, and Davis claiming that policy uncertainty is holding back the recovery. See, they say, it’s Obama and his socialist plans! The paper never deserved this much weight — like the Alesina/Ardagna work on expansionary austerity, or, yes, the unfortunate and uncharacteristically sloppy Reinhart/Rogoff paper on the burden of debt, it’s preliminary academic research that has been seized on for political gain.
Furthermore, as many of us noted, the actual sources of spikes uncertainty as Baker et al measure it were the euro crisis and the debt ceiling confrontation, not the Obama agenda. And to the extent that it was the latter, this is really about Republican extremism, not Obama socialism.
Well, Baker et al have what I think is meant to be a response to this point [ http://www.voxeu.org/article/economic-recovery-and-policy-uncertainty-us ] in Vox. Except that it isn’t really a response. They declare that “in our view” the responsibility lies with both parties, and list some talking points; but that’s not evidence. Their data continue to show uncertainty (as they measure it) rising with the debt ceiling and again with the fiscal cliff.
And let’s be clear: the fiscal cliff issue reflects GOP intransigence. The sequester was part of the deal to buy the GOP off on the debt ceiling. Beyond that, Republicans want something — making all the Bush tax cuts permanent — that they don’t have the votes to pass in Congress. So they’re holding America hostage, saying — more or less explicitly — that if they can’t have what they want but can’t pass, they’ll tank the whole economy.
Notice how nobody says that if Romney wins but Democrats hold the Senate, a quite possible outcome, that there will be an economic disaster because those Senate Dems will prevent a deal on taxes and spending.
Sorry, but this isn’t symmetrical. To the extent that policy uncertainty is a factor, it’s a factor because we have the most ruthless, self-absorbed opposition party since the 1850s.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/asymmetrical-uncertainty/ [with comments]
===
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=7580259 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=32639759 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=36957319 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63915348 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63358892 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63306014 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77970515 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79896399 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80506176 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80911526 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80911573 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80911581 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80957892 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81004674 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81025068 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81036490 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81042622 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81058774 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81059255 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81058774 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81061294 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81066406 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81066410 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81067267 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81068084 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81068135 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81068335 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81068789 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81068798 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81069660 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81070038 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81070419 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81071140 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81071406 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81072637 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81072721 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81072751 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81073273 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81073426 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81074101 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81074842 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81075565 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81075599 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81075744 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81077710 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81083486 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81085353 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81086508 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81087509 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81089753 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81092761 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81093413 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81095923 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81096695 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81099153 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81099991 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81103266 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81105034 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81105754 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81105895 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81106152 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81107415 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81110201 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81110518 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81111050 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81112140 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81112144 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81112151 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81112173 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81112286 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81112936 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81113779 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81113896 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81114814 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81115996 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81116192 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81116367 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81116497 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81116877 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81117091 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81117164 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81117168 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81117259 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81117836 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118203 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118234 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118240 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118254 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118276 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118325 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118661 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118683 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81119316 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81119600 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81119790 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81120398 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81121543 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81121771 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81122048 and preceding (and any future following)
By Lila Shapiro
Posted: 10/24/2012 6:02 pm EDT Updated: 10/26/2012 10:02 am EDT
KEENAN ROBERTS didn’t invent the idea of scaring Christian youth into salvation, but he has done more than anyone else to turn it into an industry. For $299—and with the Denver-based pastor’s approval—you can build your own “Hell House,” complete with theatrical scenes of teen suicides and gay marriages gone wrong.
Staged by Evangelical churches predominantly in the South and Midwest, Hell Houses share some of the tropes of classic haunted houses and are most active in the run-up to Halloween, when Americans are most primed for scaremongering. But if haunted house directors generally aim to entertain, Roberts has very a different goal.
“The number one priority is reaching people with the message that sin destroys and Jesus saves,” he explained to Huffington by phone from his church.
The method is effective, according to Roberts. By the time guests reach the final, “heaven” scene (a room draped in silvery cloth) Roberts says around 1 in 4 of the more than 75,000 who have traipsed through his church's production over the last 16 years have either decided to join the christian faith or renewed their commitment to it.
Since 1996, Roberts, pastor of the New Destiny Christian Center in Colorado, has sold more than one thousand Hell House kits to youth pastors and churches. It’s unclear who put on the first-ever Hell House, but Jerry Falwell is generally credited with first popularizing the idea in the 70s, and a documentary made in 2000 brought them further recognition. Roberts’s own Hell House serves as the template for the hundreds of others around the country that are built to the specifications outlined in his kits, which include a DVD of his production, a 300 page instruction manual and a spooky soundtrack.
Roberts’s house typically consists of seven rooms. In each, a different “sin” is played out to its horrid conclusion. Roberts plays a demon. Dressed in a long black robe, with a bumpy grey mask and large black horns, he guides guests from room to room—from a lesbian suicide to a drunk-driving induced car crash to a rave where a church girl takes ecstasy and dies, (the manual suggests the demon tour guide declare here, “just another day at the office!”). The themes vary a bit from year to year, but abortion and damned gay people are constants.
Not surprisingly, since its inception Roberts’s kits have attracted criticism, and not just from gay rights groups and Planned Parenthood. A number of religious groups, including the National Council of Churches, have criticized Hell Houses for their harsh approach. Roberts hasn’t flinched.
“Jesus was so controversial that they killed him,” he said. “You can’t have an impact without a collision.”
Roberts will not provide the media with samples of the kits, which also include guidance for handling media (crucial for both getting out the church’s message and responding to criticism). But over the years, excerpts have leaked online. For the abortion scene, Roberts recommends buying “a meat product that closely resembles pieces of a baby” to put in a glass bowl and suggests the actors portraying the medical staff act “cold, uncaring, abrupt and completely insensitive.”
Roberts knows of only a handful of times that secular groups have managed to purchase a Hell House kit. In 2004, a director in Hollywood posed as a pastor in order to procure a kit, and ended up putting on a farce, starring Sarah Silverman and David Cross, among others. “It was an abomination,” Roberts said. “People have been trying to do damage to Hell House for years, and I always say this: God’s going to have the last word.”
Roberts first put on a low-budget version of a “hell house” in his late 20s, but it wasn’t until 1995, after he’d moved to Colorado, that he made scaring kids for the Lord a regular part of his mission. He sent out press releases to media outlets all over Denver. (“And they came like crazy,” Roberts said.)
After nearly 40 churches had reached out to him for guidance, he began to develop his how-to kits. By now, Roberts has sold kits to 26 foreign countries including Australia, and all 50 states.
While Roberts presents himself as a fighter on the front lines of the culture war, he’s only once written an overtly political scene. It featured Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, glow in the dark writing (“Lies” “Lust” “Adultery”) and of course, demons. This year, citing logistical reasons, Roberts said he isn’t putting on a production. If things were different, he said he’d likely add a scene about President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage.
The next step, he says, is Hollywood. “We were real close to a movie once,” he said, “but too many people were scared of it.”
*
Pastor Keenan Preparing Mask
Pastor Keenan preparing mask & make-up as Demon Tour Guide
Demon Tour Guides
Drunk Driving
Gay Wedding Scene
Lesbian Suicide Scene
The Angel of the Lord and the Demon Tour Guide battle over a teenage girl in the Lesbian Suicide Scene.
Death By Meth
Heaven
*
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/24/hell-houses_n_2012207.html [with comments]
--
Hell House
Uploaded by DocumentaryDatabase on Jan 20, 2012
Hell House is a 2001 documentary on a hell house--a Christian-themed haunted attraction--in Cedar Hill, Texas. The film documents the work involved in creating the hell house, the performances themselves, and the personal lives of some of the participants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbhQsRJ6ARw [and see (linked in) http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22jesus+camp%22&oq=%22jesus+camp%22 , http://www.youtube.com/movie?v=tFpDFsguIdc ]
===
Most Republicans Believe In Demon Possession, Less Than Half Believe In Climate Change: Report
By Dominique Mosbergen
Posted: 11/02/2012 4:40 pm EDT Updated: 11/02/2012 8:23 pm EDT
A new poll reveals the majority of registered Republican voters believe that demonic possession is a real phenomenon.
The "Halloween-centric" poll, conducted by Public Policy Polling showed that 68 percent of Republican voters think it's possible to be possessed by demons [ http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/HalloweenRelease%2BResults.pdf ].
Meanwhile, as news website AlterNet notes [ http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/shocking-poll-more-two-thirds-republican-voters-believe-demonic-possession ], only 48 percent of Republicans [ http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/10/16/study_shows_that_more_republicans_believe_global_warming_is_real_than_in.html ] polled in an earlier survey conducted by the Pew Research Center survey said they believe in climate change [ http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/shocking-poll-more-two-thirds-republican-voters-believe-demonic-possession ].
As the election looms ever closer, the topic of climate change and global warming [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/climate-change-hurricane-sandy-global-warming_n_2050516.html ] has been in the air -- with some experts and politicians calling the recent devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy a reality check [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-zeller-jr/hurricane-sandy-link-to-climate-change_b_2059179.html ].
However, while 88 percent of Obama supporters believe that there is "solid evidence that the earth is warming [ http://www.people-press.org/2012/10/15/more-say-there-is-solid-evidence-of-global-warming/ ]," only 42 percent of Romney supporters said that this is true, according to the Pew survey.
In addition, 33 percent of Romney supporters [id.] (compared to 5 percent of Obama supporters) said they believe global warming is "not a problem."
When it comes to demons, however, it seems the Democrat-Republican rift is not quite so wide.
According to the Halloween poll results, 49 percent of Democrats [ http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/HalloweenRelease%2BResults.pdf ] also said they believe that its possible to be possessed by demons. Overall, only 35 percent of the 1,200 registered voters polled [id.] -- including Independent voters and others -- said that demon possession is an impossibility.
Quick Poll
Do you believe in demonic possession? Vote in our poll and tell us your thoughts in the comments below.
Is it possible for people to be possessed by demons?
Yes
17.97%
No
70.19%
Not sure
11.84%
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/demon-possession-republicans-poll-climate-change_n_2066476.html [with comments]
===
Mitt Romney Robocall Warns Christians Obama A 'Threat To Our Religious Freedom'
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
By Amanda Terkel Posted: 11/02/2012 11:27 pm EDT Updated: 11/03/2012 1:37 am EDT
WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney's campaign, in a last-minute robocall, warns voters that President Barack Obama is hostile to the Christian faith.
The robocall, paid for by Romney's campaign, is explicitly aimed at Christian voters. A voter in Fairfax, Va. received it on Friday night, and passed it along to Shaun Dakin of StopPoliticalCalls.org [ http://www.stoppoliticalcalls.org/index.php ].
The spot reminds the listener of Obama's controversial comment in 2008 that some Americans, frustrated by their economic situation, "cling to guns or religion [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/obama-no-surprise-that-ha_b_96188.html ]."
Script of the robocall:
Christians who are thinking about voting for Obama should remember what he said about people of faith: "They ... cling to guns or religion." And remember when Obama forced Christian organizations to provide insurance coverage that was contrary to their religious beliefs?
That's the real Barack Obama. That's the real threat to our religious freedom. Mitt Romney understands the importance of faith and family. That's why so many leaders of the Christian community are supporting Romney.
They know we can't underestimate the threat Barack Obama poses to our faith, our values, our freedom.
The robocall language is stronger than what Romney himself has used on the trail, although the campaign went after Obama during the controversy over whether religiously affiliated groups should be required to cover the cost of contraception in their health care plans at no charge to the employee.
"President Obama used his health care plan to declare war on religion [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/09/mitt-romney-religion-obama_n_1759393.html ], forcing religious institutions to go against their faith," said the narrator in a Romney campaign ad in August. "Mitt Romney believes that’s wrong."
Listen to the robocall:
[static-image vid with the audio embedded]
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/mitt-romney-robocall-christians_n_2068596.html [with comments]
===
Why I'm Voting for Mitt Romney
Published on Oct 6, 2012 by blndsundoll4mj
follow me on twitter @trishapaytas
follow mitt on twitter @MittRomney
my video on why I say NO to birth control (recorded March 6, 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOH6wwWEJZ0
my video on Obama vs The Catholic Church (recorded July 27, 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91wJHbOCwdM
my video on Ted Nugent, Mitt Romney and me (recorded April 18, 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mIAu-Go530
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzvm7zd4Z-s
--
Why I'm Voting For Mitt Romney Video Breakdown
Published on Oct 9, 2012 by TheYoungTurks
Trisha Paytas (YouTuber/model/actress) shared her voting plans in a YouTube video titled Why I'm Voting For Mitt Romney. Is she for real? Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur break it down on The Young Turks.
Watch the original video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzvm7zd4Z-s [just above]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgWaZ1D1QYs
===
Abortion, Romney and the GOP's Fanatical Fundamentalism
By Ethan Rome
Posted: 10/30/2012 1:16 pm
In the presidential foreign policy debate, Mitt Romney said [ http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/presidential-debate-full-transcript/story?id=17538888&singlePage=true ] the U.S. needs a "robust strategy to help the world of Islam and other parts of the world reject [the kind of] radical, violent extremism" that fuels terrorism. No argument there. But here in America, we're wrestling with a different kind of fundamentalism -- the attack on abortion rights and the ability of women to make their own reproductive health choices, to control their own bodies and to determine how best to plan their own families. Romney isn't fighting this radical extremism -- he's leading it. The Republican position that abortion must be outlawed, even in cases of rape, incest or threat to the health of the mother, is extremism that is tantamount to violence against women.
Isn't it an act of violence to force a woman to carry to term the child of a rapist who commits an unspeakable act of violence against her -- and then to sentence her (in most states) to a lifetime co-parenting the child with her rapist [ http://healthcareforamericanow.org/2012/08/27/more-rapists-could-assert-parental-rights/ ]? Why should the government have the right to intervene in a decision that's so personal, private and life-changing? On top of that, for a woman to even step forward to say she's been raped is an act of courage in our society where the legal process can be humiliating and degrading and often keeps women silent.
But Rep. Paul Ryan doesn't see it that way. Rape isn't an issue in his abortion debate, because the method of conception isn't the point. As we know, Missouri GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin [ http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/20/13378579-doctors-appalled-over-rep-akins-comments-that-legitimate-rape-prevents-pregnancy ] said that when a pregnancy is the result of "a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." It's scary to think about how his beliefs and his ignorance of biology guide him as a policy-maker. Then Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock reinforced the fundamentalist line by saying [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/richard-mourdock-abortion_n_2018934.html ], "When life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen." And Ryan led the way a long time ago with his outrageous comment [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/paul-ryan-abortion-exception_n_1821547.html ] on the floor of the House that you could drive a Mack truck through "the health exception" that would permit an abortion to save a woman's life.
These comments aren't political gaffes -- they are essentially GOP policy statements. Ryan, of course, is the Republican vice-presidential nominee, and his views are enshrined in the party platform adopted at its September convention.
This weekend Newt Gingrich took to the airwaves [ http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/10/29/gingrich_on_mourdock_get_over_it_ladies.html ]. "If you listen to what Mourdock actually said, he said what virtually every Catholic and every fundamentalist in the country believes, life begins at conception," Gingrich said on ABC's This Week.
The Republicans are entitled to believe in whatever they want, and the rest of us should respect that. But Gingrich and the GOP extremists want their beliefs to dictate what every woman in this country can do. The Republicans want to roll back the clock and deny women the right to control their own medical decisions, and therefore the arc of their entire lives. That's truly radical.
Vice President Joe Biden explained an alternative approach [ http://www.npr.org/2012/10/11/162754053/transcript-biden-ryan-vice-presidential-debate ] in his debate with Ryan. He said that his religion defines who he is and that he believes in his church's doctrine on abortion. But he added that he has no business imposing his religious beliefs on others as a lawmaker. That's not an uncommon position for Democrats like Biden, but it's a stark contrast to the extremists who have taken control of the Republican Party.
A record number of Republican Senate candidates want to criminalize abortion, even in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother's health. Republican-dominated state legislatures have legitimized this crusade [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/state-abortion-laws_n_1684825.html ] by passing a record number of measures [ http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-04-25/states-anti-abortion-legislation/54538866/1 ] to restrict women's reproductive health. In Washington, the U.S. House has voted to restrict abortion or access to contraception and other reproductive health services more than 30 times as the Republicans have also tried to take down expanded preventive health services for women included in the Affordable Care Act.
The GOP is embracing an extremism that rejects truth, scientific knowledge and common sense. The Republicans will brook no compromise in their relentless drive to criminalize abortion and revoke access to birth control and other basic reproductive health services.
So what does this say about Mitt Romney? He's said [ http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-mitt-romney-abortion-opposition-20121010,0,6957244.story ] he'd be a "pro-life president," he'd "immediately" remove funding for Planned Parenthood and he'd be "delighted" to sign a bill banning abortion. He won the GOP nomination by pandering to the radical right-wingers who control the Republican Party, and it's clear that he's going to let them run his show.
As anti-tax fanatic Grover Norquist told conservatives [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/13/grover-norquist-speech-cpac.html ] at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, "We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go." All the GOP needs, Norquist explained, is "a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States" so he can sign whatever bills extremists in Congress send his way.
Every person who cares about this issue needs to know that if Romney gets elected he will do everything in his power to help the extremist forces within the GOP take away the right of women to make their own health care decisions and obtain the medical services they need.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ethan-rome/war-on-women_b_2042384.html [with comments]
--
Paul Ryan's Record Opposing Abortion Rights Back In Spotlight (VIDEO)
10/28/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/28/paul-ryan-abortion_n_2035051.html [with embedded video, and comments]
===
Mitt Romney's Stem Cell Position May Put Research Funding At Risk
Republican presidential nominee opposes federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and could cut off funds if elected, which researchers say would disrupt their search for cures.
By Jeffrey Young
Posted: 11/02/2012 11:08 am EDT
With the stroke of a pen, Mitt Romney could slow the advance of embryonic stem cell research that has the potential to bring cures to ailments including diabetes, Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Scientists believe embryonic stem cells could someday be used to repair practically any human tissue. One thing they can't remedy is the dispute about the ethics of the research, which destroys human embryos in the process of deriving the cells. President George W. Bush allowed limited federal funding [ http://stemcells.nih.gov/policy/2001policy.htm ] for embryonic stem cell research in 2001, but scientists complained his restrictions were preventing them from moving forward. In 2009, President Barack Obama relaxed the rules [ http://stemcells.nih.gov/policy ] and funded new projects across the country.
The only thing preventing the funding from being cut off is Obama's executive order, which Romney could unilaterally revoke if he were elected president. Right-to-life activists are likely to pressure him to do so.
"We're in a much better place now under the Obama policy, and it would be very disruptive to go back," said George Daley, the director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Children's Hospital Boston and professor at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
Congress passed legislation twice to give the funding protection under the law but Bush vetoed the bills. Lawmakers, including Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), introduced similar bills during Obama's term in office but Congress has yet to act on the measures. In the meantime, Obama's policy nearly was up-ended in 2010 [ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-22/stem-cell-lawsuit-s-chilling-effect-on-laboratories-already-a-win-for-foes.html ] by a lawsuit that was eventually decided in his favor.
Larry Goldstein, a neuroscientist and director of the University of California San Diego Stem Cell Program, hopes Romney doesn't put the field of embryonic stem cell research in jeopardy. "If we had to abandon the use of human embryonic stem cells, we would be set back years. So if you're an ALS patient, you care that we continue working with human embryonic stem cells," he said.
"One would hope that Gov. Romney would not pick a fight that's going to consume a lot of time, potentially hand him a loss and not actually advance what his primary agenda is, which as I understand it, is economic," Goldstein said. "It would get a lot of folks riled up, myself included. We would fight back."
Making a quick and decisive change to Obama's policy on embryonic stem cell research would be one way for Romney to reward wary abortion-rights opponents for their support, said Jonathan Moreno, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy and a part-time adviser to Obama's Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
"This is an easy thing to give them, so I don't think there's any question that he will do that," Moreno said.
One anti-abortion rights activist said while Romney hasn't promised to revoke Obama's executive order, it's definitely what they want him to do.
"We would like to see the 2009 Obama policy to fund the destruction of human embryos for research rescinded," Carrie Gordon Earll, senior director of Issues Analysis for CitizenLink, an affiliate of Focus on the Family, wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. "I wouldn't be surprised if he rescinds it but have not heard him say that he would."
Romney has said his stance on embryonic stem cell research [ http://www.mittromney.com/issues/values ] is inextricably tied to his views on abortion. In 2004 as governor of Massachusetts, Romney had to consider his position on legislation that would have permitted the cloning of human embryos for medical research. Romney later said his decision to oppose it led to the reversal of his support of abortion rights [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/magazine/mitt-romney.html?pagewanted=all ].
Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul didn't respond to emails requesting comment, but the campaign did provide a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last month that affirmed that position [ http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/how-thompson-baldwin-differ-on-stem-cell-research-im75rfj-174113021.html ]. "Federal funding should be limited to research involving adult stem cells or alternate methods," the campaign told the newspaper, in part.
Adult stem cell research predates experiments using human embryos and has already led to the development of therapies such as the procedure NFL quarterback Peyton Manning underwent [ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2011/09/19/peyton-mannings-stem-cell-hail-mary/ ] to treat his injured neck last year. And scientists like Shinya Yamanaka, who won a Nobel Prize for his work in the field, are creating so-called induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS) -- which could be as powerful as embryonic stem cells -- without destroying any embryos.
Romney's position -- that the federal government should only fund research that doesn't involve embryos -- is based on a misunderstanding of stem cells and of how science works, Goldstein said.
"Had human embryonic stem cell research not been pursued, it is very likely that Yamanaka would not have been able to develop his reprogramming methods with human IPS cells," Goldstein said. Studies in one area inform studies in the others, and if the goal is to develop cures to diseases like ALS, the government shouldn't kneecap scientists, he said.
Some states, like California, finance some embryonic stem cell studies and a few private companies are doing research but those alternatives are no substitute for the resources the federal government can provide, Moreno said.
"If they stop those grants, then that work will stop because there is no -- zero -- private funding for stem cells because it's too speculative. And much of the state funding, such as it is, is already committed," he said.
Goldstein believes the scientific community has a bigger worry than the policy on embryonic stem cell research: The National Institutes of Health's budget has been stagnant [ http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/public-global-health/264319-advocates-lament-shrinking-funds-for-medical-research ] for several years and faces deep cuts, along with all discretionary spending under the types of budgets authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), Romney's running mate.
"The United States doesn't invest enough in science and technology," Goldstein said. "Ryan's thoughts about this are completely neanderthal."
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/mitt-romney-stem-cell-research_n_2052424.html [with comments]
===
Oregon Health & Science University DNA Experiment Yields Great Promise And High Ethical Risks
In this image made available by the Oregon Health & Science University, a faint white blotch in the tube at right is DNA that has been removed from a human egg, center. The red dot is from a laser used in the procedure. Scientists have successfully transplanted DNA between human eggs and grown them into early embryos. Someday that technique that may let children avoid inheriting certain diseases - and give them genes from another woman besides Mom.
(AP Photo/Oregon Health & Science University)
By Nick Budnick
Posted: 10/26/2012 7:40 am EDT Updated: 10/26/2012 7:40 am EDT
PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) Future generations could be stripped of mutations like hereditary blindness or maternal diabetes, after a breakthrough study at Oregon Health & Science University.
But the new technique is also one short step from genetic design of future generations, said Marcy Darnovksy of the California-based Center for Genetics and Society. "These powerful new technologies have a whole bunch of wonderful and appropriate uses -- and a number of ways they can be misused."
The researchers, led by OHSU biologist Shoukhrat Mitalipov, modified unfertilized eggs for the first time, a technique that offers great promise as well as ethical pitfalls. Such research is banned in many countries.
Three years ago, the Russian-born Mitalipov made headlines with experiments that created monkeys with genetic material from three parents. Now, his team has done it with human cells, setting the stage for possible experiments with humans.
The procedure dealt with what's called mitochondrial DNA, the small part of the cell that turns food into energy. Mitochondrial disorders can lead to neuropathy (a type of dementia) and nervous system disorders such as Leigh disease.
In a study published Wednesday (Oct. 24) in the journal Nature, the OHSU team described successfully transferring DNA from donor cells into other donor cells, fertilizing the eggs to create 13 tiny early embryos of roughly 100 cells each. These pre-embryos, called blastocysts, were converted to embryonic stem cells for future research.
Key to the technique: replacing the defective mitochondrial DNA with healthy genetic material from the egg of a second woman.
Four monkeys produced this way from Mitalipov's 2009 experiment remain healthy, showing the process is "not only effective but also has no side effects," he said.
Mitalipov stresses that mitochondrial DNA is different from the nucleus DNA that determines physical traits like eye and hair color, or even intelligence and personality. He notes an ethics commission in the United Kingdom has pronounced this kind of research ethical, and the OHSU research was sanctioned by an internal review board.
The research is prohibited in some other countries, but permitted in the U.S, although the government doesn't allow federal funding of it. Mitalipov was not allowed to use his federally funded laboratory in Hillsboro, Ore., instead doing the work in a duplicate lab set up in OHSU's South Waterfront complex in Portland.
OHSU contributed more than $500,000 toward the research, and $150,000 came from the LeDucq Foundation in France.
Only a few groups pursue this research, including one in New York and another in the United Kingdom, where the country is mulling over legalizing this type of technique.
"I think we are the most advanced. Hopefully this will make us leaders in human embryo and stem cell research in the United States and the world," Mitalipov said Wednesday.
The Food and Drug Administration seems open to a small clinical trial transplanting modified embryos into women to study their offspring, meaning it could be offered in a few years in clinics, he added. But he thinks the United Kingdom will fund trials sooner than in the U.S., due to heightened interest there.
Critics, however, say the OHSU technique needs rigorous and lengthy examination, and should provoke more countries to discuss what sorts of research should be pursued.
Darnovksy says that replacing mitochondrial DNA is not that far from replacing DNA in the cell's nucleus -- leading to the highly controversial possibility of "designer babies." She says four healthy monkeys does not rule out nuances that may only emerge in future generations.
"It is a biologically extreme procedure. You're taking apart an egg and putting it back together," she said. "In the real world, there are slippery slopes, and this one is really slippery with a lot of grease on it. We need brakes to slow ourselves down."
Jonathan Kimmelman, an assistant professor of biomedical ethics at McGill University in Montreal, says the battle lines on genetic engineering have relaxed in recent years. But he says there's evidence that mitochondrial DNA may play a role in brain function as well as metabolism.
He agreed that if mitochondrial gene therapy is approved, it will be hard to say no to the more controversial cousin of modifying nucleus DNA.
"There's no reason why we should say yes to one and no to the other," he said.
(Nick Budnick writes for The Oregonian in Portland.)
Copyright 2012 Religion News Service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/26/oregon-health-science-university-dna-experiment_n_2020863.html [with comments]
===
Mormon Missionary Applications Soar By 471 Percent
Missionaries Sister Khanitta Puttapong, center left, and Sister Christina Wong, center right, talk to Casey Ahlstrom, left, and Jason Mondon in Temple Square during the 182nd Semiannual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City on Sunday, Oct, 7, 2012.
(AP Photo/The Salt Lake Tribune, Kim Raff)
By Peggy Fletcher Stack / The Salt Lake Tribune
Posted: 10/25/2012 6:53 am EDT Updated: 10/25/2012 6:53 am EDT
SALT LAKE CITY (RNS) Mormon apostle Jeffrey R. Holland predicted that lowering the age limits for young Mormon missionaries would trigger a "dramatic" uptick in their numbers.
Turns out, "dramatic" was an understatement. Try a 471 percent jump in applications -- so far.
Just two weeks since Mormon President Thomas S. Monson announced that young men could go on full-time missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at age 18 (down from 19) and young women could go at 19 (down from 21), the Utah-based church has seen applications skyrocket from an average of 700 a week to 4,000 a week.
"Slightly more than half of the applicants are women," LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter said Monday (Oct. 22).
That represents a massive shift. Typically, women make up fewer than a fifth of the LDS missionary force, which currently stands at more than 58,000 worldwide.
Ultimately, Mormon leaders hope more missionaries will translate into more converts. Indeed, that may happen.
Matt Martinich, who tracks LDS growth, said in the past 33 years, he found each missionary has baptized -- on average -- six converts, though that number has dipped to five during the past decade.
The church reported 281,312 converts last year. If it sustains the current ratio of one missionary for every five converts a year, Martinich said, there would be 300,000 such baptisms when the number of missionaries reaches 60,000; 350,000 if the number of missionaries reaches 70,000; and 400,000 if the proselytizing force reaches 80,000.
This missionary age adjustment could generate as many as 15,000 more young male missionaries and 7,500 more female missionaries in the first year, Martinich said in a report at http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com .
Copyright 2012 Religion News Service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/mormon-missionary-application-increase-471-percent_n_2011973.html [with comments]
===
Obama or God?
Published on Oct 10, 2012 by blndsundoll4mj
::::OPEN ME
my interview from today I did with What's Trending
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E8vklzT4V0
my video on why I say NO to birth control (recorded March 6, 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOH6wwWEJZ0
my video on Obama vs The Catholic Church (recorded July 27, 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91wJHbOCwdM
my video on Ted Nugent, Mitt Romney and me (recorded April 18, 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mIAu-Go530
this will be one of my last political video for this election (unless something really starts eating me again) I just wanted to get this out there, one last and final time. I have people's attention, now I want you to listen.
giveaway and beauty videos will resume tomorrow!
thanks for understanding, thanks for being sweet, and thanks for all your continued support through it all :)
::::MORE TRISH ON THE WEB!!!!!!!
tweet me @trishapaytas
like me on facebook http://www.facebook.com/OfficialTrishaPaytas
find me on tumblr! http://www.trishapaytas.tumblr.com
instagram: trishapaytas
king of the web http://kingofweb.com/users/blndsundoll4mj
::::MY ONLINE STORES
my jewelry boutique
http://localhooker.bigcartel.com
my tshirts!!!
http://www.trishapaytas.spreadshirt.com
karmaloop clothing (enter repcode blndsundoll4mj at checkout for 20% off your first purchase)
http://www.karmaloop.com/?rcode=blndsundoll4mj
::::CONTACT ME!!!!!!!!
Trisha Paytas
P.O. Box 19102
Encino, CA 91416
for business and bookings tpaytas@hotmail.com
::::CHECK OUT MY OTHER YOUTUBE CHANNELS!
http://www.youtube.com/blndsundoll4mj
http://www.youtube.com/andiekaufman
http://www.youtube.com/iphonetrisha
http://www.youtube.com/thecatholicvlogger
http://www.youtube.com/myownrealityshow
ox
Trish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ytGdjf-ync
===
Oklahoma 'Personhood' Ballot Amendment Appeal Rejected By Supreme Court
* Order issued without comment by court
* Oklahoma top court had struck measure from ballot
Posted: 10/29/2012 1:57 pm EDT
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an attempt by anti-abortion activists to place what they call a "personhood amendment" on the Oklahoma ballot to define an embryo as a human being from the moment of conception.
The anti-abortion group Personhood Oklahoma had appealed to the Supreme Court, challenging the Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision in April to strike down the ballot initiative.
The ballot question would have asked Oklahoma voters to amend the state constitution to expand the definition of a human being to include a fertilized egg. The state's highest court said the proposed constitutional amendment was "clearly unconstitutional" because the U.S. Supreme Court already had decided the issue.
Passage of a personhood law or constitutional amendment would have the effect of banning abortion in the state, both supporters and critics have said.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union and local abortion rights groups sued in March to keep the proposed initiative off the November election ballot.
On appeal to the country's highest court, Personhood Oklahoma argued that the state court's decision to block the initiative took away their supporters' rights to free speech and to participate in the democratic process. But the U.S. Supreme Court, without comment, refused to hear the case, according to an order issued Monday.
Abortion rights groups welcomed the court's decision.
"Pure and simple, these tactics are an affront to our nation's Constitution and a bald-faced attempt to foreclose women's access to a full range of reproductive healthcare," Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement.
Keith Mason, the president of Personhood USA, said the group and its local affiliates would go on trying in Oklahoma and other states to pass such a law through the legislature or the ballot box.
Similar initiatives were successful in placing personhood questions on the ballot in Colorado and Mississippi, but voters in both states defeated the amendments.
The case is Personhood Oklahoma v. Barber et al, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-145.
(Reporting by Terry Baynes in New York; Editing by Howard Goller and Cynthia Osterman)
Copyright 2012 Reuters
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/oklahoma-personhood-supreme-court_n_2040290.html [with comments]
===
Joe Donnelly Building Lead [over Richard Mourdock] In Indiana, Polls Show
11/02/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/donnelly-indiana-poll_n_2063743.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
===
Michele Bachmann Describes Herself As Bipartisan, 'Independent Voice' In Campaign Ad
11/02/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/michele-bachmann-ad-independent-voice_n_2068150.html [with video of the ad embedded, and comments]
===
Heartbeat: My Involuntary Miscarriage and 'Voluntary Abortion' in Ohio
By Tamara Mann
Posted: 11/01/2012 10:30 am
On June 19, the state of Ohio declared that I had a voluntary abortion. My rabbi and my doctors disagreed. I simply wanted to be pregnant.
The ordeal began two weeks earlier; I was in stirrups. The sonogram technician needed more images. When she got them she looked ashen. "You should see a doctor today," she emphasized as she handed me the printed image of my 13-week-old baby or fetus, I still don't know what word to use. "But there is a heartbeat. Thank god there is a heartbeat," I mumbled. I had been here before. But last time, during my first pregnancy, there was no heartbeat.
I waited. I overheard the technician as she looked at the screen with the doctor, "this is bad, this is really bad." He wasn't my doctor, but he had a soft voice with a southern kick that I liked. He saw me, gestured for me to come to his office, and referred to the ailing life in my belly as a baby. "This isn't good," he whispered. "It's really not. Let me show you." He was kind but clear. "The organs are not inside the baby's body. The hands and feet are curled, actually one limb seems to be stunted or missing. The neck isn't right. This really doesn't look good." I looked at the expanded sonogram on his desk. I saw the hands turned in, the area that he referred to as the organs, the dead space where there should be a limb. Minutes ago, I had looked at this same image and smiled. "I don't understand," I replied. "What do I do now?" "Why don't you wait a week," he offered. "I don't understand," I repeated, "can the baby survive? Can these problems be solved? I don't understand exactly what you are telling me." "No, I don't think so," he said finally, "but there are always miracles."
I was withered, but functional. I knew this could happen and knew that I could recover. I had been blessed with a healthy child in between and felt, in my Nana's words, "Why should this be easy?" I decided to wait out the week. Looking pregnant, I returned to work, still hoping that maybe with more quiet time, with more love, next week the baby would be better. As I sat down at my desk, my own doctor called. To him, it was a fetus. "Tamara, I have looked at the scans and I have shown the scans to doctors in my office. I want to tell you that we all agree that this fetus is not compatible with life. It will not survive the pregnancy. You should get it removed immediately. The longer you wait the more risks are involved." I hung up the phone.
The idea of "removing" my baby, my fetus, while its heart was still beating was simply unbearable. Was it living? Was it still growing? Would I be stopping the heartbeat, cutting short its life? And what do I do after the operation? Do I bury it? I didn't understand what I had inside of me and I didn't understand what I should do. I called a dear friend, an Orthodox rabbi, who I knew would be both compassionate and firm. After consulting with his rabbi, he said the case was clear. In situations where the mother's health is at risk and the fetus (he explicitly said fetus) is not viable, Jewish law errs on the side of the mother's health. I should have the operation and I should not bury the fetus -- it is not a life.
The next morning I got the following message, "Because your fetus still has a heartbeat, it has been our experience that insurance companies in Ohio will not cover the costs of the operation. They consider it an optional abortion. Our office suggests that you go to Planned Parenthood, which will only run you $800. If you go to the hospital it will be over $10,000." I was stunned. What did my insurance company want, for me to have a dangerous late-stage miscarriage or go through the risks of labor to give birth to a stillborn? And why this obsession with the heartbeat as the sole marker of life? What about organ and brain function, what about viability? At that moment, I was extremely grateful for Planned Parenthood. But I still didn't want to go there. I wanted to support them, but I didn't want to have an abortion. I didn't even want to have anything that seemed like an abortion. I wanted to be pregnant. I wanted to have a baby.
My home morphed into a crazy lair of pencil scribbling, tissues and phone numbers. For three days we fought. My husband, my parents and my doctors made phone calls, wrote letters and tried every avenue possible to get the insurance company to change their mind. Finally, three days later, we got the news. Because of my doctor's carefully crafted letter, my insurance company would cover the procedure.
I thought the political nightmare was over. I thought I could start the process of mourning. I was wrong.
Another phone call, this time from the office of the OBGYN performing the procedure. You must come in 24 hours in advance. "Why?" "To sign a consent form." "What consent form?" Silence. "Well, you only don't have to sign it if you were raped." I was still completely confused. "I wasn't raped. I don't understand. What are you talking about?" "You are having an optional abortion right?" "No. I am having a therapeutic D&C (dilation and curettage operation to remove the fetus and womb lining) to remove a non-viable fetus." "But the baby is alive?" "Well, according to my religious faith, that is not so." "Is there a heartbeat?" "Yes." "Then, I am sorry to say, you are having an elective abortion and you must sign an informed consent 24 hours before the operation."
Roe v. Wade gave states the right to regulate abortion. State laws can mandate that doctors describe the risks of abortion and receive the informed consent of a woman before proceeding. In Ohio, a physician must meet with the pregnant woman 24 hours before the operation to explain the procedure, give the state sponsored materials on alternatives to abortion and receive a signed form stating that the pregnant woman "consents to the particular abortion voluntarily, knowingly, intelligently, and without coercion by any person...." There are "medical necessity" exceptions to this ruling, but due to custom more than statute, the sign of a heartbeat trumps other prognoses.
While Ohio is not the only state preoccupied with the heartbeat, it seems to be one of the most committed. On March 3, 2011, two pregnant women received ultrasounds in a state committee hearing. As Charles Lewis of the National Post reported, "The lobbying effort to end abortion in the United States moved into strange new territory Wednesday as two fetuses were presented via ultrasound to a packed committee room of the Ohio state legislature." State legislatures looked on as "a technician used a probe to show images of each woman's fetus on a portable screen. A heart monitor was used to project the sound of the beating heart of each fetus, nine and 15 weeks." This display was in service of the Heartbeat Bill, a piece of legislation that would make abortion illegal once a heartbeat could be detected. The bill passed the House but not the Senate.
In the vice presidential debate, Paul Ryan continued in this tradition, explaining his pro-life decision as a matter of "reason and science." He continued, "You know, I think about 10 ½ years ago, my wife Janna and I went to Mercy Hospital in Janesville where I was born, for our seven week ultrasound for our firstborn child, and we saw that heartbeat." What is going on here? Why have so many people settled on the heartbeat as the best marker of life in-utero? This is not science. It is the tyranny of a metaphor.
There is little consensus among biologists, doctors and ethicists on when life begins. The language here can be tricky. There all sorts of things they agree are alive -- from cells, to animals, to people. But that is not what they mean when they discuss life in utero. In this case, they mean life as something endowed with humanness, and worthy of rights, something closer to personhood. A brief look at the literature reveals a litany of standards for determining personhood: conception (day 1), implantation (day 6-7), detectable heartbeat (approximately week 6), detectable brain activity (approximately week 8), quickening (when the mother can feel the fetus moving), development of the cerebral cortex (at the end of the first trimester), viability outside the mother's body (now as early as 24 weeks with medical support), when the head is visible during labor, and when the baby takes its first breath. Smart, thoughtful people genuinely disagree. Even the Supreme Court had this to say about the issue in 1973: "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciples of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus...."
In Judaism, the dominant metaphor for life is not the heartbeat -- it is the breath. In Genesis 2:7, God breathes life into man: "Then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man become a living soul." Even that final word, soul, nefesh, can be translated as breath. My own rabbi's rabbi, Dov Linzer, explained it to me in this way. The definition of life can also be understood through our definition of death. At the end of life, the Talmud speaks almost exclusively about breathing. Breath was used as an indicator for life. The Shulchan Aruch says to test for a dying person's breath to know whether or not they are alive. So, if death is the absence of breath, life is the presence of breath. Life, personhood, is marked when the baby takes its first breath.
While a fetus is not considered actual life, Jewish law does acknowledge a continuum between potential and actual life, which guides, among other considerations, including the health of the mother, abortion rulings. According to Rabbi Linzer, the presence of a heartbeat, in itself, is not an important Jewish legal marker in determining the viability of life in utero. Even in the strictest ruling, he related to me, the fetus has to be able to live for a day outside of the mother's womb to be considered a viable life. The definition of potential life, he said, "is fully dependent on it being able to be born."
Life is not instantaneous. It is an arduous, miraculous, process. So many steps have to align -- so much has to go exactly right for a baby to take its first breath. When we start to think of life this way, the pro-choice/pro-life debates seem to me almost cruel. Neither accurately explains the moral nuance of each individual's situation or honors the complexity of creation. I wish we could reframe the debate and talk more about what it would mean to honor the sanctity of life. To honor the actual lives of pregnant women and the potential lives they hold within them.
On June 19, I sat down in another doctor's office and, as was required of me, read the pamphlet, "Fetal Development and Family Planning." I looked at pictures of fetuses at 12 and 14 weeks. I learned that at 12 weeks "a doctor may be able tell if it is a boy or a girl," and at 14 weeks "the head is erect and the legs are developed." The doctor was kind and she didn't make me watch the sonogram. She told me how lucky I was that my insurance would cover this and that she had a patient just a few months ago with my prognosis that had to give birth to a stillborn.
The next day, I had the operation. In the hospital, nurses, many of whom told me that they leaned toward pro-life, sympathized with my situation. Together, we chatted about the D&C, about how complicated it can be to have a child, and about how difficult this kind of a miscarriage can be. In those hours the debate between pro-choice and pro-life dissolved into one much more subtle and specific, one between the health of a mother and the viability of a fetus. One that felt like it was just about me.
When the anesthesia wore off, my two friends, who had traveled to be with me for the operation, told me that the doctor had come in. What did she say? She said the operation went very well. She also said that they did a sonogram before the operation. Tamara, she said, the heartbeat had already stopped.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tamara-mann/heartbeat-involuntary-miscarriage-and-voluntary-abortion-in-ohio_b_2050888.html [with comments]
===
John Koster: No Abortion for Survivors Of "The Rape Thing"
Published on Oct 31, 2012 by Fuse Washington
October 28, 2012: Tea Party Congressional Candidate John Koster explains why he opposes abortion in cases of incest and "the rape thing." When asked about the devastating consequences this would have for survivors, his response was "crime has consequences." Warning: this is disturbing if you believe women should have any control over their bodies.
UPDATE: For press inquires, contact Press@FuseWashington.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU_tqVz_bcs [via/more at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/john-koster-the-rape-thing_n_2051752.html (with comments)]
===
Hindus And Muslims Most Likely To Abstain From Premarital Sex According To New Study
By Jeanie Groh
Posted: 10/28/2012 8:21 am EDT
(RNS) With their "True Love Waits" jewelry, conferences and T-shirts, Christians may be the face of the abstinence movement, but Muslims and Hindus are more likely to abstain from premarital sex.
That's the conclusion of a new study in the American Sociological Review, which also found that Muslims and Hindus -- at least in the developing world -- are more likely than Christians and Jews to refrain from extramarital sex.
"All major world religions discourage sex outside of marriage, but they are not all equally effective in shaping behavior," said Amy Adamczyk of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who co-authored the study with John Jay doctoral student Brittany E. Hayes.
Drawing on the Demographic and Health Surveys funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the study included data from 31 developing nations collected between 2000 and 2008. The authors focused on individuals' responses to questions on religious affiliation, marital status, and sexual behavior outside of marriage.
Adamczyk said the study evolved from another study she was doing that found countries with large Muslim populations have very low rates of HIV and AIDS. "I was trying to figure out why that would be," she said. One reason she considered was lower rates of sex outside of marriage.
The authors hypothesized that the larger the proportion of Muslims and Hindus in a country, the lower the rates of premarital and extramarital sex.
Adamczyk and Hayes found that 94 percent of Jews in the nations they studied reported having premarital sex, compared to 79 percent of Christians, 65 percent of Buddhists, 43 percent of Muslims and 19 percent of Hindus.
As for extramarital sex, 4 percent of Jews reported having sex outside of marriage, compared to 3 percent of Christians. Less than one percent each of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists reported having extramarital sex.
"In many countries around the world -- but in Muslim countries specifically, there's just much less interaction between the sexes," said Adamczyk. "It's just going to be much less likely that they're going to meet a potentially romantic partner."
The Rev. Paul Sullins, a sociologist at the Catholic University of America, said the study's findings are not surprising, because much of the data comes from conservative Islamic nations.
"The burqa really works," Sullins said. "When you cover your women head to toe with cloth to keep them from being viewed by men outside their family, and you keep them strictly segregated from men throughout their growing years until they get married, you're going to have less premarital sex."
Suzy Ismail, a marriage and divorce counselor and the author of several books on Muslim marriage, said low rates of premarital and extramarital sex among Muslims are rooted in the religion.
"For Muslims, any form of zinna (fornication or adultery) or anything that leads to zinna is religiously prohibited," Ismail said. "In consistently reminding others and oneself of the importance of modest dress, modest actions, and modest interactions, Muslims tend to inculcate the concepts of sexual morals from a young age."
Copyright 2012 Religion News Service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/premarital-sex-hindus-muslims-abstain_n_2030650.html [with comments]
--
Religion and Sexual Behaviors
Understanding the Influence of Islamic Cultures and Religious Affiliation for Explaining Sex Outside of Marriage
http://asr.sagepub.com/content/77/5/723.full
===
YG Network [Young Guns Network], Conservative Group, Says Women Should Vote For 'The Cute One'
Rep. Sean Duffy, a.k.a. "the cute one"
11/01/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/yg-network-young-guns-women-vote-for-the-cute-one_n_2051420.html [with comments] [the YouTube of the ad at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=errkE2orSmk ]
===
Todd Akin Gets Fresh National Republican Funding For Advertising
11/01/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/todd-akin-republican-funding_n_2051876.html [with comments]
--
Todd Akin Campaign Features Rape Victim In Ad Targeting Women
11/01/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/todd-akin-ad_n_2059088.html [ad at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doY2YSU8FBY ] [with comments]
===
David Cicilline, Rhode Island Democratic Congressman, Linked To Child Molester In GOP TV Ad
10/31/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/david-cicilline-child-molester_n_2050630.html [with the ad embedded, and comments]
===
Rabbi Leiter Blames Hurricane Sandy on Gays, Marriage Equality
Published on Oct 31, 2012 by RWWBlog
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-rabbi-blames-hurricane-sandy-gays-marriage-equality
Rabbi Noson Leiter of Torah Jews for Decency blames Hurricane Sandy on gays and lesbians, calling it "divine justice" for New York's marriage equality law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB6MPcZ1Nn8 [via/more at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/hurricane-sandy-new-york-gay-marriage-law-rabbi-noson-leiter_n_2050450.html (with comments)]
===
Mark Regnerus, Gay Parenting Study Sociologist, Defends Research In New Interview
Posted: 10/31/2012 9:35 am EDT
The Texas sociologist who sparked controversy earlier this year with a heavily-criticized study of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) parenting [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/debra-umberson/texas-professors-gay-research_b_1628988.html ] is speaking out about his findings, but whether his remarks truly constitute a defense is questionable.
Mark Regnerus, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, tells Focus on the Family's Citizen magazine [ http://www.citizenlink.com/2012/10/26/friday-5-mark-regnerus/ ] that while he stands behind his work, he would do a few things differently, particularly in terms of language used in the findings, if given the opportunity.
"I’d be more careful about the language I used to describe people whose parents had same-sex relationships," Regenus told the magazine. "I said 'lesbian mothers' and 'gay fathers,' when in fact, I don’t know about their sexual orientation; I do know about their same-sex relationship behavior."
He also noted:
"Finding someone whose parent had some sort of same-sex relationship as they were growing up is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I got taken to task for leaning on young adults’ assessments of their parents’ relationships. I didn’t ask them whether they thought their mom was a lesbian or if their dad was gay. Because, in part, self-identity is a different kind of thing than behavior, and lot of people weren’t 'out' in that era. I think we can all think of moms and dads when we were growing up that we either knew or suspected were gay or lesbian, but never 'came out of the closet,' so to speak."
Though criticized by a number of high-profile sociologists [ http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/six-more-sociology-phds-call-for-retraction-of-regnerus-anti-gay-study/news/2012/10/23/50968 ], Regnerus' study -- which was partly funded by the Witherspoon Institute, which has ties to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) -- has received nonetheless received praise from several conservative pundits. Among them was the American Family Association [ http://www.afa.net/ ]'s Bryan Fischer, who noted that news that University of Texas would be conducting an investigation into Regnerus' study was proof that "the homosexual lobby is vicious, they are venomous, [and] they are filled with hatred," according to Right Wing Watch [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/fischer-gay-biological-parents-should-be-denied-custody-and-only-allowed-supervised-visits ].
Meanwhile, Darren E. Sherkat, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, called Regnerus' findings "bullsh*t," noting that the paper's loose definition of "lesbian mothers" and “gay fathers” should have “disqualified it immediately,” according to The Chronicle of Higher Education[ http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/controversial-gay-parenting-study-is-severely-flawed-journals-audit-finds/30255 ].
Added Wendy Simonds, a sociology professor at Georgia State University [ http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwsoc/2753.html ]: "Regnerus’s 'data' on gay and lesbian parents are unrepresentative of gay and lesbian parents, and, in my view, are presented so as to advance a homophobic agenda.”
The American Medical Association and the President of the American Sociological Association have also put their names to documents which called Regnerus’ methodology scientifically unsound, according to The New Civil Rights Movement [ http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/six-more-sociology-phds-call-for-retraction-of-regnerus-anti-gay-study/news/2012/10/23/50968 ].
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/mark-regnerus-gay-parenting-study-defense_n_2045960.html [with comments]
===
One Man Guides the Fight Against Gay Marriage
Frank Schubert, second from left, in a post-meeting prayer. He is leading the campaign against same-sex marriage initiatives in four states.
Matt Roth for The New York Times
By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: October 9, 2012
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — In the roiling state-by-state war over same-sex marriage [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/same_sex_marriage/index.html ], the campaign against marriage rights has been masterminded largely by one man.
Frank Schubert, a former corporate public relations executive, ran the $40 million, come-from-behind push for Proposition 8 [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/californias_proposition_8_samesex_marriage/index.html ] in California in 2008. He went on to mount successful campaigns to defeat same-sex marriage in Maine and North Carolina. Now, with marriage initiatives on the ballot in Maryland, Minnesota, Washington State and Maine, Mr. Schubert is the chief strategist in all four at once.
Gay rights leaders despise Mr. Schubert, who has devoted himself to the issue in recent years, for what they call his misleading arguments. They have also learned to fear him for messages that are less openly harsh than those voiced by many other opponents of gay rights: a strategy aimed at reassuring the moderate voters who decide such elections that barring gays and lesbians from marriage does not make them bigots.
Citing polls showing growing public acceptance and armed with more than $25 million, gay rights leaders hope to win their first ballot victory for same-sex marriage on Nov. 6. But they are bracing for a rush of Schubert-designed television ads in the four contested states.
“Everyone has a right to love who they choose,” says an ad now running in Minnesota, “but nobody has a right to redefine marriage.”
Telling voters they are not prejudiced if they vote against same-sex marriage is “diabolically smart and creative,” said Fred Sainz, vice president for communications of the Human Rights Campaign, a national advocacy group for gay rights. “He is putting lipstick on the pig of discrimination.”
For his part, Mr. Schubert, who has a lesbian sister raising two children in a domestic partnership, says, “It’s hurtful to know that many people think I dislike gays and lesbians and wish them harm.”
He spoke during an interview here in Maryland’s capital, where he was making last-minute tweaks to television ads and meeting with local organizers in what seems likely to be a close race.
Mr. Schubert expects to spend some $12.5 million over all, with one-third of the total provided by the National Organization for Marriage, the largest private group financing campaigns against same-sex marriage. In Minnesota, the Catholic Conference is providing $1 million.
His opponents have raised $25 million so far, a tally that includes $4.4 million from the Human Rights Campaign and a donation of $2.5 million in Washington State from the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife.
In the six states that permit it, and the District of Columbia, same-sex marriage was mandated by courts or approved by the Legislature. But every time the issue has been on the ballot, in 32 states in a row, voters have come out against same-sex marriage. (Thirty states have constitutional amendments defining marriage as solely between a man and a woman, and another 11 have laws restricting marriage).
“If the other side succeeds this fall, I’m certain that it will open up a whole new front,” Mr. Schubert said, predicting that groups in California, Oregon and elsewhere would be emboldened to bring forth public referendums.
Mr. Schubert, 56, attended Catholic schools in Sacramento, Calif., where he still lives with his wife. At age 22, he was chief of staff to a Republican assemblywoman. He entered public relations and became known, in the world of political consultants, for winning dozens of issue-oriented ballot campaigns on behalf of corporations: defeating proposals to increase tobacco taxes and to require restaurants to offer health insurance to employees.
He had not thought much about the marriage issue, he said, before he was tapped in 2008 to run the Proposition 8 campaign, which was mounted by religious conservatives to override the California Supreme Court decision permitting same-sex marriage. With a budget of $40 million, more than matched by opponents, he mounted a campaign with button-pushing ads.With that victory, Mr. Schubert won national attention, and his life took a sharp turn.
“The more I learned about the marriage issue, the more committed I became,” he recalled.
He threw himself into the cause, teaming with the National Organization for Marriage [ http://www.nationformarriage.org/ ], which pays him a retainer for strategic advice. Brian S. Brown, the organization’s president, praised Mr. Schubert in an interview as “the best in the business.”
This year, as his activism began to turn off corporate clients, Mr. Schubert left Schubert Flint Public Affairs, the consulting firm he founded in 2003, and started a new one, Mission: Public Affairs [ http://missionpublicaffairs.com/ ], which he says will be entirely devoted to social causes.
“I think God has a plan for our lives,” Mr. Schubert said of his shift. While the new focus is not as lucrative as corporate work, he continues to do well, receiving monthly fees of $10,000 to $20,000 from each of the four state campaigns and earning a commission on the voluminous ads he places on radio and television.
Mr. Schubert said that while he tailors messages to each state, certain themes have proved effective: that marriage between a man and a woman is the tested foundation of a stable society, that children do best when raised by a married father and mother, and that “it is possible to respect the rights of gays and lesbians without redefining marriage.”
“This is a difficult argument,” he said, “because it sounds as if we’re saying gay couples can’t have loving relationships or care for children, which is not the case.”
Gay rights leaders counter that they are not seeking to redefine marriage but to end discrimination. They say that the claims about child-rearing are unfounded and that while Mr. Schubert may profess a lack of personal prejudice, his sponsors have often vilified homosexuals.
“They’re trying to soften the rhetoric as it becomes clear that our society now frowns on being openly antigay,” said Mr. Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign.
In each of the four states, Mr. Schubert is working with a local team that will mount the “ground game,” mobilizing volunteers to knock on doors and run phone banks. He creates the advertising and approves the message.
Here in Maryland [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/us/in-maryland-gay-marriage-seeks-a-yes-at-the-polls.html ], the Rev. Derek McCoy is chairman and daily supervisor of the campaign to overturn, in a referendum, the Legislature’s adoption of same-sex marriage this year. At the recent meeting, Mr. Schubert and Mr. McCoy nodded approvingly as staff members described enlisting more Hispanic pastors and Seventh-day Adventists.
Conservative black pastors like Mr. McCoy have led the battle against same-sex marriage in this state, where Democrats dominate and more than 20 percent of voters are black. But securing the minority vote became more complicated when President Obama and the N.A.A.C.P. both endorsed a broadening of marriage rules.
Mr. McCoy said that in his experience most blacks remained firmly opposed. “I tell people that it’s fine if you want to vote for the president,” he said, “but vote what you feel on marriage.”
Mr. Schubert already has his eye on the next year or two, when he sees marriage battles brewing in Rhode Island, New Jersey and several other states. And he is talking with potential clients about campaigns to protect religious liberty and fight abortion.
But for now, he knows, the task is to extend that unbroken record of ballot victories in four states where, he notes, gay rights advocates are sure to outspend him. “To be sure, these are all deep blue states, so no doubt we have a challenge,” he said. “That said, at 32-0, I still like my chances.”
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/us/politics/frank-schubert-mastermind-in-the-fight-against-gay-marriage.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/us/politics/frank-schubert-mastermind-in-the-fight-against-gay-marriage.html?pagewanted=all ]
===
Marriage on the Ballot
Editorial
Published: October 30, 2012
The freedom to marry is a fundamental right that should not have to be won or defended at the ballot box. In fact, ballot initiatives are a bad way to write or rewrite laws of any kind. Unfortunately, that is the reality of American politics, which is why same-sex marriage measures on the Nov. 6 ballot in Maine, Washington, Maryland and Minnesota could turn out to be pivotal in the struggle for marriage equality.
Thanks to court rulings and legislative victories, same-sex marriage is now legal in six states and the District of Columbia, and polls show that a majority of Americans support the legalization of marriages for gay, lesbian and bisexual couples. But same-sex marriage has never won a ballot referendum.
The measure in Maine probably has the best chance of winning. Three years ago, Maine voters rejected a marriage-equality bill [ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/us/05marriage.html ] that had been approved by the State Legislature. But, instead of giving up, supporters of the freedom to marry went right back to knocking on doors, raising money, honing their arguments and organizing for a new vote this fall to legalize same-sex marriages.
Although recent polls of likely Maine voters are encouraging, the outcome is still far from certain. Historically, polls on such ballot tests have been misleading, and anti-marriage forces are waging a loud propaganda campaign. They are running television commercials [ http://www.wgme.com/news/top-stories/stories/wgme_vid_13810.shtml ] suggesting that marriage-equality opponents would be unfairly “fired, sued, fined and punished” if the referendum passes, and that it is possible to treat gay and lesbian couples fairly while still excluding them from the right to marry. It would help if the state’s two supposedly moderate Republican senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, who is retiring, would stand up against forces of intolerance within their party by publicly supporting the referendum.
In Washington State, voters will be deciding whether to let stand the authorization of same-sex marriage handily approved by the Legislature [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/us/washington-state-set-to-legalize-same-sex-marriage.html ] and signed into law by the state’s Democratic governor, Christine Gregoire [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/us/washington-gay-marriage-legalized.html ], in February. As in Maine, opponents of marriage equality are trying to make the fallacious argument that marriage equality would somehow harm heterosexual couples. They also insist that the domestic partnership scheme approved by voters in the state three years ago goes far enough.
The state’s Roman Catholic leaders have played a vocal role in trying to turn out a big “no” vote by Catholic parishioners. But major corporate players in the Seattle area, including Microsoft, Amazon and Starbucks, are supporting the measure. That is an encouraging development for the future of the issue nationwide.
Same-sex marriage also stands a chance of prevailing in Maryland, where the same-sex marriage law was narrowly approved by both chambers of the Legislature [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/us/maryland-gay-marriage-bill-sent-to-governor.html ] and signed in March by the state’s Democratic governor, Martin O’Malley. But the law was put off when opponents gathered sufficient signatures to toss the issue to a voter referendum.
If the law is approved by voters, the victory will owe much to the vigorous campaigning of Mr. O’Malley, the momentum created by President Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality and efforts, including by the N.A.A.C.P., to bolster support among blacks, who make up nearly 30 percent of Maryland’s residents.
The issue before Minnesota voters is whether to double-down on the state’s existing law outlawing same-sex marriage by enshrining the antigay ban in the State Constitution. With polls showing a tight contest, it is hard to believe that a majority of Minnesotans would opt to place their state so sharply on the wrong side of fairness.
*
Related
Supporters of Same-Sex Marriage See Room for Victories (October 31, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/us/politics/gay-marriage-supporters-hope-to-win-in-4-states.html
Times Topic: Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions, and Domestic Partnerships
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/same_sex_marriage/index.html
Related in Opinion
Frank Bruni's Blog: Maine's Marriage Hero (October 18, 2012)
http://bruni.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/maines-marriage-hero/
City Room: Mayor Lends Hand to Gay-Marriage Push in Maryland (October 12, 2012)
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/12/mayor-lends-a-hand-to-gay-marriage-push-in-maryland/
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/opinion/marriage-on-the-ballotsame-sex-on-the-ballot-in-4-states.html [with comments]
===
Kyle Wood Assault 'Unfounded,' As Wisconsin Volunteer Recants Claim Of Hate Crime Attack
By Sarah Bufkin
Posted: 10/30/2012 4:06 pm EDT Updated: 10/30/2012 8:30 pm EDT
A former full-time volunteer for Wisconsin state senator and U.S. House candidate Chad Lee (R) recanted his claim Monday that he had suffered a beating and threats for his sexuality and political affiliation. Kyle Wood [ http://host.madison.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/volunteer-for-chad-lee-recants-story-of-attack-for-being/article_93cfc308-2220-11e2-8351-001a4bcf887a.html ], 29, had originally reported to the Madison, Wis., police that a man had broken into his apartment and proceeded to assault and threaten him on Oct. 24.
"I was getting ready for work and there was a knock at the door," Wood said in an email to The Daily Caller [ http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/25/wisconsin-gop-campaign-worker-hospitalized-after-apparent-gay-bashing-assault/ ]. "I opened it, and a guy wrapped a ligature around my neck, slammed my head into the doorway, and smashed my face into a mirror, telling me 'You should have kept your [f****t] mouth shut.'"
He also said that someone had vandalized his car earlier that week, spray-painting it with abusive comments like "house-trained republican f****t" and "traitor."
Wood had worked full-time for Lee's campaign as the Republican candidate runs for the House seat left vacant by outgoing Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). Lee's opponent, state Rep. Mark Pocan (D), is openly gay and holds a substantial cash advantage [ http://www.waow.com/story/19924808/pocan-has-cash-edge-in-wis-house-district-2-race ].
The story, which the right-leaning Daily Caller first reported on Oct. 25, spread to the state media and across the Internet. Wood gave interviews to local talk show host Vicki McKenna and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Christian Schneider. The Journal-Sentinel has since removed the interview [ http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/purple-wisconsin/176334541.html ] from its site.
Lee's campaign confirmed that it would no longer employ Wood after learning of his reversal.
"A deeply troubled volunteer misled police, news outlets and our own team in regards to events that he alleged," the campaign said in a statement [ http://host.madison.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/volunteer-for-chad-lee-recants-story-of-attack-for-being/article_93cfc308-2220-11e2-8351-001a4bcf887a.html ] released Monday.
Wood has refrained from commenting since his interview with the police on Monday afternoon. Following that meeting, the police department updated its incident report to reflect that the previously reported claim was "unfounded [ http://www.cityofmadison.com/incidentReports/incidentDetail.cfm?id=13821 ]."
Madison Police Capt. Joe Balles notes [ http://host.madison.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/volunteer-for-chad-lee-recants-story-of-attack-for-being/article_93cfc308-2220-11e2-8351-001a4bcf887a.html ] that the Republican staffer could face criminal prosecution for the false reporting of a hate crime, but that the department also does not want to deter residents from coming forward in the future.
"We're in the victims business," Balles told Isthmus [ http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=38133 ], an alternative Wisconsin newpaper. "We really need victims to come forward. We don't take matters like this lightly."
When Wood first contacted The Daily Caller with the story, he submitted photos detailing the injuries he sustained to his face and neck. It is unclear whether Wood inflicted the injuries on himself [ http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/10/gay-republican-recants-allegation-he-was-attacked.html ] or if he simply made up the political backstory to an unrelated violent act.
The issue of falsely reported hate crimes also came into play before the 2008 presidential election. In October of that year, a Republican campaign volunteer for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) carved a backwards "B" [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/24/mccain-supporter-who-clai_n_137484.html ] into her own cheek and told police that a black man had done it after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/30/kyle-wood-assault-gay-republican-wisconsin_n_2044888.html [with comments]
===
Jack Wu, Friend Of Westboro Baptist Church, Spends No Money In Ed Board Race, Could Win Anyway
Jack Wu, the GOP candidate vying for a spot on the Kansas State Board of Education, has neither raised money nor spent any. However, some say the "R" by Wu's name will be enough to secure him a certain number of votes in his conservative district.
By Meredith Bennett-Smith
Posted: 11/01/2012 6:50 pm EDT Updated: 11/01/2012 6:55 pm EDT
Jack Wu, who's been associated with the highly controversial Westboro Baptist Church, is vying for a spot [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/02/jack-wu-kansas-westboro-directions_n_1933522.html ] on the Kansas State Board of Education. The anti-evolution, fundamentalist Christian candidate has raised no money, and spent none, according to recently released campaign records, but some say that may not matter in his conservative district.
According to the Associated Press, Wu said he has always planned to spend nothing [ http://cjonline.com/news/2012-10-31/kansas-education-board-challenger-spends-nothing ] on his campaign in the state's 4th District. Wu, the GOP candidate, recently had to file his official campaign reports, and the documents confirm he has collected only $5 in cash contributions, received $9.99 in donated goods and services, and spent zero.
“I don’t like asking for money,” Wu told AP. “It’s not my style.” In comparison, Wu's opponent, the incumbent Democrat Carolyn Campbell, so far has raised $16,000, and spent about $12,300.
But in the conservative district, the "R" (for Republican) by Wu's name is enough to assure him a certain number of votes [id.], Kansas Democratic Party Chairwoman Joan Wagnon told AP. In little-known races, she said, voters tend to stick to party lines.
However, the Kansas Board of Education election is attracting more attention than normal this year due to a couple of factors.
Among those is Wu's connection to the widely unpopular Westboro Church [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/westboro-baptist-church-hurricane-sandy-east-coast_n_2039564.html ]. According to Raw Story, Wu has said he attends their services, but is not a member [ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/31/westboro-baptist-candidate-for-kansas-board-of-education-only-raises-5/ ]. The Topeka-based organization is infamous for picketing the funerals of military service members and carrying obscene, anti-LGBT signs.
Additionally, five of the board's 10 spots are on the ballot this year, with three contested races. The elections are being watched by education experts because of their possible role in an emerging conflict over science standards for public schools [ http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/Science-debate-shadows-Kan-school-board-hopefuls-3984592.php ], according to The San Francisco Chronicle. This year, the board may vote on new standards regarding both evolution and climate change.
According to his website [ http://www.jpwu.info/2.html ], Wu is running in order to "to throw out the crap that teachers are feeding their students and replace it with healthy good for the soul knowledge from the holy scriptures."
Let's be specific. Evolution should never be taught in public schools as science. Evolution is false science! God made the heaven and the earth and created humans from the dust of the earth! The very bad teachers that teach that men descended from apes via evolution need to have their teaching licenses revoked. Yes, students should be taught that God created everything.
Clay Barker, executive director of the Kansas Republican Party, said Wu "does not have any connection or been in contact with the Kansas Republican Party, other than filing as a Republican — something the party has no control over," according to the Topeka Capital-Journal [ http://cjonline.com/news/2012-06-20/wbc-devotee-seeks-state-board-ed-seat ].
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/jack-wu-westboro-baptist-church-money-race_n_2060212.html [with comments]
===
Psychic pair fail scientific test
30 October 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20145664
===
Catholic Bishop Who Compared Obama To Hitler Orders Anti-Obama Letter Read From Pulpit
Bishop Daniel Jenky
By Ian Millhiser on Nov 1, 2012 at 9:00 am
Last April, Bishop Daniel Jenky, a Catholic bishop from Illinois, delivered a homily claiming that President Obama “now seems intent on following a similar path” to Adolf Hitler [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/17/466053/catholic-bishop-claims-obama-is-following-a-similar-path-to-hitler/ ] because of his “radical, pro abortion and extreme secularist agenda.” On Wednesday, he came within a hair of ordering every priest under his supervision to campaign for Mitt Romney.
In a letter, Jenky told the priests in his diocese “{b}y virtue of your vow of obedience to me as your Bishop, I require that this letter be personally read by each celebrating priest at each Weekend Mass, November 3/4.” The letter leaves little doubt that Jenky wants Obama out of the White House [ http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/peoria-bishop-orders-catholics-polls ]:
Neither the president of the United States nor the current majority of the Federal Senate have been willing to even consider the Catholic community’s grave objections to those HHS mandates that would require all Catholic institutions, exempting only our church buildings, to fund abortion, sterilization, and artificial contraception. . . . Nearly two thousand years ago, after our Savior had been bound, beaten, scourged, mocked, and crowned with thorns, a pagan Roman Procurator displayed Jesus to a hostile crowd by sarcastically declaring: Behold your King. The mob roared back: We have no king but Caesar. Today, Catholic politicians, bureaucrats, and their electoral supporters who callously enable the destruction of innocent human life in the womb also thereby reject Jesus as their Lord. They are objectively guilty of grave sin.
For those who hope for salvation, no political loyalty can ever take precedence over loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ and to his Gospel of Life. God is not mocked, and as the Bible clearly teaches, after this passing instant of life on earth, God’s great mercy in time will give way to God’s perfect judgment in eternity.
I therefore call upon every practicing Catholic in this Diocese to vote. Be faithful to Christ and to your Catholic Faith.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops proclaimed that the federal budget must place “[t]he needs of those who are hungry and homeless, without work or in poverty” first — adding that the Republican budget authored by vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan “fails to meet these moral criteria [ http://www.usccb.org/news/2012/12-063.cfm ].” Pope Benedict XVI, for his part, called for more robust government involvement to combat wealth inequality [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/04/10/461673/ryan-budget-ignores-catholic-teaching/ ]. Yet Jenky seems completely unmoved by these prongs of Catholic doctrine.
Jenky’s opposition to birth control all puts him wildly out of step with his flock. 82 percent of Catholics [ http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/05/23/489006/82-percent-of-catholics-birth-control/ ] say birth control is “morally acceptable,” and 54 percent of Catholics [ http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/10/22/1062691/poll-religiously-affiliated-organizations-should-provide-contraception-coverage/ ] believe religiously affiliated organizations should be required to offer health plans to their employees that include contraception coverage.
© 2012 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/11/01/1120731/catholic-bishop-who-compared-obama-to-hitler-orders-anti-obama-letter-read-from-pulpit/ [with comments]
===
Nones Form Biggest Slice Of Obama's Religious Voters
Supporters hold banners and a doll as President Barack Obama shakes hands with supporters during a campaign event at Triangle Park in Dayton, Ohio, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012, the day after the last presidential debate against Republican Presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
By Lauren Markoe
Posted: 10/23/2012 9:26 pm EDT Updated: 10/23/2012 9:26 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (RNS) The largest slice of President Barack Obama's religious coalition -- at 23 percent -- is not very religious.
They're the "nones," also known as unaffiliated voters, according to a new American Values Survey by the Public Religion Research Institute.
Gov. Mitt Romney's biggest bloc of religious voters are white evangelical Protestants, at 37 percent, followed by white mainline Protestants and white Catholics, each at 19 percent. Comparing the candidates' supporters, the more diverse religious and nonreligious coalition that's favoring Obama tends to be younger and growing, which could make it easier for Democrats to win elections in the future.
But there's a down side for Obama, said Dan Cox, PRRI's research director.
"The people most likely to support him are the least likely to vote: Latinos, the millennials (voters 18-29), and the unaffiliated," Cox said.
The study, a comprehensive pre-election survey on the religious and political preferences of American voters, co-authored by the Brookings Institution, zeroes in on the unaffiliated, dividing them into three distinct categories. The report also delves into the Catholic vote, and finds a hardening of the divides within it.
White Catholics today have a stronger preference for Romney than Obama, 54 to 42 percent. That's a wider margin than in 2008, when white Catholics preferred Republican John McCain over Obama, 53 to 47 percent.
With Hispanic Catholics, it's the opposite: a clear preference for Obama, with 71 percent preferring him, compared to 23 percent for Romney.
The survey also highlighted another divide within Catholic voters: those who are more comfortable with their church taking a lead on social justice issues and those who prefer an emphasis on "right to life" issues. About twice as many Catholics (60 percent) fell into the social justice category than the right-to-life category (31 percent.)
Undergirding the various groups' support for candidates is a significant degree of "religious churn in American political life," said Robert P. Jones, PRRI's CEO and founder.
The biggest losers are Catholics. Although nearly one-third (31 percent) of those surveyed said they were raised Catholic, 22 percent currently call themselves Catholic.
On the other end of the spectrum, nearly one in five Americans identify as unaffiliated, but just 7 percent say they were raised that way.
"It's quite remarkable the amount of switching that has gone on," Jones said.
Within this unaffiliated group, which has received considerable attention in recent years, PRRI identified and profiled three distinct subsets:
• "Unattached believers" (23 percent) see themselves as religious despite their lack of formal religious ties. They are more likely than the general population to be black or Hispanic and to have completed less education.
• "Seculars" (39 percent) say they are not religious, and reflect most Americans in their racial composition and educational attainment.
• "Atheists or agnostics" (36 percent) are more likely than the general population to be white and highly educated.
The PRRI researchers noted that each of these subgroups tends to have its own views on questions of religion and ethics. Nearly nine in 10 atheists and agnostics, for example, favor same-sex marriage, compared to seven in 10 seculars and nearly six in 10 unattached believers.
These findings on the unaffiliated echo another study, released two weeks ago by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, which also found that atheists are a minority among the nones, most of whom profess to believe in some sort of higher spiritual power.
Other highlights from the PRRI study:
• About half of Americans say the presidential candidates' religious beliefs are somewhat or very different from their own. For Obama, 49 percent see a disconnect, and for Romney, 53 percent.
• Nearly eight in 10 Romney supporters identify as white Christians, compared to four in 10 Obama supporters.
• There is a big generation gap among white Christians: While seven in 10 seniors put themselves in this category, just three in 10 millennials do.
• Most Americans (56 percent) say religiously affiliated hospitals and colleges should be required to provide health plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost.
The study of 3,003 Americans, conducted between Sept. 13-30, has a margin or error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Copyright 2012 Religion News Service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/23/obama-religious-voters-nones_n_2007247.html [with comments]
===
Romney gives Obama the Chavez-Castro-Che treatment in Spanish
Published on Oct 31, 2012 by mcaputoheraldify
Translation:
NARRATOR: Who supports Barack Obama?
CHAVEZ: "If I were American, I'd vote for Obama."
NARRATOR: Raúl Castro's daughter, Mariela Castro, would vote for Obama.
CASTRO: "I would vote for President Obama."
NARRATOR: And to top it off, Obama's Environmental Protection Agency sent emails for Hispanic Heritage month with a photo of Che Guevara.
CHAVEZ: "If Obama were from Barlovento (a Venezuelan town), he'd vote for Chávez."
ROMNEY: I'm Mitt Romney, and I approve this message.
The Romney campaign aired this Spanish-language ad bashing Obama over Mariela Castro, Che Guevara and Hugo Chavez starting on 10/30/12 in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale media market. The next day, Romney spoke in Miami about uniting the nation. For a translation [inserted preceding this paragraph], click here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/11/positive-campaign-romney-gives-obama-the-chavez-castro-che-treatment-in-spanish-ad.html . For updates on Florida politics, visit http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydm_dfQsNYQ [via/more at http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/01/romney_ad_links_obama_to_che_chavez_and_castro (no comments yet)]
===
Racial Slur On Obama Signs In Texas
11/1/2012
http://www.alan.com/2012/11/01/racial-slur-on-obama-signs-in-texas/ [with comments]
===
Arthur R. Jensen Dies at 89; Set Off Debate About I.Q.
November 1, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/science/arthur-r-jensen-who-set-off-debate-on-iq-dies.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/science/arthur-r-jensen-who-set-off-debate-on-iq-dies.html?pagewanted=all ]
===
Lynched Obama Truck Roams The East Coast
An image of the Obama noose effigy reportedly at a gas station in Jacksonville, Florida.
Source: ronenewstalkcleveland.files.wordpress.com
[ http://ronenewstalkcleveland.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/obama-noose.png?w=420&h=438 ]
The truck seen in Midtown Manhattan in May. (Image via The Blaze)
Source: theblaze.com [ http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/IMG_6909-620x360.jpg ]
One man's strange campaign has shocked Americans from Manhattan to Florida.
Not, he says, racist.
Andrew Kaczynski
Posted Nov 1, 2012 12:25pm EDT
A North Carolina resident named VR Phipps is traveling the country in a truck displaying a hanged effigy of President Barack Obama, drawing the shock of local residents and the attention of the Secret Service.
Phipps says he's protesting the murders of family members by local law enforcement. He says that a cover-up has successfully prevented him from getting justice for his family.
"All we want is what Trayvon Martin's family wants. Justice," Phipps says in a video on his YouTube channel [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM804ybqGCE (next below)].
The truck was first spotted [ http://www.theblaze.com/stories/why-is-a-hangin-truck-driving-around-nyc-with-president-obama-on-a-noose/ ] by Mike Opelka, a reporter for Glenn Beck's website The Blaze, back in May while driving through Midtown Manhattan.
"After two decades of living and working in Manhattan, this average New Yorker believed he had seen everything. Today proved that to be a false assumption," Opelka wrote.
Phipps denied racism was a motivation for the hanging in another video [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvfU3pAjkSk (next below)]
posted on his channel.
"You say it's racism, well, I tell you it's not. It's absolutely not. We have been hanging people in effigy when George Bush was President. I would have hanged him no problem. It wouldn't have been a problem at all."
In September, the truck was seen in Charlotte [ http://www.wbtv.com/story/19475636/hanging-obama-truck-makes-way-into-charlotte ] during the Democratic National Committee. State troopers told WBTV in Charlotte they stopped the truck for a vehicle equipment violation but issed a warning.
Later in September, the truck was seen [ http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=8820026 ] driving through Goldsboro, North Carolina, shocking residents. The Secret Service told locals they were aware of the truck.
On Tumblr today, a user posted [ http://aka-little-red.tumblr.com/post/34744145604/in-jacksonville-florida-at-the-shell-gas-station ] having seen the truck in Jacksonville, Florida.
Copyright © 2012 BuzzFeed, Inc.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/man-travels-the-country-in-trucks-hanging-obama-fr [with comments]
===
GoDaddy suspends GOP ad firm's websites for anti-Obama texts
By Brendan Sasso - 10/31/12 12:51 PM ET
Virginia-based GOP advertising firm ccAdvertising was behind a flood of anti-Obama text messages sent Tuesday night, according to Web domain records.
By Wednesday morning, GoDaddy, a domain registrar, had suspended the firm's websites for spam and abuse.
ccAdvertising did not respond to a request for comment.
It is unclear how many people received the unsolicited messages, but many people in the Washington, D.C., metro area took to Twitter and other social media sites on Tuesday night to complain about the unusual campaign tactic.
The texts covered a variety of topics, including abortion rights, Medicare and taxes.
"The average American pays at least $2,000 more in taxes than 4 years ago. STOP OBAMA!" one message read.
"Obama endorses the legality of same-sex marriage. Say No to Obama at the polls on Nov 6!" read another.
Jonathan Weisman, a reporter for The New York Times, tweeted [ https://twitter.com/jonathanweisman/statuses/263454175768227840 ] that his 13-year-old daughter received a text reading: "Obama denies protection to babies who survive abortions. Obama is just wrong."
Mike Madden, editor of The Washington City Paper, received [ http://twitter.com/mikemadden/status/263436492788092929/photo/1 ] another: "Re-electing Obama puts Medicare at risk."
The messages came from a variety of websites rather than phone numbers. The sites included informedett.com, aicett.com and gopmessage.com.
Those sites are all registered on GoDaddy.com to Jason Flanary, the chief operating officer of ccAdvertising. Flanary, a Republican, ran for the Virginia state Senate in 2011 but lost.
According to The National Review, Mitt Romney's first presidential campaign hired [ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_38NSETyExIJ:www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/11156/betrayers-mitt-romney+gabriel+joseph+ccadvertising&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari ] the firm in 2007, and it also did work for Mike Huckabee's presidential bid that year.
The Virginia Democratic Party sued ccAdvertising in 2011 to stop a barrage of unsolicited text messages to voters, The Washington Post reported [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/anti-democratic-text-messages-in-northern-va-prompt-lawsuit-complaints/2011/10/31/gIQA0cVdaM_story.html ] at the time.
Political committees have paid ccAdvertising at least $735,000 this election cycle, and outside groups have paid the firm at least $290,000, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
The Virginia-based Life & Marriage PAC paid the firm $15,000 for text message services to oppose Heidi Heitkamp, the Democratic Senate candidate in North Dakota, according to an Oct. 23 filing.
Federal Communications Commission regulations and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 prohibit unsolicited autodialed text messages. Firms are subject to a $16,000 fine for each illegal text message.
The FCC issued [ http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012/db0911/DA-12-1476A1.pdf ] a public notice in September warning campaigns and outside firms that it will "strictly enforce" the anti-spamming regulations ahead of the election.
Revolution Messaging, a liberal campaign firm, filed a petition with the FCC earlier this year asking the commission to clarify that the rules apply to messages sent from websites to phones.
The FCC began seeking comments on the petition last week.
Scott Goodstein, the CEO of Revolution Messaging, said his group filed the petition because thousands of GOP messages were sent from websites to phones ahead of the 2010 election.
He explained that regulations for unwanted text messages are much stricter than for unwanted emails because text messages are more invasive and can cost consumers money if their cellphone plan does not allow for unlimited texting.
"It's silly to say this is sending an email," he said. "It's still going directly to that phone number."
Update at 5:29 p.m.:
Sometime on Wednesday, the registrant for the websites on GoDaddy was changed to "G. Joseph" of Chantilly, Va. The president of ccAdvertising is Gabriel Joseph. The sites were no longer listed on GoDaddy as suspended but they appeared to still be unavailable.
—Megan Wilson contributed.
© 2012 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/265073-gop-advertising-firm-behind-flood-of-anti-obama-text-messages [with comments]
===
Romney to Business Crowd: Obama Sees You As an "Evil"
The GOP candidate—and his wife—are caught on tape at a private fundraiser dismissing the president as not a "grown-up" and an arch foe of commerce.
By David Corn | Mon Oct. 29, 2012 3:03 AM PDT
Ever since I revealed Mitt Romney's 47 percent rant [ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/watch-full-secret-video-private-romney-fundraiser ], tips and tapes have come through the transom—including this [ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/1985-romney-bain-harvest-firms-profits-video ] and this [ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/mitt-romney-video-wythe-glenn-beck-cleon-skousen ]. And another source who asked not to be identified just sent me an audio recording of a private Mitt Romney fundraiser from earlier this year. At this event, Romney didn't decry half of the nation, but he and Ann Romney each expressed disdain for President Barack Obama, with the Republican presidential candidate asserting that Obama considers businesspeople "a necessary evil" and his wife suggesting that the president was not a "grown-up."
On March 27, as Romney was still fighting for the Republican presidential nomination, he and Ann attended [ http://totalbuzz.ocregister.com/2012/03/27/romney-o-c-fundraiser-to-attract-top-republicans/83682/ ] a fundraiser in Irvine, California, at the home of Michelle and David Horowitz [ http://www.tedxorangecoast.com/team-member/david-horowitz/ ], a former cement business owner who runs a private equity fund. The $1,000-per-plate outdoors luncheon (or $2,500 for those wanting to participate in a photo reception with Romney) drew much of Orange County's Republican elite.
Romney mainly delivered his standard stump speech to the 100-person-plus crowd, and he took only three questions. During the more intimate $50,000-per-plate 47 percent fundraiser [ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser ] in May, Romney didn't give much of a speech, and he spent most of his time with these superdonors responding to their queries. (The bigger contribution apparently earns donors more quality time with the candidate.) But at the Horowitzes' home in the exclusive Shady Canyon neighborhood, Romney did make several revealing comments.
After being introduced, the Republican candidate noted that he had been pushed into his second campaign for president by his wife:
David, you mentioned Ann, and the fact that she insisted that I get in this race. That is the truth. I wanted to talk it over with her. And every time I'd say, "Let's talk about the pros and cons," she'd say, "Talk to the hand, talk to the hand. We're just doing this. We've got to do it." And so she absolutely insisted that I get in this because she was convinced that I was the only one that had the capacity to beat President Obama.
[audio embedded]
Romney then asked Ann to say a few words, and she explained that she had been so insistent because she did not consider Obama to be a "grown-up":
You know—the ship's going over the waterfall, it's almost there. And we look what's happening in Greece, and we look what's happening around the world, we look what's happening internationally. This is a frightening world, and we need a grown-up, and we need someone that understands the economy. So I'm glad…Mitt is grown up to you all.
[audio embedded]
(This remark was not a one-off. In August, Ann Romney, talking about the gender gap, said [ http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/31/nation/la-na-nn-ann-romney-clint-eastwood-20120831 ], "I'm hearing from so many women that may not have considered voting for a Republican before that said, it's time for the grown-up to come.")
Romney's pitch to this well-heeled O.C. crowd was heavy on celebrating entrepreneurs. He claimed that Obama and his supporters were opposed to success, declaring, "Heaven help us if we have people who try to divide America between those that have succeeded and those that haven't." And Romney, who possesses not one but two graduate degrees from Harvard, blasted Obama's economic policies for being crafted by Ivy League experts:
What they have in their mind is a vision of America dominated by government, by individuals they respect, people like themselves: highly educated, spent a lot of time in the faculty club at Harvard, and they believe they can guide the economy better than can individuals all pursuing their own dream. It does make sense, after all, that smart people, bureaucrats can sit down and do a better job deciding which type of energy company to invest in, which type of technology to invest in, what kind of health care you should have, who's your provider—all these smart people could do a better job. It makes all the sense in the world as opposed to saying individuals all doing whatever the heck they want, some without education, can go off and build businesses and succeed or fail. And yet that of course, that latter model, is the only one in the history of the world that's ever worked to lift people out of poverty and create permanent prosperity.
Romney repeated his usual found-to-be-false talking points: Obamacare is a government takeover [ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/dec/16/lie-year-government-takeover-health-care/ ]; if it stands, half of the US economy will be "controlled by government [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/mitt-romneys-nonsensical-claim-about-obamacare/2012/06/11/gJQAdGtdVV_blog.html ]." He accused the president of conspiring to cause high energy prices. ("Look, these guys are trying to drive up the price of energy in this country in order for solar and wind to be able to be more economic.")
He dramatically cast the election as a black-and-white contest with Obama waging a "war on business and economic freedom." Romney repeatedly professed his "love" for business and, in particular, the business people before him. Using supercharged rhetoric, he said that Obama had a beef against such people and viewed them as "a necessary evil—and maybe not so necessary":
I'm convinced that if this president is reelected, the war on business and economic freedom will continue. I don't think the president likes you very much. If you're in business, I think he looks at you as a necessary evil—and maybe not so necessary. I love you, all right? I love, I love business. I love people who employ other people, who have dreams and ideas, and are willing to start enterprises, and put people to work—all good things grow from successful enterprises. Businesses—good jobs come from good businesses.
[audio embedded]
Romney went on to bemoan the fact that some businesses preferred to set up shop in China than the United States, but without mentioning that this is often because China has low wages and weak labor rights and environmental protections:
When I heard the head of Coca-Cola say that the business environment in America is less hospitable than the business environment in China, I knew we had a problem. I want to make sure that America has the most attractive business conditions in the world—that every entrepreneur once again says, "I want to be an American." Whether it's energy or regulation or tax policy or labor policy or legal policy or health care policy—I want America to be the best place for business.
[audio embedded]
This seemed a clear indication that Romney would place workplace conditions, environmental protections, and other safeguards a far second to industry imperatives. Moments later, the crowd applauded him enthusiastically.
During the brief Q&A, Romney hailed fracking and denounced the new START treaty Obama negotiated with the Russians as kowtowing to Moscow (though 71 senators voted for its ratification). But perhaps his most heartfelt remark came when he was concluding his talk and told these donors, "I want to let you go back to work so you can earn more money to give to me."
You can listen to the full tape here [ http://soundcloud.com/mother-jones/romney-march-27-2012-full ].
UPDATE: A source who attended the event says there were over 400 people in attendance.
*
More MoJo coverage of Mitt Romney's "47 percent" remarks:
SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser
Romney "47 Percent" Fundraiser Host: Hedge Fund Manager Who Likes Sex Parties
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/09/romney-secret-video-marc-leder-sex-parties
Full Transcript of the Mitt Romney Secret Video
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/full-transcript-mitt-romney-secret-video
Obama Strikes Back—With "47 Percent"
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/town-hall-debate-obama-romney
Who Was at Romney's "47 Percent" Fundraiser?
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/09/romney-47-percent-fundraiser-florida
*
Copyright ©2012 Mother Jones and the Foundation for National Progress
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/romney-fundraiser-obama-business-evil [with comments]
===
Chrysler CEO Restates: No Jobs Moving To China
10/30/2012
http://www.alan.com/2012/10/30/chrysler-ceo-restates-no-jobs-moving-to-china/ [with comments]
--
Ralph Gilles, Chrysler Executive, Lashes Out At Donald Trump
By Bernie Woodall
Posted: 11/01/2012 6:22 pm EDT Updated: 11/02/2012 7:09 pm EDT
A Chrysler executive told Donald Trump in a Tweet on Thursday that the real estate executive and television personality was "full of shit" for repeating a notion that Chrysler is shipping U.S. Jeep production to China, which the automaker refutes.
Ralph Gilles, the head of product design for Chrysler, became the second top Chrysler executive in three days to strongly deny the claim, which was first made by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney last week to a crowd in Ohio.
Trump, from his Twitter account, said, "Obama is a terrible negotiator. He bails out Chrysler and now Chrysler wants to send all Jeep manufacturing to China--and will!"
To which Gilles, from his Twitter account, responded to Trump: "You are full of shit!"
In a second Tweet, Gilles added: "I apologize for my language, but lies are just that, lies."
On Tuesday, Chrysler Group LLC Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne, in an e-mail to employees, also flatly denied Romney's claim.
"I feel obliged to unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China," Marchionne wrote.
Romney, speaking a week ago to a crowd in Defiance, Ohio, said that he had read a news article that said Chrysler's Jeep brand is considering moving "all production to China."
Jeep, Chrysler's global brand, has three U.S. assembly plants, including one in Toledo, Ohio. The others are in Illinois and in Detroit.
Ohio is seen by pollsters as a key "swing" state in next Tuesday's presidential election. It has been the site of intense competition between the campaigns of Romney and President Barack Obama.
After Romney spoke in Defiance, his campaign aired an advertisement that did not repeat the move of production from Ohio but said that Chrysler is considering making Jeeps in China, which Chrysler has said it intends to do.
Marchionne said that any Jeep production in China would be for the Chinese market, and that the company would not take any production away from Chrysler's U.S. plants. Rather, he said, Chrysler is adding jobs and investment at its Ohio plant.
Chrysler has been managed by Fiat SpA since it emerged from its 2009 bankruptcy, when the Italian company took 20 percent ownership. Fiat has since increased its ownership to 58.5 percent.
Marchionne is chief executive of both Chrysler and Fiat.
Copyright 2012 Reuters
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/ralph-gilles-donald-trump-chrysler_n_2060531.html [with comments]
===
Why the October Jobs Report Is Even Better Than It Looks
Nov 2 2012
Here's the lede you'll read in most newspapers today about Friday's jobs report: "The economy added a hearty 171,000 new jobs in October, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9%."
Nothing about that lede is wrong, technically. But it's incomplete, for three reasons.
First, the BLS actually discovered 255,000 new jobs. The payroll survey, one of two used to produce this report, revised its jobs-added estimates in August and September by an additional 84,000, bringing August's total to 192k and September to 148k. For months, it looked like the unemployment rate was falling inexplicably fast. It turns out we were counting jobs added too slowly.
Second, and somewhat counter-intuitively, the fact that the unemployment rate went up is good news about today's economy. Calculated in a second survey of households by the BLS, the rate moved to 7.9% as more people entered the labor force. More people looking for work is good news, but when job seekers grow faster than jobs, the unemployment rate ticks up. The rising unemployment rate doesn't mean the economy is getting weaker. It means discouraged workers are feeling more encouraged because the economy is getting stronger.
Third, although every jobs report is subject to revisions, we're getting a clear picture of a strengthening recovery beyond today's headline. The margin of error for each jobs-added figure is 100,000 jobs. The BLS's initial estimate for August was 96,000. Then it was revised to 142,000. Now it stands at 192,000. So, should we ignore today's news? Not so fast. 170,000 isn't just October's first estimate. It's also our new three-month average. And it's considerably better than the year's average. Things are getting better faster.
[...]
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/why-the-october-jobs-report-is-even-better-than-it-looks/264448/ [with comments]
--
Romney, Business Allies Finish With Strong Argument: Vote With Us, Or You're Fired
By Ryan Grim and Jason Cherkis
Posted: 11/03/2012 1:00 pm EDT Updated: 11/03/2012 1:40 pm EDT
WASHINGTON -- The Mitt Romney campaign and its business allies are driving home a final message unlike one we've seen in past presidential campaigns: Vote Romney, or you're fired.
The pressure on workers [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/28/ceos-urge-employees-vote-romney_n_2018264.html ] in swing states to toe the GOP line hasn't been restricted to any particular industry. Corporate apparel [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/cintas-ceo-scott-farmer-obamacare-email_n_2019292.html ] makers in Ohio, truck stop attendants in Ohio and Virginia, casino employees in Nevada, construction workers in Florida, gift-card purveyors in Colorado and Florida, car-parts makers in Michigan, software technicians [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/14/arthur-allen-romney-email_n_1963965.html ] in Florida and Colorado, coal miners in Ohio, dock manufacturers in Wisconsin, frozen-food packers in Michigan [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/jack-dewitt-mitt-romney_n_2017539.html ], resort staff [ http://gawker.com/5950189/the-ceo-who-built-himself-americas-largest-house-just-threatened-to-fire-his-employees-if-obamas-elected ] in Florida, Virginia and Nevada, and people all over [ http://inthesetimes.com/article/14017/koch_industries_sends_45000_employees_pro_romney_mailing/ ] the country who work -- or used to work -- for Koch Industries or another Koch-owned company have all been given notice by their boss that an Obama victory could lead to layoffs or otherwise harm the company and its workers.
Even workers who'd already been laid off by the Kochs were mailed letters [ http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14117/laid_off_georgia_pacific_workers_told_to_vote_for_gop_congressman_closure/ ] urging them to vote Republican or else "suffer the consequences" of Obama policies that would harm the company.
Romney himself urged conservative business leaders this June to "make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections."
Before the Supreme Court's 5-4 Citizens United decision, it would have been illegal for a boss to tell an employee that "their job and their future" was on the ballot on Election Day. But the court now considers such electoral pressure an expression of free speech.
"Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision," Romney told the business owners associated with the National Federation of Independent Business, a political organization closely aligned [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/23/inside-the-small-business-lobby_n_812831.html ] to the Republican Party.
Romney's push to get businesses to pressure workers on Election Day is relatively new. Marc Wolpow, the former managing director at Bain Capital who worked under Romney, told HuffPost the future politician never pressured underlings to vote a certain way. "He was completely apolitical," he said. "There was absolutely no pressure."
Wolpow thought bosses of all political stripes should stay away from campaigning in employee break rooms and penning endorsements for company newsletters. "I don't think it's appropriate for business owners to pressure their employees one way or the other, nor by the way do I think it's appropriate for unions to do it," he said. (Unions, of course, can't fire workers.)
In the case of Request Foods' CEO's endorsement of Romney [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/jack-dewitt-mitt-romney_n_2017539.html ], it fit neatly into the Michigan company's modus operandi. The company promotes itself as "dedicated to placing priority on Christian principles in every aspect of our business," according to its website. That means quarterly meetings that seem to emphasize GOP politics over business news and chaplains regularly in the office halls, said one former employee.
Romney simply helped reinforce the company's atmosphere. "Just the culture is so right wing," the former employee said. "When they have those workplace chaplains ... They report directly to the head of [human resources]."
Eric Manthei, the logistics coordinator for Request Foods, told HuffPost recently that the CEO's endorsement, which appeared in the company newsletter, did not cause any reaction among employees. "I don't think it was weird at all," he said. "They are very open and transparent with their thoughts and beliefs. All the employees fall in line. They support our business policies."
Until recently, the Romney campaign outsourced to its business allies its message to specific workers. That changed Oct. 25 when Romney himself told Jeep workers, in so many words, that they were going to be fired as a result of Obama's auto bailout. He followed up with ads that continued to imply Jeep would be moving jobs overseas, even after executives at both GM and Chrysler refuted them.
The nearly 3,000 Jeep workers at its two Toledo plants, as well as the suppliers who feed them, woke up to a Toledo Blade story about Romney's announcement. At least a dozen auto workers were concerned enough to call their local union to ask about the situation, said Bruce Baumhower, president of the UAW local 12, which represents the Jeep workers as well as dozens of their suppliers.
On Friday, Romney warned that a second Obama term could bring about a second recession. "The same path means $20 trillion in debt, crippling unemployment, stagnant take-home pay, depressed home values, and a devastated military," he said at a speech in West Allis, Wis. "And unless we change course, we may be looking at another recession."
Baumhower said he's used to hearing politicians promise that the economy will get better under them and would be worse under their opponent -- that, after all, is generally the driving message behind a campaign (along with gay marriage and abortion). But what he saw from Romney was something new.
"I don't think I've ever really seen people running for political office threaten people with their employment," he told HuffPost. "It might be fair game for somebody to say, I can improve the economy. I can grow the jobs market and you'll have more opportunities under me than the other guy. I've heard that. I don't think I've heard anybody come out like this and say: 'You're going to lose your jobs if you don't vote for me.' Pretty ridiculous. But he did."
Baumhower said he reminded the workers that the company was in the middle of a half-billion-dollar investment in expanding production in Ohio, and also that Chrysler had started building cars in China in the '80s -- a plan launched by American Motors, ironically headed at one point by George Romney, Mitt Romney's father.
"I said: 'Don't you remember when the plant's managers, the engineering staff and different folks would go over [to China] for two months at a time to help them launch those plants?' And everybody said: 'Oh yeah,'" Baumhower said, explaining how he eased the workers' worries. "Our members went from fear to anger and people were telling me that it was pretty pitiful that somebody who wants to be commander-in-chief to be stooping down to that to try to win the election."
A private equity executive with a track-record of mass layoffs isn't the most obvious person to entrust with one's job security. One Bain & Co. employee, who worked there after Romney and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that company was so predictable in its consulting advice -- fire people -- that it became an office punchline.
"It was a running joke," he recalled. "'Oh, what are we going to do? We're going to fire people. Of course we are!' It was a joke. That's how we felt about it: 'Okay, let's have some beers on Friday and forget about it.'"
*
Related
Mitt Romney Jobs Report Reaction: Economy Is At A 'Virtual Standstill'
11/02/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/mitt-romney-jobs-report_n_2063880.html
Mitt Romney: Recession May Repeat Under Obama Second Term
11/02/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/mitt-romney-recession_n_2065138.html
*
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/03/romney-voter-intimidation-businesses-bain_n_2068827.html [with comments]
--
When Titans Talk To Dummies: Part One
Uploaded by MockTheDummy1 on Aug 24, 2011
Multi-millionaire Harvey Golub, played by a dummy, resents Warren Buffet and Obama and argues in Rupert Murdock's Wall Street Journal that his tax rates shouldn't be raised. This is part one of a three part audio program.
Link to MY RESPONSE TO BUFFET AND OBAMA by Harvey Golub: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903639404576516724218259688.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdXcSUd7shI
--
When Titans Talk To Dummies: Part Two
Uploaded by MockTheDummy1 on Aug 25, 2011
Harvey Golub, as a dummy, resents Warren Buffet and Obama and argues that the tax system is unfair to mega millionaires in his Wall Street Journal Op Ed. Part two of three part audio program.
The Wall Street Journal op ed by Golub: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903639404576516724218259688.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGDHZJvLts8
--
When Titans Talk To Dummies: Part Three
Uploaded by MockTheDummy1 on Aug 26, 2011
Harvey Golub, as a dummy, makes his final arguments for why millionaires are treated unfairly and Warren Buffet and Obama are wrong. This concludes our three part audio program.
MY RESPONSE TO BUFFET AND OBAMA, Harvey Golub, WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903639404576516724218259688.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hpcMX2NPic
--
Asymmetrical “Uncertainty”
By Paul Krugman
October 31, 2012, 3:15 pm
Ever since it came out, Obama-bashers have loved to cite a paper by Baker, Bloom, and Davis claiming that policy uncertainty is holding back the recovery. See, they say, it’s Obama and his socialist plans! The paper never deserved this much weight — like the Alesina/Ardagna work on expansionary austerity, or, yes, the unfortunate and uncharacteristically sloppy Reinhart/Rogoff paper on the burden of debt, it’s preliminary academic research that has been seized on for political gain.
Furthermore, as many of us noted, the actual sources of spikes uncertainty as Baker et al measure it were the euro crisis and the debt ceiling confrontation, not the Obama agenda. And to the extent that it was the latter, this is really about Republican extremism, not Obama socialism.
Well, Baker et al have what I think is meant to be a response to this point [ http://www.voxeu.org/article/economic-recovery-and-policy-uncertainty-us ] in Vox. Except that it isn’t really a response. They declare that “in our view” the responsibility lies with both parties, and list some talking points; but that’s not evidence. Their data continue to show uncertainty (as they measure it) rising with the debt ceiling and again with the fiscal cliff.
And let’s be clear: the fiscal cliff issue reflects GOP intransigence. The sequester was part of the deal to buy the GOP off on the debt ceiling. Beyond that, Republicans want something — making all the Bush tax cuts permanent — that they don’t have the votes to pass in Congress. So they’re holding America hostage, saying — more or less explicitly — that if they can’t have what they want but can’t pass, they’ll tank the whole economy.
Notice how nobody says that if Romney wins but Democrats hold the Senate, a quite possible outcome, that there will be an economic disaster because those Senate Dems will prevent a deal on taxes and spending.
Sorry, but this isn’t symmetrical. To the extent that policy uncertainty is a factor, it’s a factor because we have the most ruthless, self-absorbed opposition party since the 1850s.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/asymmetrical-uncertainty/ [with comments]
===
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=7580259 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=32639759 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=36957319 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63915348 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63358892 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63306014 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77970515 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79896399 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80506176 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80911526 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80911573 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80911581 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80957892 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81004674 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81025068 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81036490 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81042622 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81058774 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81059255 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81058774 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81061294 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81066406 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81066410 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81067267 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81068084 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81068135 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81068335 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81068789 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81068798 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81069660 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81070038 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81070419 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81071140 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81071406 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81072637 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81072721 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81072751 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81073273 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81073426 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81074101 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81074842 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81075565 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81075599 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81075744 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81077710 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81083486 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81085353 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81086508 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81087509 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81089753 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81092761 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81093413 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81095923 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81096695 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81099153 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81099991 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81103266 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81105034 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81105754 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81105895 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81106152 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81107415 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81110201 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81110518 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81111050 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81112140 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81112144 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81112151 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81112173 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81112286 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81112936 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81113779 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81113896 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81114814 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81115996 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81116192 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81116367 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81116497 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81116877 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81117091 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81117164 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81117168 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81117259 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81117836 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118203 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118234 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118240 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118254 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118276 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118325 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118661 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81118683 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81119316 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81119600 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81119790 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81120398 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81121543 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81121771 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81122048 and preceding (and any future following)
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
Join the InvestorsHub Community
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
