Political Hippo Circle Jerk - America, farg YEAH!

[Rome]

No one ever had the balls to take him on until now.  He runs Jersey like a farging mafia Capo.  He's an embarrassing, repulsive piece of shtein and I hope they recall his ass.

[General_Failure]

Net neutrality is dead. Bow to Comcast and Verizon, your overlords

Here's a slow-loading, totally biased article saying Comcast and Verizon are free to decide how quickly you can get to content they may not want you to get to.

[SunMo]

yeah, that's a pretty sickening ruling

[ice grillin you]

judge strikes down pennsylvania republican voter id law......probably headed to the state supreme court

[General_Failure]

Christie camp held Sandy relief money hostage, mayor alleges

Two senior members of Gov. Chris Christie's administration warned a New Jersey mayor earlier this year that her town would be starved of hurricane relief money unless she approved a lucrative redevelopment plan favored by the governor, according to the mayor and emails and personal notes she shared with msnbc.

The mayor, Dawn Zimmer, hasn't approved the project, but she did request $127 million in hurricane relief for her city of Hoboken – 80% of which was underwater after Sandy hit in October 2012. What she got was $142,000 to defray the cost of a single back-up generator plus an additional $200,000 in recovery grants.

[Rome]

Pure scum.  He's here in Florida right now wooing fat cats (no pun intended) for his presidential bid.

Please run you fat piece of shtein.  And have the baldheaded corksucker in Florida as your running mate.

PLEASE.

[ice grillin you]

Republican National Committee member Dave Agema has never bothered to hide his anti-gay views. But he reserves his most despicable commentary for his Facebook friends.

Earlier this month, the former member of the Michigan House of Representatives posted an article on his page about the Russian anti-gay propaganda law with the comment: "Common sense in Russia."

This pattern of abuse of gays and lesbians has prompted some chiding from leading Republicans. But Agema has never been asked to step down from his party post and last year he saw his resolution reaffirming the party's stance against same-sex marriage unanimously approved by the RNC. The tolerance for Agema's intolerance was too much for Jimmy LaSalvia, founder of the gay Republican group GOProud. The activist announced last week that he had left the party.

Now, a prominent Michigan Republican has finally spoken out against a "culture of intolerance." Betsy DeVos has called on Agema to resign and for chairman Reince Priebus to remove him from the RNC if the committeeman refuses to do so.

"The expectation of leaders in a party is to stand up in situations like this," DeVos, former chairperson of Michigan's GOP, told The Detroit News. "Failing to do so will have consequences."

The obvious implication is that donations will be withheld if Agema retains his position.

DeVos is a member of the royal family of Michigan conservative politics. Her husband — an heir to the Amway fortune — was a former GOP nominee for governor and a major financial backer of the anti-union law passed by a lame-duck state legislature in 2012. Her brother, Erik Prince, worked in George H.W. Bush's White House and became the founder and former CEO of the private military firm Blackwater, which is now known as Academi.

Thus her threat has real significance — and it is also wrought with real hypocrisy.

DeVos' mother Elsa Prince gave $450,000 to help pass California's Proposition 8, which made same-sex marriage illegal in California in 2008. A group funded by her husband used anti-gay rhetoric to push his pet issue of school choice and the schools he backs use taxpayer-funded textbooks that push anti-gay propaganda. His parents have given more than $5 million to Focus on the Family, a leading purveyor of the myth that homosexuality is a sinful "lifestyle" that can be cured.

In 2004, the DeVos and Prince families collectively donated $125,000 to help ban marriage equality, Michigan Democrats communications director Joshua Pugh pointed out. Pugh added that DeVos seems to have no problem with Governor Rick Synder (R-MI) signing a ban on domestic-partner benefits, in an era where equal marriage is quickly becoming the norm in America.

DeVos was likely motivated by a desire to help probable U.S. Senate nominee Terri Lynn Land, a GOP committee member who has been reluctant to comment on Agema for fear of alienating her base. Republicans clearly don't want to go into a general election in a state President Obama won by 9.5 percent having one of the nation's foremost anti-gay voices chained to them.

It has taken years for RNC chairman Priebus to even speak out against Agema and thus far only one prominent Republican is demanding his resignation. Perhaps expecting Republicans to catch up with the rest of America is too much to ask.

[MDS]

the most advanced country in the world has a major political party that is pro-intolerance, anti-equality and science denying.

in 200 years when people are reading history text on this era they wont believe it

[ice grillin you]

the problem is that pretty much everything in between maryland and california isnt advanced

[Rome]

the problem is that pretty much everything in between maryland and california is alabama

[rjs246]

The US hasn't been the most advanced country in the world (outside of our military industrial complex) in a very long time.

Our infrastructure is crumbling. Our technology infrastructure is way behind. Our education system lags behind. We have great medical specialists, but general healthcare lags behind much of the world. We have been slashing funding for research and development for years so only giant corporations (and the armed forces) do large scale R&D and what they find doesn't become available for the public good. Our criminal justice system tries to address problems by just locking everyone (well, ok, mostly poor people) up. And our exclusionary two party democracy tends to not work as well as other forms of representative government. shtein, we can't even assume that we'll win all of the international basketball tournaments anymore.

Pretending that the US is still the most advanced country in the world is silly.

[Seabiscuit36]

The US hasn't been the most advanced country in the world (outside of our military industrial complex) in a very long time.

Our infrastructure is crumbling. Our technology infrastructure is way behind. Our education system lags behind. We have great medical specialists, but general healthcare lags behind much of the world. We have been slashing funding for research and development for years so only giant corporations (and the armed forces) do large scale R&D and what they find doesn't become available for the public good. Our criminal justice system tries to address problems by just locking everyone (well, ok, mostly poor people) up. And our exclusionary two party democracy tends to not work as well as other forms of representative government. shtein, we can't even assume that we'll win all of the international basketball tournaments anymore.

Pretending that the US is still the most advanced country in the world is silly.

USA USA USA!

[Chameleon]

As long as we have the strongest military in the world all this paper with be worth something. Otherwise we are all farged.

[Diomedes]

Strongest military can't make up for worst foreign policy.  Drones and SEALs can't stop suicide bombers.

[Chameleon]

Strongest military can't make up for worst foreign policy.  Drones and SEALs can't stop suicide bombers.

Let's all focus on Russia's dislike of gay people and act like the United States government is equivalent of mother Teresa.