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June 2015

Posted by Amy Miller on June 30, 2015 11 Comments
Will they, or won't they? Signs point to yes---the Illinois government will "shut down" at midnight tonight. Republican Governor Bruce Rauner spent the majority of today touring various agencies in an effort to calm the nerves of state employees who can't be assured of a paycheck after mid-July. Democrats in the Illinois legislature led by House Speaker Michael Madigan plan on pitching an alternate, short-term spending plan tomorrow that would fund "essential" programs for the next month; Rauner, however, has already vetoed one Democrat-drafted budget, and indicated that short-term fixes aren't a viable funding option. Still, Rauner is a Republican pilgrim in an unholy "blue" land, and the pressure is mounting. Will Rauner cave? It doesn't look like it:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 30, 2015 6 Comments
Presidential hopeful Sen. Cruz is a long-time fan of The Simpsons. In April, Sen. Cruz joined the crew at The Federalist to chat about his favorite episodes show off a few of his best impressions. "Cruz talked about how much he loved “Round Springfield”, the episode where Jazz musician Bleeding Gums Murphy passed away, imitating the voices of James Earl Jones as Mustafa, Darth Vader, and Jones himself," wrote The Federalist. Today, BuzzFeed News released video proof of Cruz's love for the animated TV show. "Hi, I'm Ted. With Harry Shearer retiring, I'm auditioning for any part I can get in The Simpsons." Having been part of the show since it debuted in 1989, Shearer announced his retirement from the show in May. The New York Times reported:
It is not looking like an okely-dokely day in the town of Springfield: Harry Shearer, an Emmy Award-winning cast member of “The Simpsons,” who provides the voices of characters like the irritatingly upbeat neighbor Ned Flanders, the billionaire tyrant Mr. Burns and his faithful manservant, Smithers, has indicated that he is parting ways with this long-running Fox animated series.”
Enter BuzzFeed News and Sen. Cruz:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 30, 2015 42 Comments
Out of the sea of rainbow-frocked Facebook profile photos, corporate logos, and colorfully lit buildings emerged a seemingly innocuous black and white video. With a mission to, "educate and inspire Americans of all faiths to prioritize the issues of life, faith, and family," Catholic Vote is the brains behind the video that has publications like Ad Week up in arms. Billed with the hashtag #SpeakTruthWithLove and filmed as a coming out video of sorts, 'Not Alone' illuminates the flip-side side of the gay marriage coin -- those who believe in traditional marriage. "I am a little nervous about people hearing that I am this way and people thinking, well, you know, she's not welcome here," says one woman. "Most people probably already think I'm weird anyway, so I don't think society's impression of me is going to change drastically based on one or two discoveries that come to light after this video," expresses another. "It's pretty scary, you know? You wonder how many people can I really, truly, honestly be open with?" The big confession? "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman." Take a look:

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 30, 2015 48 Comments
Charles Krauthammer appeared on the O'Reilly Factor last night and was asked by Bill O'Reilly to name three reasons for the recent rapid changes in America, with a focus on recent U.S. Supreme Court cases. Krauthammer cited culture as one of the reasons and he's absolutely right. Andrew Breitbart frequently voiced his belief that politics is downstream from culture. Watch the entire exchange below: Krauthammer recently called the SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage a loss for democracy.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 30, 2015 13 Comments
We highlighted recently resolutions at the United Church of Christ's 30th Synod in Cleveland seeking (1) divestment from certain named companies (such as Caterpillar), and (2) declaring Israeli guilty of the Crime of Apartheid as defined in the 1998 Rome Statute creating the International Criminal Court. These take place through years-long efforts by anti-Israel Christian groups like Sabeel, which use Jewish Voice for Peace as religious cover for the noxious efforts. The divestment resolution originally was limited to specified companies, but in committee at the Synod was amended to include sweeping language governing any company that does business, directly or indirectly, in "occupied" territory. United Church Christ Israel Divestment Resolution 1 This would include, for example, companies doing business in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, which was illegally captured by Jordan and then enthically cleansed of Jews and Jewish landmarks before Israel liberated it in 1967.

Posted by Amy Miller on June 30, 2015 11 Comments
Controversial cartoonist Bosch Fawstin has received more than a dozen death threats since he took the top prize at the now-famous "draw Muhammad" free speech rally in Garland, Texas last month. The event descended into chaos after two armed terrorists attempted to storm the venue. Fawstin appeared on last night's (technically this morning's) episode of Fox News' Red Eye, and had great things to say about the threats against his life, the work he does, and the importance of boldly insisting on free speech. Watch: As Americans, when we're told not to do something, we tend to do it. I love this. It applies across the board, to every issue currently dominating the 24 hour news cycle.

Posted by Amy Miller on June 30, 2015 27 Comments
Illinois' new budget year starts tomorrow, and unless Republicans and Democrats can come to an agreement on fiscal policy, the state will kick things off without the ability to pay the bills. Illinois has a reputation for being largely rural, yet bafflingly Democratic. The Chicago machine---not those languishing in my old stomping grounds in the capitol of Springfield---runs things, but for the first time in over a decade, a solidly Democratic legislature is dealing with a Republican governor. Bruce Rauner has spent his time bucking the trends that have run Illinois into the ground, but Democrats have, in turn, bucked his pro-business agenda and are demanding a massive tax increase to make up for a $4 billion dollar shortfall. The AP has the back story:
The back-and-forth is the latest in a months-long fight between Rauner and majority Democrats over how to resolve Illinois' massive financial problems and — more recently — who will take the blame if state government begins grinding to a halt and critical services are cut off. The two sides have been deadlocked over how to eliminate a deficit that's the largest of any state in the U.S. Illinois already is billions behind in paying its bills and has the nation's worst-funded state pensions, with a more than $100 billion shortfall.

Posted by Amy Miller on June 30, 2015 23 Comments
We'll be covering the announcement live here. He's supposed to kick off any time, and already correspondents are describing the mood in the venue as "a madhouse." Sounds apropos, considering Christie's tendency to buck at the rhetorical trends his colleagues embrace. Live stream hat tip to Save Jersey (UPDATE: the current embed has the full announcement and pre- and post-game coverage): We're off! Kicking things off is a teacher, friend...and registered Democrat. Will this end up on the union websites first, or the conservative ones?

Posted by New Neo on June 30, 2015 71 Comments
If you had asked me twenty years ago to predict what the 21st century would hold in store, “religious wars” probably wouldn’t have been tops on my list. But it should have been. Right now we're seeing many forms of religious war. The most obvious has raged between radical Islam and everybody else. Yes, radical Muslims are somewhat of a minority within Islam; but they’re a huge, activist, vocal, sometimes violent, determined, and ruthless minority, they’ve been fighting the fight for the better part of a century (centuries, that is,) and have really stepped it up since their victory in Iran in 1979. During Obama's time in office their threat has grown in numbers, in strength, and in barbarity. I wrote that it’s a war “between radical Islam and everybody else.” The war against the Jews has been going on for a long time, with Israel/Palestine as the epicenter (that war isn’t just a religious one, but it certainly is a religious one as well as a political one). The war against the Hindus also is of great antiquity. The ancient war against Christians took somewhat of a breather in Western Europe after the Siege of Vienna. In recent years, however, radical Islam’s revived war against Christians has reached a violent fever pitch.

Posted by Jay Caruso on June 30, 2015 23 Comments
The Supreme Court ruled against the Environmental Protection Agency 5-4 this week, saying the EPA erred in not considering costs when implementing new regulations governing toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants:
The 5-4 decision Monday went against an Environmental Protection Agency mercury rule that forces utilities to shutter old coal plants or invest billions of dollars in equipment to clean up the emissions from their smokestacks. The court said the EPA should have considered the costs and benefits before deciding whether to impose those limits on the toxic emissions. “The agency must consider cost -— including, most importantly, cost of compliance -— before deciding whether regulation is appropriate and necessary,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion. “Reasonable regulation ordinarily requires paying attention to the advantages and the disadvantages of agency decisions.”
Ironically, the rule could stay on the books while the EPA performs the analysis:
The decision to send the regulation back to a lower court to decide what happens next leaves open the possibility that the 2011 rule, called the mercury and air toxics regulation, could be left on the books while the agency does the analysis that the high court said it should have done long ago. It could take a few months for that lower-court decision.
Despite the victory, it may have come at a cost that is too late to recover. The rule went into place several years ago and the impact has taken its toll:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 29, 2015 4 Comments
It's often the most innocuous things in life that result in monumental memories. A few years ago, twins brothers from North Carolina fell in love with the board game Battle Ship. Battle Ship sparked their curiosity in naval warfare. And the rest is, as they say, history.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 29, 2015 16 Comments
Could the Supreme Court's latest actions result in a set-back for the pro-life community? Wednesday, 10 of Texas' 19 abortion clinics were set to close thanks to a law passed by the Texas Legislature in 2013. The law that would've required abortion clinics to maintain hospital-like standards was enough to force 10 clinics out of the abortion business. Those standards included, "minimum sizes for rooms and doorways, pipelines for anesthesia and other infrastructure," according to the Texas Tribune. In addition to the hospital-like standards requirement, physicians conducting abortions were required to, "have admitting privileges at local hospitals," reported the Washington Post.

Posted by Amy Miller on June 29, 2015 29 Comments
There are financial crises, and then there are financial crises. Greece is smack in the middle of the latter. Today Greek officials instituted drastic controls over the country's financial institutions, making it difficult (if not impossible) for citizens to access money locked down in bank accounts. Officials have limited cash withdrawals to just 67 USD per day, a move that is causing panic amongst those who either live paycheck to paycheck, or who rely solely on the use of cash to make ends meet.
The sense of unease was evident in the number of pensioners lining up at bank branches hoping they might open. Many elderly Greeks don't have ATM cards and make cash withdrawals in person, and so found themselves completely cut off from their money. "I came here at 4 a.m. because I have to get my pension," said 74-year-old Anastasios Gevelidis, one of about 100 retirees waiting outside the main branch of the National Bank of Greece in the country's second-largest city of Thessaloniki. "I don't have a card. I don't know what's going on. We don't even have enough money to buy bread," he said.
And here I thought relying on cash instead of the almighty plastic was a safe bet.

Posted by Amy Miller on June 29, 2015 14 Comments
Another day, another tiny, minuscule, pin-width beam of light shining down on who knew what, when, and how during and in the wake of the 2012 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Most recently, we saw Sid Blumenthal, having been dragged before a Congressional committee, providing investigators with a batch of then-Secretary Clinton's private e-mails that the State Department failed to hand over. The very existence of those e-mails had members of the committee convinced that their much-maligned digging is not only justified, but necessary in the effort to figure out what was in the Administration's collective hive mind in the wake of the attacks. We already knew that Clinton and Obama spoke on the night of the Benghazi attacks; what we didn't know is what they talked about. But finally! A federal court has released a new document, the contents of which have the potential to blow this whole thing wide open. The problem? The "unclassified" document is almost completely redacted: redacted clinton email 600 wide

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 29, 2015 19 Comments
The Supreme Court today refused to accept a case which sought to allow states to supplement a federal voter registration form so as to require proof of citizenship to vote. Such proof is particularly important given how freely many states are handing out drivers licenses to illegal immigrants, and the Obama administration's unilateral implementation of quasi-amnesty deferrals (some of which were stopped in court). It's just not enough anymore that someone is here legally (or at least, is not being deported). The Petition for Certiorari and other filings in Kobach v. United States Election Assistance Commission are here. The 10th Circuit decision is here. ScotusBlog summarized the issues:
Issue: (1) Whether Article I, Section 2 and the Seventeenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution require the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to defer to the states’ determination that provision of documentary evidence of citizenship is necessary to enforce the states’ voter qualifications; and (2) whether Article I, Section 2 and the Seventeenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution permit a dual voter rolls system in which some voters who are qualified to vote for federal office holders are not also qualified to vote for those “in the most numerous branch of the state legislature.”
Bloomberg Politics reports on the development:

Posted by Amy Miller on June 29, 2015 21 Comments
Defenders of the Confederate Flag, prepare to feel really, really uncomfortable---you have an unlikely ally(ish). MSNBC's Ed Schultz is a dependable progressive shill. When Republicans retook the Senate last year, he was apoplectic; when he encounters right wing opposition, he blatantly shuts it down. All in all, he's a belligerent with a bullhorn; but this past week he accidentally made a little bit of sense when he weighed in on the Confederate Flag debate. Addressing the breathless purge of the "stars and bars," he said that "[t]he desecration of our nation's history, I think, is dangerous and I think it's unproductive." Listen: Newsbusters has the transcript:
You know, I understand the effort to remove the Confederate flag from state capitols in the South and anywhere else in this country. There's no doubt about it that it sends the wrong message. But at this point, I asked the question, is it overboard? And I don't understand the attempt to erase American history as if it's going to change our course as a nation. It's not.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 29, 2015 10 Comments
At least no one got hurt this time. But Gaza Flotilla III was a complete flop. Meant to break Israel's perfectly legal naval blockade of Gaza (more on legality here), designed to stop Iranian shipments of weapons, the flotilla avoided the disaster of Gaza Flotilla I, in which 9 people were killed when they attacked Israeli commandos boarding a ship. This time, when it appeared Israel would prevent the flotilla from getting to Gaza, three of the boats called it off. The main boat, from Sweden but bearing an Israeli Arab lawmaker and the former President of Tunisia, proceeded, and was boarded by Israeli commandos. The IDF posted the following announcement:
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