You know where there was no blue wave this cycle? Ohio-- not even a ripple. It was another status quo election in Ohio, as though nothing at all was going on in the country-- nothing at all. Just... same ole/same ole. All the incumbents in the gerrymandered congressional districts-- each one carefully designed to return incumbents-- were reelected. And in the one contest where there was no incumbent, the party stayed the same.
What would closet case Ben Gay Lujan do if the party started recruiting anti-LGBTQ candidates?Even if they started out, long, long, long ago as idealists-- and even entered politics because of idealism-- most entrenched Democratic professional politicians became, somewhere along the line, an ideal-free careerist for whom the Democratic Party is now merely a vehicle for their own, personal career objectives.
Yesterday, the House passed H.R. 36, Trent Franks' so-called "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act." It passed 237-189, every Republican but Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) and Charlie Dent (R-PA) voting YES, and every Democrat except 3 far right Blue Dogs voting NO:
by KenThere's a good chance, as we knew all through the 2016 presidential derby, that the Supreme Court we now think of as the "Roberts Court" is going to be transformed over the next few years into the "Trump Court."For now, President Trump has one vacancy to fill, the one that remains because Republicans took one of their more outrageous dumps on the Constitution by refusing to consider former President Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, to fill the
Former right-wing evangelical Frank Schaeffer confesses his sins (seriously)by Gaius PubliusAnother in our series, "They knew and they didn't care." The video above shows ex-evangelical minister Frank Schaeffer talking about the birth of the anti-choice movement and how it's responsible, among other things, for the presidency of George W. Bush. Schaeffer on that:
They're ba-a-ack!by KenAre you ready for it, constitutional-law fans? Yes, it's Ian Millhiser's fall preview. "Next Monday," ThinkProgress's legal maven noted in his post this morning ("Everything You Need To Know About The Big Supreme Court Cases The Justices Will Hear This Term"),
Now that the Republican primary is over, Scott Brown is trying to present himself to New Hampshire voters as more moderate and more mainstream than his record shows he is— particularly on issues important to women voters (and to men who like and respect women). Brown has been lying, claiming he has always supported women having the ability to get contraception easily.
Cory Gardner has never tried to sell himself as anything but a hard core right-wing ideologue. His district, CO-04 is the eastern third of the state, most of it the part that wants to secede. It's 91% white and very, very Republican. The R+11 district gave Romney a 210,019 (59%) to 140,855 (39%) victory over Obama-- even while Obama was winning the whole state, 51-46%.
Dint ol' Ronnie Reagan hisself promis us we dint hafta beleeve in no stuff we dint wanna like no Big Bongs which anyways is just a big bell or somethin' in Inglund?by KenDo you know what the word "choice" means? What it means to choose between options? Yes, you say? You do? Then I'm sorry to have to tell you that apparently you have just been disqualified from being a right-winger.We'll come back to this in a moment.
