Scott Walker Makes Wisconsin NUMBER ONE...In Jobless Claims

Election 2014

Al Melvin, Tucson State Senator Running for Governor, Misquotes Lincoln -- Doesn't Care

By Ray Stern Tue., Dec. 31 2013 at 11:06 AM

Al Melvin, a state senator running for governor, apparently has never heard of snopes.com. Nor is he showing interest in debunking anything after he was flambeed by his Twitter followers over the past week and embarrassed in news articles for misquoting Abraham Lincoln.

See also:
- Governor Jan Brewer Vetoes Bill That Aimed to Seize All Federal Lands in the State
The Republican from Tucson hasn't bothered to take down quotes from his Twitter account in which he erroneously attributes to the 16th president as a backhanded way to try to criticize President Obama.
"#azright Abe Lincoln: 'You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong,'" read Melvin's first tweet misquoting Lincoln on December 27. He followed with:
"#azright0 Abe: 'You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.'"
and
"#azright Abe Lincoln:'You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.'"
For emphasis after the third tweet, he added, "POTUS Obama needs to learn from these words."
From the site, it appears that Robbie Sherwood, a political consultant, former Arizona Republic reporter and former chief-of-staff for Democratic Congressman Harry Mitchell, nailed Melvin's misquotes the same day.
"@SenatorMelvin This is an urban legend. Lincoln never said this, it has been falsely attributed to him. http://www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln/prosperity.asp ..." Sherwood chided.
True enough, a months-old post on Snopes, a great site for checking Internet-driven BS that everyone should know about, reveals that the quote actually came from a Presbyterian minister 50 years after Lincoln's death. It's part of a list of "cannots" that was put on a pamphlet in the early 20th century and which has been confused with Lincoln nearly ever since for reasons that aren't clear, the site says.
"Klute," another of Melvin's tweet-suckers, tells the senator, "If you can't be bothered to learn truth from falsehood, why should you be even considered for Governor?"
Melvin doesn't acknowledge the responses, and leaves the quotes alone.

Al Melvin

A story by Arizona reporter Howie Fischer about the misquotes was published in the Sierra Vista Herald on Monday afternoon, and was followed by other news outlets, including today by the national rawstory.com. "It sounded good to me," Melvin told Fischer. "If anything, it's an innocent mistake on my part."
Melvin's a former Navy captain who now works as a "trade and transportation consultant." At least, that's what it says on his Arizona Legislature member bio. Maybe that should be run by Snopes, too...

Wendy Davis, Leticia Van De Putte Aim To Make History In 2014

By PAUL J. WEBER 01/01/14 11:54 AM ET EST

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Forget whether Hillary Clinton could win the White House in 2016. Women still have yet to run many statehouses, but in 2014 two Texas Democrats are going for a new kind of history: Winning as an all-female ticket.
Woven into one of the the nation's most intriguing gubernatorial races this year is whether Democrat Wendy Davis, whose 11-hour filibuster over abortion restrictions catapulted the state senator to national fame this summer, can not only overcome long odds in a fiercely Republican state but pull off a political first.
If Davis and fellow state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, who is running for lieutenant governor, prevail in their March primaries as expected, they'll form what political experts say is only the fifth time in at least the past 20 years that a party has nominated two women for a state's top offices.
None of these pairings has ever won — nor have a woman governor and lieutenant governor ever served concurrently. The last two-woman ticket to try was steamrolled in November by New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie on his easy path to re-election.
That pair came away some advice for their Texas cohorts.
"Expect to be marginalized. Just be ready for it," said New Jersey Democratic state Sen. Barbara Buono, who lost to Christie by 22 points.
Not all nominees run as "tickets" in the traditional sense. Texas is among the states that elect a governor and lieutenant governor separately, meaning that Davis and Van de Putte don't come as a package even though they'll overlap in message.
That message hasn't focused on gender. Davis talks about education and weeding out cronyism while trying to forge a broader identity among voters who might only know her from her stand in pink running shoes on the Texas Senate floor for reproductive rights.
But Davis and Van de Putte, who's Hispanic, can't escape their obvious contrast to Republicans, whose entire statewide ticket in Texas this year is shaping up to be almost exclusively white and male.

"Diversity in government, I think, is incredibly important," Davis said. "Bringing a variety of perspectives to the leadership table creates better government."
Yet Republican can argue they're doing the better job of putting women in governor's mansions right now. The GOP has four nationwide to the one held by Democrats. But the party has recently acknowledged it could do better with women voters, including U.S. House Speaker John Boehner saying in December that some members of his caucus could stand to be more "sensitive" at times.
Unlike New Jersey, Davis and Van de Putte aren't challenging a popular incumbent-turned-potential presidential candidate. Texas Gov. Rick Perry is stepping aside after 14 years and giving Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, the presumptive Republican nominee, the task of preserving two decades of statewide GOP rule.
That relegates Davis and Van de Putte to the status of most female tickets before them: underdogs, despite Texas having a stronger history than many states of electing powerful women leaders.
Former South Carolina GOP chairwoman Karen Floyd, who helmed the state party when Nikki Haley became South Carolina's first female governor in 2011, hosted a summit in August to brainstorm how Republicans can elect more women.
The problem, she said, isn't message but getting more women to run.
"The Democratic Party has a better track record. They've been doing it longer," Floyd said. "I think you'll see more Republican woman offer up. It'll be a cascading effect."
The closest two women have come to sweeping a state's top two offices was 2004 in Missouri, when now-U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, and the party's female nominee for lieutenant governor narrowly lost.
Female Democratic candidates tend to amplify the gender gap in elections, said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. She said the other recent all-female tickets were a pair of Illinois Democrats in 1994 and a pair of Kentucky Republicans in 1999.
Buono doesn't believe being a woman was the deciding factor in the New Jersey gubernatorial race, but said they faced misogynistic and belittling remarks in a state where none of its 12 congressional members are women. One GOP county chairman compared Buono choosing Milly Silva, a labor leader who previously never ran for statewide office, as her running mate to picking his secretary.
Van de Putte recalled feeling marginalized in the Texas Senate in June when, as Republicans began stopping Davis' filibuster, she took the microphone and asked: "At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room?"
Van de Putte, who will face one of the four men vying for the Republican nomination, acknowledged it's unusual to try winning with two women.
"But, you know, maybe it shouldn't be," Van de Putte said. "We just happen to be two gals. That's the way it ended up."
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Follow Paul J. Weber: www.twitter.com/pauljweber

Another Cabal Think Tank Exposed

Another Cabal Think Tank Exposed

Thursday, 02 January 2014

Report criticizes conservative Nebraska think tank

A conservative Nebraska think tank — the Platte Institute for Economic Research — has been labeled by two watchdog groups as a so-called “stink tank” that is part of a nationwide network promoting an extreme right-wing agenda.
According to a report by the Center for Media and Democracy and Progress Now, the Platte Institute is aligned with the State Policy Network, or SPN, “an $83 million web of right-wing think tanks ” in every state across the country.
“These organizations present themselves as nonpartisan, objective and scholarly,” the report said. “But instead of being actual, honest think tanks, all of these organizations are funded by and/or work for groups like the corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council, Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers and other billionaire conservative and corporate funders. (editor’s note: the ALEC/Koch/AFP Cabal.)
“SPN and its affiliates push an extreme right-wing agenda that aims to privatize education, block healthcare reform, restrict workers’ rights, roll back environmental protections and create a tax system that benefits most those at the very top level of income,” the report said.
SPN officials did not respond to a request for comment, but Jim Vokal, executive director of the Platte Institute, dismissed the report.
“Our group and SPN are being attacked based on our philosophy and our success in advancing free-market solutions,” he said. “There are people out there that do not support free-market solutions. They want bigger government. And that’s what I think this is — an attempt to attack those who believe in what we believe in.”
The Platte Institute was established in 2007 by Omaha businessman Pete Ricketts, the former chief operating officer for Ameritrade who unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 2006 and is seeking next year’s GOP gubernatorial nomination. He resigned from the institute’s board of directors in August, Vokal said.
The Platte Institute identifies itself as “a research and educational organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for all citizens of Nebraska by advancing sensible, well-researched solutions to state and local economic policy issues.”
Its website says: “The Platte Institute’s scholars study public policy problems and propose solutions that increase economic opportunity for all Nebraskans. We then promote these solutions by publishing studies, briefing papers and other educational materials which help policymakers, the media and the general public gain a better understanding of the issues. (ed. note: contributing to the right wing echo chamber.)
“The Platte Institute is founded on the belief that the freedom and quality of life that Nebraskans deserve is best achieved by promoting free-enterprise, limited government and personal responsibility. Our scholars move beyond the mindset that every problem has a government solution,” the website says. “Instead, we propose policy alternatives that respect the rights of the individual and encourage hard work and perseverance.”
The Platte Institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization privately funded through contributions made by individuals, businesses and foundations.
The Center for Media and Democracy and Progress Now report notes that the SPN and most of its affiliates do not post their major donors on their websites.
“The identities of the donors we have discovered reveal that SPN is largely funded by global corporations — such as Reynolds American, Altria, the e-cigarette company NJOY, Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon, Facebook, the for-profit online education company K12 Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, Kraft Foods, Express Scripts, Comcast, Time Warner, and the Koch- and tea party-connected DCI Group lobbying and PR firm — that stand to benefit from SPN’s destructive agenda,” the report said, “as well as out-of-state special interests like the billionaire Koch brothers, the Waltons, the Bradley Foundation, the Roe Foundation and the Coors family — who are underwriting an extreme legislative agenda that undermines the traditional rights of modern Americans.”
The report said that while SPN’s affiliates are registered as educational nonprofits, “several appear to orchestrate extensive lobbying and political operations to peddle their legislative agenda to state legislators, despite the IRS’s regulations on nonprofit political and lobbying activities.
“SPN and many of its affiliates are some of the most active members and largest sponsors of the controversial ALEC, where special interest groups and state politicians vote behind closed doors on ‘model’ legislation to change Americans’ rights, through ALEC’s task forces,” the report said. “SPN has close ties to, and works with, other national right-wing organizations like the Franklin Center and David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity.”

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All illustrations were added by this editor.
This article is written by Kevin O’Hanlon and is published by the (Lincoln, Nebraska) JournalStar.com at http://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/report-criticizes-conservative-nebraska-think-tank/article_7d1c8cd6-5561-5993-87cc-fbdfc68f494f.html

Reid: Senate to vote on extending jobless benefits

By By Sandra Chereb December 31, 2013

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CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — The Senate will vote next Monday on temporarily extending federal benefits for the long-term unemployed, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said.

Reid, D-Nev., told The Associated Press he's hopeful a bill co-sponsored by Nevada's Republican Sen. Dean Heller will be approved by the upper chamber, but he offered no prediction on whether it will pass muster in the House of Representatives.
"I don't predict anything in the House," Reid said Monday, describing the Republican-controlled House as a "black hole of legislation."

Story: 1.3 Million People Lost Unemployment Benefits. It Could Get Ugly

"We'll see what happens," he said.
But he praised Heller for the bipartisan bill he introduced with U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island. The measure would continue the federal jobless program for three months while a compromise is sought.
"I hope we can get that done," said Reid, who has often been at odds with the conservative Heller.

Video: Reid on Outlook for Votes on Budget and Nominations

"I'm happy to see Dean has joined us," Reid added. "He's broken away from the tea party folks who don't want to do anything."
When he introduced the bill, Heller said, "Providing a safety net for those in need is one of the most important functions of the federal government. As Nevada's unemployment rate continues to top the charts nationwide, many families and individuals back home do not know how they are going to meet their basic needs."
A two-year budget deal reached earlier this month failed to include an extension of jobless benefits for people who have been unemployed longer than six months. About 17,000 Nevadans lost benefits when the program expired Saturday. Nationally, 1.3 million were cut off from receiving unemployment.

Video: Reid on Outlook for Senate Action on Budget Plan

Nevada officials estimate 800 Nevadans will lose benefits each week as they exhaust their 26 weeks of state-paid unemployment insurance unless Congress extends the federal program that was enacted in 2008 at the height of the recession when unemployment soared. It allowed the long-term unemployed in hard hit states like Nevada to receive benefits for up to 99 weeks. The duration was cut to 73 weeks last year.
Looking ahead to 2014, Reid said one of his priorities will be addressing the wealth gap between the rich, poor and middle class.
"The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, the middle class is getting squeezed and it's just not fair," said Reid, adding that raising the minimum wage would be another top priority, along with extending jobless benefits.

Video: Tapering Will Begin in Q4 After Elections: Reid

He said he's scheduled to appear on a Sunday news show to outline his legislative goals in the midterm election year.

Video: Reid on U.S. Budget Deal: Political Capital (12/13)

President Obama NAILS IT in one sentence

President Obama NAILS IT in one sentence

by MinistryOfTruth

President Obama: The American people elected their representatives to make their lives easier, not harder

This is what it comes down to. The GOP hopes that if they can make enough Americans suffer it will hurt President Obama.
The GOP has an agenda that hurts 99% of Americans and only benefits the wealthiest 1%. They ran on that agenda in 2012 with Romney/Ryan and lost badly. The American people have rejected the GOP's "1%ers Only" agenda and will continue to do so no matter what screeching Teabaggers believe.
The majority of Americans who aren't brainwashed Fox viewers overwhelmingly want Representatives in Congress that will make our lives better, not harder.
The choice is clear, if you want a sane and functioning Government that tries to make life better for the average American you should vote for Democrats.
More below the fold

If you want to coddle billionaires and corporate interests while prattling on about Fox News talking points with a bunch of dopey tea bags hanging from your hate then please proceed, Tea Party . . .
Millions of Americans voted to re-elect President Barack Obama in 2012. Obama won. This Republican Government Shutdown isn't just about killing Obamacare, it is about overturning the results of the 2012 Presidential Election. Millions of Americans voted for a government that makes our lives better, not harder.
This is what a dying Republican party looks like. I'm glad President Obama has brought out the BIG STICK.

President Obama: The American people elected their representatives to make their lives easier, not harder

The Tea Party and their GOP cohorts have decided that if they can make life harder for Americans they can blame Obama for it. That plan IS backfiring on the GOP, as it should. I stand with our President 110% on this. Republicans are trying to make life harder on the average American. The only thing the American public should reward the GOP with is our scorn.
Hat tip to kossack kravitz for the video of the President's speech
The embed isn't working, but here is the link

10:19 AM PT: Please listen to the President's speech in its' entirety if you get the chance. This is Obama at his best, hammering the GOP for threatening to wreck the economy. I will try to get a full transcript up as soon as I can.

‘Antiques Roadshow’ discovers $660 painting is $661,000 van Dyck masterpiece

‘Antiques Roadshow’ discovers $660 painting is $661,000 van Dyck masterpiece (via Raw Story )

The BBC One program Antiques Roadshow has discovered a “lost masterpiece” by 17th Century master Anthony van Dyck. A priest in Nottingham, Father Jaime, had purchased the painting for $660, and brought it to a filming of Antiques Roadshow to be…

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