Comment

Comment by Neal on June 12, 2012 at 9:52am

I like the way you think. =)

Comment by Chris on June 12, 2012 at 1:57am

Google Trends sounds like an interesting tool.

Conservatives consider homosexuality a choice. Since it's a choice they say it's OK to discriminate against them. Using that logic is it OK to discriminate against people based on their religion, or political viewpoints?

Comment by doone on June 11, 2012 at 3:22pm

Whacko is too kind a word for this guy WHACKO is much Better

Florida Governor Rick Scott Now Less Popular Than Very Unpopular Le...

By Krystal Bonner

 | Posted Friday, June 8, 2012, at 4:59 PM ET

Florida Governor Rick Scott is less popular amongst Floridians than the highly polarizing Miami Heat star LeBron James. 

Photos by Alex Wong/Getty Images (left) and Jim Rogash/Getty Images (right)

A new poll conducted by the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling shows Florida Governor Rick Scott, with a 31 percent approval rating, is less popular amongst Floridians than the highly polarizing Miami Heat star LeBron James, who pips Scott with a 32 percent rating.

If Scott’s poor approval rating wasn’t enough, the new poll also shows he is 12 points behind the first declared Democratic candidate for the 2014 governor’s race, State Senate Minority Leader Nan Rich, who holds a 47 to 35 lead in a hypothetical race. Even worse, Rich has only 14 percent name recognition amongst Floridians, “giving credibility to the theory that literally anyone could beat Scott in 2014,” the report writes.

Comment by doone on June 10, 2012 at 9:19pm

Racists And Obama

Check it out here. Basically, the author tries to figure out whether racism really did suppress Obama's vote in 2008. No one admits to it in polling; other issues completely drown it out in noise; and there were plenty of non-racist reasons people might have voted for McCain or vote for Romney. But Google is an amazing thing:

I performed the somewhat unpleasant task of ranking states and media markets in the United States based on the proportion of their Google searches that included the word “nigger(s).” This word was included in roughly the same number of Google searches as terms like “Lakers,” “Daily Show,” “migraine” and “economist.” ...

The state with the highest racially charged search rate in the country was West Virginia. Other areas with high percentages included western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, upstate New York and southern Mississippi. Once I figured out which parts of the country had the highest racially charged search rates, I could test whether Mr. Obama underperformed in these areas. I predicted how many votes Mr. Obama should have received based on how many votes John Kerry received in 2004 plus the average gain achieved by other 2008 Democratic Congressional candidates.

And guess what?

Add up the totals throughout the country, and racial animus cost Mr. Obama three to five percentage points of the popular vote.

I'd say that is likely to occur in higher numbers this time. But imagine a scenario in which Obama's majority of the popular vote had not been 53 percent but 56. And if McCain had won 43 percent. Given the way the GOP has reacted to Obama, I wouldn't go so far as to say they would have behaved differently in the face of such a landslide. But just a few votes for the stimulus would have changed the dynamic of the past four years of total obstructionism. Too late now, at least. But it's good to be completely realistic about the uphill struggle the president is now in.

It's steep. Without the kind of engagement and enthusiasm he garnered last time, it's close to vertical.

Comment by Neal on June 10, 2012 at 10:48am

Hanging Obama in effigy is pretty distasteful, may have to steal that graphic. =)

Comment by doone on June 9, 2012 at 8:46pm

Baby’s First Haircut Totally Looks Like Donald Trump

Jun. 6, 2012

Comment by Adriana on June 9, 2012 at 6:36pm

Seriously? This asshole hangs an effigy of Obama and it's not racism?? Ahem, have we forgotten the lynching of black people by white racists? It wasn't so long ago. Terry Jones makes me sick to my stomach. What a piece of shit.

Quran-Burning Pastor Hangs Obama in Effigy

• by Julie M. Rodriguez
• June 9, 2012

 

Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who’s drawn criticism and death threats for his highly-publicized public burnings of the Quran, has erected a gallows on the lawn of his church with a hanged effigy of President Barack Obama. Jones claims the display is a response to Obama’s support of same-sex marriage, his stance on abortion, and his “appeasing of radical Islam.”

When asked if he had any concerns about the message he was sending in “lynching” a black President, Jones told The Pulp:

“We are not looking at him as a black man. He is not black; he is not white; he is the president of the United States,” he said. “And the noose, of course, was to represent the death of his presidency and political career. Not at all to represent his race… His race has absolutely nothing to do with it.”

He also insists the display is not a death threat, but says he understands why the FBI has contacted him twice regarding the effigy.

Apparently, the stunt is part of Jones’ strategy to run for President. (They’ve even included photos of the display as part of their official campaign press releases!) In a recent YouTube video discussing his candidacy, Jones says:

It is time for the United States to stand up. It is why we have chosen the hanging of Uncle Sam to represent how Hussein Obama is destroying our nation. And that is why we have now chosen the hanging of Hussein Obama to represent how the American people must, in a peaceful way, stand up and reject President Obama, reject his anti-American policies. It’s time for us to stand up.

It is time again for America to become America, for us to hold our government accountable, for us to resist, for us to send a very clear message to Washington, D.C. and President Obama… That is why we have chosen to hang President Obama as a symbol of what America needs to do. We must remove him, we must vote him out of office.

Is anyone actually buying Jones’ explanation that there’s no racial component to the message he’s sending (especially when he refuses to use the President’s first name)? Or that this could be reasonably construed as anything other than a death threat?

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/quran-burning-pastor-hangs-obama-in-eff...

Comment by doone on June 9, 2012 at 11:11am

Right Wing Lazy Ass Whackos

Insulate the Delegate

By Betty Cracker June 9th, 2012

Florida is a wretched hellscape in August, with 100-degree temperatures, smothering humidity, daily monsoons and the ever-present threat of hurricanes. But the GOP is having its convention here anyway, perhaps for the same reason thieves often target Jeep products: It’s relatively easy to steal. With a cast of even more comically obvious villains controlling state government than those who boosted Bush the Lesser over the top in 2000, it’ll be “Gone in 60 Seconds.”

But there’s still the problem of how to protect melanin-deficient RNC delegates from the ferocious heat and unpredictable weather: The polyester-and-pantyhose faction and bespoke-suited plutocratic contingent alike are in danger of wilting under the fierce Florida sun or being pelted senseless by the sudden onslaught of wind-driven rain as they shuttle drearily between the Tampa Convention Center and Tampa Bay Times Forum (and titty bars).

To address this problem, the Tampa Bay Host Committee is considering a blocks-long, air-conditioned tube to connect the two staging areas. Since the summer storms often produce water spouts, small tornadoes and sudden, strong wind gusts capable of knocking over grandfather oaks, I can’t see any drawback to a plan that involves packing scores of RNC delegates into a long, outdoor plastic tube. Nope, no problem at all.

[X-posted at Rumproast]

Comment by doone on June 7, 2012 at 9:41pm

How A Radical North Dakota Ballot Initiative Could Allow The Religi...

By Ian Millhiser posted from ThinkProgress Justice on Jun 7, 2012 at 2:10 pm

North Dakota ballot initiative says churchgoers can ignore these on Sunday morning

Comment by doone on June 7, 2012 at 9:41pm

A North Dakota ballot intitative appears designed to allow anti-gay groups to openly defy bans on discrimination, and it is written so expansively that it could authorize thousands of North Dakotans to outright ignore everything from traffic lights to medical access laws — all in the name of supposedly protecting religous liberty. Under the proposed state constitutional amendment, which appears on state ballots June 12:

Government may not burden a person’s or religious organization’s religious liberty. The right to act or refuse to act in a manner motivated by a sincerely held religious belief may not be burdened unless the government proves it has a compelling governmental interest in infringing the specific act or refusal to act and has used the least restrictive means to further that interest. A burden includes indirect burdens such as withholding benefits, assessing penalties, or an exclusion from programs or access to facilities.

To translate this a bit, many states and the federal government exempt religious believers from some laws that “substantially burden” their religious faith. The North Dakota initiative, however, targets any law that merely “burdens” a person’s religious faith. In other words, even the most minor inconveniences to religious practices would be suspect under the initiative. A person who is running late to church could claim it is illegal to make them obey traffic lights.

Worse, the law could have severe consequences for gay men, lesbians and other groups disfavor.... As law professor Marci Hamilton explains, the initiative appears worded to bypass the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez which held that anti-gay groups cannot force state universities to fund them in violation of the university’s anti-discrimination policy.

Nor is the initiative the only example of the religious right trying to be above the law. An appeals court in New Mexico recently rejected an argument by an anti-gay business owner which could have exempted New Mexicans from any anti-discrimination law — including bans on race and gender discrimination — that they have a religious objection to. Similarly, conservatives ranging from the Catholic Bishops to Speaker John Boehner claim that the Constitution gives them sweeping immunity from laws they disagree with. Even conservative Justice Antonin Scalia has rejected the bishops’ view.

ThinkProgress intern Angela Guo contributed to this post.

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