Justin's Political Corner
When Republicans appointed Pablo Pantoja to State Director of Florida Hispanic Outreach for the Republican National Committee, they hoped he would be able to bridge the sizable gap that only expanded during the 2012 elections, when the state’s 4.7 million Hispanic voters supported Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by a 20 percent margin.
But after months of inaction by Congressional Republicans on comprehensive immigration reform and stiff resistance by Republican-leaning groups like the Heritage Foundation, Pantoja has had enough; on Monday, he announced via email that he was leaving the party and registering as a Democrat:
Friend,
Yes, I have changed my political affiliation to the Democratic Party.
It doesn’t take much to see the culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party today. I have wondered before about the seemingly harsh undertones about immigrants and others. Look no further; a well-known organization recently confirms the intolerance of that which seems different or strange to them.
Pantoja goes on to specifically cite last week’s revelation — that an author of Heritage’s false report on the cost of the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill wrote a dissertation in which he suggested that Hispanics are at a permanent disadvantage because they have lower IQs — as the final straw in his political evolution.
A US couple who had fled to Cuba after snatching their two young sons from the care of their grandmother are behind bars in Tampa, Florida, local law enforcement said Wednesday.
A US airplane carrying Joshua Hakken, his wife Sharyn Patricia and their sons, aged two and four, landed in Tampa from Cuba early Wednesday, local media reported.
Hakken was attempting to flee US authorities when he took his wife and boys to Cuba aboard his sailboat on Monday.
Joshua Hakken was booked in the Hillsborough County, Florida jail and faces charges that include child neglect, kidnapping, burglary, and grand theft auto, while Sharyn Hakken will face charges of kidnapping, interference with child custody and child neglect, according the website of the sheriff’s office.
TV footage showed the couple arriving in the United States in handcuffs.
Officials in Florida had been searching for Joshua Hakken since April 3 when he allegedly broke into his mother-in-law’s house near Tampa, tied her up and fled with his young boys.
The Hillsborough County sheriff’s office said that Hakken lost custody of the children after being arrested in Louisiana on drug charges in June 2012, following what police described as “an anti-government rally.”
h/t: The Raw Story
On Wednesday, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus published an editorial lambasting the mainstream media for “covering up” Planned Parenthood’s “support for infanticide.” According to Priebus, the national women’s health organization — in addition to providing contraceptive services, STD testing, cancer screenings, and reproductive care for millions of women across the country — is also in the business of murdering live babies. He claims that a recent committee hearing in Florida proves that Planned Parenthood officials support “the right to post-birth abortion.”
What’s “post-birth abortion”? What exactly happened in Florida? And how did this controversy explode in the right-wing media?
To understand the root of the current smear campaign against Planned Parenthood, it’s important to understand the context of the committee hearing that Priebus is referencing. That hearing was a debate over HB 1129, a politically-motivated piece of legislation seeking to ensure that any infant born alive “during or immediately after an attempted abortion” is entitled to all of the same rights “as any other child born alive in course of natural birth.” The “Infant Born Alive” measure rests upon the fundamentally flawed assumption that this type of situation is a real risk for women seeking to terminate a pregnancy. In fact, Florida does not perform abortions after the fetus has reached viability, so the situation that HB 1129 intends to address is incredibly unlikely.
And the original version of the legislation went even further. In this hypothetical medical situation, where an infant is “born alive” after an incredibly late-term induced abortion, the woman would have also been stripped of all parental rights. The Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates opposed HB 1129 because of this particular provision, which they believe is simply intended to intimidate and shame women. Planned Parenthood officials pointed out that the implicit assumption is that women who choose abortion can’t possibly be fit to care for a child — and that’s not something that should be codified into state law.
Last week, a lobbyist representing Planned Parenthood, Alisa LaPolt Snow, testified about the organization’s opposition to that aspect of HB 1129. During the hearing, she was questioned by a panel of anti-abortion state lawmakers who demanded that she respond to questions about this highly unlikely hypothetical situation. According to sources from the organization, the Republican lawmaker who sponsored HB 1129 repeatedly insinuated that women who choose abortions cannot be trusted, defending the provision revoking parental rights because “there is at least suspicion that that biological mother may not have the best interest of that born infant in mind.” When posed with a hypothetical scenario in which “a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion,” Snow attempted to make the point that legislators don’t need to get in the middle of medical situations. “We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician,” Snow said.
That was enough for the right-wing media to proclaim that Planned Parenthood endorses “infanticide.” After the Weekly Standard posted a video of that portion of the exchange, it spread throughout conservative outlets — eventually inspiring Priebus’ breathless editorial suggesting that any politician who supports Planned Parenthood may also support infanticide.
Perhaps the ultimate irony of the right-wing’s imagined controversy is that — even in states where it’s not against the law to perform late-term induced abortions — Planned Parenthood clinics don’t provide that type of service. Many Planned Parenthood affiliates only perform abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy, when women can either take a pill or have a less-invasive surgical procedure. It’s actually the women who don’t have access to Planned Parenthood clinics, which are under attack across the country as GOP-controlled legislatures do their best to shut them down, who are forced to resort to dangerous, illegal, late-term abortion services like the ones described at the Florida hearing.
Sen. Bill Nelson has changed his position on gay marriage, telling the Tampa Bay Times:
It is generally accepted in American law and U.S. society today “… that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. I believe that. The civil rights and responsibilities for one must pertain to all.
Thus, to discriminate against one class and not another is wrong for me.
If we are endowed by our Creator with rights, then why shouldn’t those be attainable by Gays and Lesbians?
Simply put, if The Lord made homosexuals as well as heterosexuals, why should I discriminate against their civil marriage? I shouldn’t, and I won’t.
So I will add my name to the petition of senators asking the Supreme Court to declare the law that prohibits gay marriage unconstitutional.
h/t: Tampa Bay Times
After Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus penned a scathing op-ed piece Wednesday suggesting that Planned Parenthood — and Democrats — support infanticide, the reproductive health organization issued a clarifying response.
In the piece, published by the conservative website RedState, Priebus highlighted recent testimony from Alisa LaPolt Snow, a Planned Parenthood lobbyist, before the Florida legislature.
Snow’s answers left a number of Republicans, including Priebus, up in arms. The chairman pointed to her testimony as evidence that Planned Parenthood and pro-choice Democrats must endorse infanticide.
h/t: TPM
The Results of Drug Tests on Welfare Recipients in Florida:
Drug testing only benefits the testing company. Typical on conservatives to waste time and money trying to stop a fake issue.
You have to love how they pander to the “everyone on welfare is a mooch and a druggie” types in order to get public support for such a wasteful program - that did nothing but line the pockets of the owners of drug testing facilities.
(via thepoliticalfreakshow)
(via How Republicans Plan To Rig The Next Presidential Election, In Six Pictures | ThinkProgress)
Yesterday, Virginia Republicans took the first step to move a GOP plan to rig the Electoral College forward in that state. Similar plans are under consideration in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
The Republican election rigging plan targets blue states that President Obama won in 2008 and 2012, and changes the way they allocate electoral votes to give many of these votes away for free to the Republican candidate for president. Under the Republican Plan, most electoral votes will be allocated to the winner of individual Congressional districts, rather than to the winner of the state as a whole. Because the Republican Plan would be implemented in states that are heavily gerrymandered to favor Republicans, the resulting maps would all but guarantee that the Republican would win a majority of each state’s electoral votes, even if the Democratic candidate wins the state as a whole.
Election Day in Florida became a nightmare due to several changes to election law, resulting in marathon lines and more provisional ballots. Now that the election is over, Florida Republicans are beginning to admit the mess was intended to suppress votes.
State Rep. Dennis Baxley (R-FL) and GOP chair of Alachua County, Stafford Jones, cooked up one of Florida’s many new laws specifically to keep college students from voting in the 2012 election. The vote-suppressing measures were inspired by the 2010 victory of Gainesville’s first openly gay mayor, Craig Lowe, which Republicans claim was stolen by Florida college students.
Many of the people affected were college students or young people who were moving for a new job. Jones explained this vote suppression was intentional and accused liberals of bringing in students to swing the election:
Baxley said Jones told him that voters from Tampa and other cities shifted their voter registrations to Gainesville for a day to vote in the city’s 2010 mayoral election in which Craig Lowe became the city’s first openly gay mayor by a 42-vote margin.
“It wasn’t right for people to move in and steal an election like that,” Baxley said.
Jones said he wanted the county transfer provision to keep college students from voting.
“The liberals do a good job of bringing in college kids to vote on local issues,” Jones said. “The kids vote on raising our taxes, but don’t have to live here to pay the consequences.”
Jones said he has no proof to support his claim, only recollections of liberal blog posts that people were moving to vote.
Gainesville is the home of the University of Florida, one of the most diverse universities in the nation. College students tend to hold more liberal views, and favored President Obama by 30 percent this year. Disenfranchisement of students is a tried and true Republican tactic. During the recall election of Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) in June, election officials ruled that some student IDs were not eligible for voting and passed a law that made it harder for Wisconsin students to claim residency in the state.
Beyond hijinks at the local level, the Florida GOP admitted soon after the election that the goal of these new laws was always to keep Democratic voters away from the polls.
U.S. House Rep Bill Young (R-FL) is not exactly what you’d call a ‘people person,’ particularly when it comes to dealing with tough questions from constituents. Remember his response to a young man asking if he would support a House bill that raises the minimum wage to $10? He cheerfully responded, “Probably not.” The young man politely persisted, “Would $10 not give us a living wage?” to which the Congressman, less cheerfully, replied, “How ‘bout getting a job?”
Maybe it’s the fact that he’s about to turn 82 (on December 16) that has Young so on edge as of late. Or maybe it’s the edge of the ‘fiscal cliff.’
One week ago, Young spoke at the Tiger Bay Club’s luncheon, where he reiterated his hard stance on his refusal to raise taxes under any circumstances. According to Tampa Bay, FL’s Creative Loafing, Young said, “I did sign [Grover Norquist’s] pledge. I am really opposed to raising taxes when I know the money is going to be spent and not be used to deal with the budget deficit.”
According to the Tampa Bay Times, Young arrived at his office as it was closing, in the company of St. Petersburg College police officers and staff members, including his chief of staff, Harry Glenn. One of the louder protesters got a bit too close to Young, and so the congressman grabbed him by the arm and brandished his walking cane as if to strike the activist. Both were separated by police officers before the incident escalated to blows.
And while witnesses say Young was the first to get physical, the Congressman insists the protester was the aggressor. Young’s attorney, David Jolly, on Wednesday told Peter Schorsch of the Saint Peters Blog, “[The accuser] is a young man with a history of violating the law who has been physically following the Congressman for months. In the coming days counsel will be reviewing whether his activities rise to the level of stalking, assault, or tortuous harassment of any kind.”
And Young is ‘sticking’ to his story.
In an exit befitting his outspoken, controversial two years in Congress, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) said that he only lost his re-election because his opponent cheated.
West lost narrowly to Democratic up-and-comer Patrick Murphy last month, but refused to concede for weeks, demanding a recount of ballots in St. Lucie County. Only after a re-tabulation slightly increased Murphy’s lead did West finally accept defeat just before Thanksgiving.
Appearing on Mark Levin’s radio show last Thursday, West accused Murphy of only winning by breaking the rules. “I’m not going away just because of a congressional race where he seems to have to cheat to beat me,” said West. He did not specify precisely how Murphy supposedly cheated.
LEVIN: You are a national treasure. You are way too important to have something like this to happen and off you go. That can’t happen. So I’m really curious to know. Do you have further public service in mind, potentially?
WEST: The most important thing everyone has to understand is my voice is not going to be lost. We’ve gotten a lot of opportunities, a lot of offers, and we’re going to make sure we continue to have that platform. […] I’m a warrior and I’m a statesman and I’m a servant of this republic.I’m not going away just because of a congressional race where he seems to have to cheat to beat me.
LEVIN: He sure as hell did. It’s disgusting.
Tonight, there is confirmation that Charlie Crist, the former Republican Florida Governor and loser to Marco Rubio (R) in the 2010 GOP Primary as a GOPer and the General Election, once again to Rubio and Kendrick Meek (D), as an Independent, has officially switched his party registration to the Democratic Party from Independent.
Former Republican Governor Charlie Crist has officially joined the Democratic Party, he announced on Friday evening.The change became official at a White House Christmas reception, the Tampa Bay Times reports, where “President Obama greeted the news with a fist bump.”
Crist — Florida’s former Republican governor who relished the tough-on-crime nickname “Chain Gang Charlie” and used to describe himself variously as a “Ronald Reagan Republican” and a “Jeb Bush Republican” — on Friday evening signed papers changing his party from independent to Democrat.The widely expected move positions Crist, 56, for another highly anticipated step: announcing his candidacy for governor, taking on Republican incumbent Gov. Rick Scott and an untold number of Democrats who would challenge him for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
Crist has been registered with no party affiliation since the spring of 2010, when his Republican candidacy for U.S. Senate was fizzling against Republican upstart Marco Rubio. Since losing that race, he has been steadily inching toward the Democratic Party, first when his wife, Carole, switched her affiliation to Democrat and later when he threw himself into Obama’s re-election campaign, earning a prominent speaking slot during the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.
Former Republican Governor Charlie Crist has officially joined the Democratic Party, he announced on Friday evening.
Crist, who served as governor of Florida from 2007 to 2011, left the Republican Party after losing a Senate primary battle to Marco Rubio in 2010 — switching his party affiliation to independent in order to run against now-Senator Rubio in the general election. (Crist lost that race by 19 points.)
Proud and honored to join the Democratic Party in the home of President @barackobama! twitter.com/charliecristfl…
— Charlie Crist (@charliecristfl) December 8, 2012
The change became official at a White House Christmas reception, the Tampa Bay Times reports, where “President Obama greeted the news with a fist bump.”
h/t: Huffington Post
Less than nine months after Trayvon Martin was killed, another black teenage student was killed under suspicious circumstances.
The accused murderer is now claiming the same “Stand Your Ground” defense, over loud music.
Dunn was arrested at his home on Saturday and charged with murder and attempted murder. He is being held without bail.
Davis’s funeral will take place on Saturday, Dec. 1 and his parents plan to create a foundation “for at risk students that suffer from tragedies, in his memory.”
(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)
