Ron Chusid: Nichelle Nichols 217; (Lt. Uhura) statement at Pensacon: “I am deeply saddened by the death of my dear friend Leonard Nimoy. But, I also want to celebrate his extraordin ary life. He...
David Duff: Whatever happened to ‘Lt. Uhuru̵ 7;, I wonder?
Ron Chusid: The government isn’ t taking over any industries . Regulation s are needed in cases of a monopoly. That is not the same as taking over or running things. So far the governm...
David Duff: So when will they be taking over, say, the car industry, or the washing machine industry, or the house-buil ding industry? Not too long probably because, of course, in all these...
Ron Chusid: The Justice Department looked into whether they should prosecute under civil rights laws, which has a very high bar to achieve a conviction under. There is nothing wrong with that...
David Duff: “thi s is not a matter for the federal government ” So why have HolderR 17;s legal ‘app aratchiks& #8217; spent 19 months – repeat, 19 months! - investi...
Ron Chusid: What is hilarious is your trust in all the right wing conspiracy theories despite all the evidence that the claims are bogus claims. But it has already been clear that you have zero...
David Duff: Your complete and utter trust in Uncle Sam would be to uching if it wasn’ ;t so hilarious. But in the meantime, have you still not managed to find some words on the news that...
Ron Chusid: It is no surprise that you have no problems with abuses of civil liberties and mistreatme nt of blacks. Obama can do no wrong? There are plenty of things which I have disagreed with him...
David Duff: Who gives a toss? It&# 8217;s Chicago, for God’ s sake, waddya expect? Of more pressing urgency (I would have thought) to a man whose blog is entitled “Lib eral...
Raymond Smith: What about Bush and Cheney? Well, it goes like this, both have the following: 1. Too much Money 2. Too much political clout 3. Most important one is they both know ...
Ron Chusid: It’s been over seven years ago since I read his book and wrote the post, plus this was not one of the topics I was concerned about in the post. Most likely he did not put the...
Danimal: The founding fathers establishe d the first nation-siz ed republic? What , the Roman Republic and the Dutch Republic weren̵ 7;t nation-siz ed?
William Teach: The American Thinker is seriously bat guano insane. The video clearly shows Obama making a typical finger wagging gesture, in a good way, at something one of the folks onstage said....
Ron Chusid: Here’ ;s another way that the ACA is decreasing premiums which even a conservati ve should understand . Previously most markets were dominated by one or two insurance compani...
Ron Chusid: All these statements are true and I have presented the evidence in previous posts. Expanding the risk pool helps make it possible to treat more people at a lower cost. It is also more...
David Duff: Like just about everyone on America I do not understand ‘Oba macareR 17; either. Nor, I suspect, do you! For example: “a tremendous success in increasing the...
Ron Chusid: Again, you fail to understand the science and are repeating right wing nonsense.
David Duff: No, and it has absolutely everything to do with the very core of Darwinism which states states that life is a never-endi ng struggle for supremacy. And yet here we see a bunch of...
Ron Chusid: The fact that you think this has anything to do with the scientific debate over evolution only shows how you have been taken in by the anti-scien ce claims.
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Mike's Blog Round Up -: 30;] Liberal Values – inhabitant s of a Class M planet say goodbye; […]
I’ve discussed many times, most recently yesterday, how the conservative arguments against the Affordable Care Act don’t hold up. Their predictions of doom have also consistently failed to come about. Bloomberg News looked at the effect of Obamacare on corporate profits, finding only a small effect, debunking the conservative claims that Obamacare is a job killer. It also helps that one of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act has a lower increase in premiums than has been seen in the past:
The biggest entitlement legislation in a generation is causing barely a ripple in corporate America.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — otherwise known as Obamacare — is putting such a small dent in the profits of U.S. companies that many refer to its impact as “not material” or “not significant,” according to a Bloomberg review of conference-call transcripts and interviews with major U.S. employers.
That’s even after a provision went into effect this year requiring companies with 50 or more full-time workers to provide coverage, and after more workers are choosing to enroll in existing company coverage because of another requirement that all Americans get insured.
“It’s just part of doing business,” said Bob Shearer, chief financial officer of VF Corp., which owns the North Face and Vans apparel brands. “Obamacare has added costs, but not so much that we felt we had to talk about it specifically.”
The collective shrug from the nation’s biggest employers undermines the arguments of Republicans, who call the law a job-killer as they seek its repeal.
While U.S. health-care costs continued to rise faster than inflation in the five years since the law was passed, their rate of growth has slowed. Employers spent an average of $11,204 per worker for health benefits in 2014, up 4.6 percent from a year earlier, according to Mercer LLC. That growth rate was 6.1 percent or more each year from 1998 to 2011.
Enrollment in insurance policies purchased on the exchanges has also beaten expectations. The Hill reports, “The administration announced on Tuesday that 11.4 million people had signed up ahead of Sunday’s deadline, a figure that puts the administration on track to beat its goal of 9.1 million enrollees. Republicans have been largely silent on the numbers.”
Taken together, these two reports are further evidence that the Affordable Care Act is helping to both increase the number of people insured and restrain health care costs.
The conservative movement has become totally divorced from reality, often denying science and facts to make their positions. Here’s just three examples from the past day.
Conservatives Hate Historical Facts
Conservatives hate actual American history as the facts contradict so many of their claims. As Joseph Ellis has explained, the Founding Fathers established a secular state with overlapping sources of authority and a blurring of jurisdiction between federal and state power. Conservative claims of states’ rights and claims that the United States was founded as a Christian nation do not hold up. Oklahoma has a unique answer to teaching all those inconvenient facts in Advanced Placement History classes. Republicans there want to eliminate the AP classes and replace them classes which include the Ten Commandments and three speeches by Ronald Reagan.
Some Conservatives Still Think Obama Is A Muslim
The American Thinker is still making the conservative claim that Obama is a Muslim. Their evidence is a picture of Obama with a raised finger:
Is President Obama a Muslim? A lot has been written about this, but if photographs speak louder than words, then a photo taken at last August’s U.S.-African Leaders’ Summit in Washington D.C. might shed considerable light.
It shows Barack Hussein Obama flashing the one-finger affirmation of Islamic faith to dozens of African delegates.
Steve M. gathered pictures of several other people who are also Muslims by this logic. The pictures include: Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Ben Carson, Scott Walker, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Andrew Breitbart, and Pam Geller. Who knew that the conservative movement was infiltrated by Muslims to this degree.
Conservatives Still Lack Any Actual Facts To Support Their Arguments Against Obamacare
Bill Maher called them Zombie Lies. Conservatives lack any real facts to dispute what a tremendous success Obamacare has become so they tell the same lies over and over, even when repeatedly proven to be lies. They are lies which just don’t die, because conservatives don’t care about facts. Jonathan Chait reviewed the latest claims from Stephen Moore, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation. See the full article to see how Chait shows that Moore’s claims are demonstrably wrong and that, “There is not a single substantive claim in this column that appears to be true.”
If you ever subscribed to any conservative magazines you most likely wound up on their mailing lists which try to sell all sorts of snake oil to gullible conservatives. They often tie it into conservative philosophy/paranoia, such as selling gold based upon warnings about the imminent economic collapse. Their predictions are essentially unchanged from the 1960’s when I first became aware of them, and probably began far earlier. Rick Perlstein has described how they use their mailing lists to con their supporters.
This is hardly surprising considering how gullible one must be to be a conservative these days as they ignore science, economics, and any other facts which contradict their views. They deny evolution, climate change, and basic science whenever convenient. They promote conspiracy theories without evidence, such as their bogus claims about Benghazi, ACORN, and the IRS. Believe it or not, there are lots of conservatives who believe all their claims, supplying cover when wealthy right wingers promote government policies designed to enrich themselves, while hurting everyone else, based upon Voodoo economic theories which don’t hold up in the real world.
Sometimes a conservative starts to figure out that they are being conned, but they generally miss the big picture. Right Wing News looked at fund raising by conservative groups:
Reports about sleazy activities by conservative groups have not exactly been in short supply over the last couple of years. Damaging stories have popped up on the Daily Beast, Mother Jones, Washington Post, the Politico and at the Daily Caller among other outlets. Additionally, for those of us who have a lot of friends in the Tea Party and among grassroots conservatives, stories of abuse have become rampant.
In the past many conservatives ignored such stories, figuring they were just liberal hit pieces. Right Wing News demonstrated that (as liberals had long realized) many conservative groups were ripping off donors to pocket the money rather than use it for actual candidates. The article concludes:
How many conservative candidates lost in 2014 because of a lack of funds? How many of them came up short in primaries, lost winnable seats or desperately tried to fight off better-funded challengers? How much of a difference would another 50 million dollars have made last year? That’s a very relevant question because the 10 PACs at the bottom of this list spent $54,318,498 and only paid out $3,621,896 to help get Republicans elected. If that same $54,318,498 had gone to the Club for Growth Action PAC and it had been as efficient with it as it was with the money it had, $47,800,278 would have gone to Republican candidates instead of the meager $3,621,896 that those candidates received from those 10 PACs during this cycle. The conservative movement has a right to expect more than this from the PACs that are representing it.
The post has received considerable attention with conservatives being willing to accept data from a conservative blog which they might have ignored from other sources. For example, Jonah Goldberg covered this at National Review under the title The Right Wing Scam Machine.
Now if they would only realize that the entire conservative movement is a giant scam which pushes false information to promote their goals. Their followers are being told lies far beyond such dishonest fundraising. Unfortunately those who see the tip of the iceberg are totally missing the real problem.
The Affordable Care Act has been a tremendous success in increasing the number of people insured, reducing the cost of health care coverage, and eliminating the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage to those who develop medical problems. However it is not surprising that a law of its complexity does get some details wrong. When I first heard that open enrollment would end in mid-February I thought this was a mistake.
Some of those who failed to purchase coverage last year might not realize that they risk paying penalties, and they might not realize this until around April 15 if they wait until the last minute to complete their taxes. If the goal of the mandate is to encourage people to sign up to avoid penalties, enrollment should extend through April 15. That way people could sign up for insurance to avoid the mandate.
I was glad to see that some Democrats have realized this and are working to fix the problem by urging the Obama administration to have a special enrollment period:
Three senior House members told The Associated Press that they plan to strongly urge the administration to grant a special sign-up opportunity for uninsured taxpayers who will be facing fines under the law for the first time this year.
The three are Michigan’s Sander Levin, the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, and Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, and Lloyd Doggett of Texas. All worked to help steer Obama’s law through rancorous congressional debates from 2009-2010.
The lawmakers say they are concerned that many of their constituents will find out about the penalties after it’s already too late for them to sign up for coverage, since open enrollment ended Sunday.
That means they could wind up uninsured for another year, only to owe substantially higher fines in 2016. The fines are collected through the income tax system.
This year is the first time ordinary Americans will experience the complicated interactions between the health care law and taxes. Based on congressional analysis, tax preparation giant H&R Block says roughly 4 million uninsured people will pay penalties.
I had fears that 12 Monkeys could settle on a simple formula of searching for the Night Room and the Army of the 12 Monkeys in our present, and a battle for the facility in the future. I no longer have such concerns about the direction of the show after this week’s episode, The Night Room. Major spoilers ahead for those who might be a week behind. The location of the Night Room was found (mostly off screen last week) and this week’s episode primarily took place there. The relationships between the main characters will not be exactly the same, especially after The Pallid Man told Cassandra that Cole killed Dr. Henri Toussaint in Haiti. There are also questions raised about Jones.
The episode was really interesting when the time travel implications of the virus are considered. Is the skeleton with the virus really Cole’s? Does he eventually develop the plague, despite his current immunity, or is he just a carrier? Does the repeated time travel play a part? Did Jones send his rotting body back in time, and for what reason? Did Jones (inadvertently?) cause the plague? If the answers are in the future which Cole came from, he won’t find them immediately. Although he failed in preventing the plague, he did enough to change the future. With West 7 and not Jones now in control of the time travel facility in the altered future, and with Cassie kidnapped in the past, Cole starts out next week with no allies in either time period beyond an insane girl.
The shows’s executive producers Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett discussed the impact on the mythology with The Hollywood Reporter:
“The Night Room is a big return to our mythology and the next big step in learning more not only about the virus, but the origin of this conspiracy,” Matalas says. “We learn quite a bit about the future, too. There is a very big storyline regarding Jones (Barbara Sukowa) in the Night Room. We get to learn what it took to get this time travel project up and running and the sacrifices she made. This episode is the one where we inhibit our skin a little bit more. The show gets a little bit more unique and a little more off-beat from what you may expect. We bring the weird a little bit here in a good way. It’s what makes it 12 Monkeys.”
The two creators have a bigger plan in mind for Jones, which began with the early and rare moment of levity from the character at the beginning of “The Night Room.” “It’s definitely building up to something. Jones becomes from here on out a more prominent character with more screen time. That is something we wanted to see, her among the other characters, but also her backstory is really important to the mythology of the show and that is the first hint of it,” Fickett said. “When Ramse (Kirk Acevedo) goes into her room and opens up that chest you see the baby blanket with the name Hannah on it. Suddenly we know there is a whole lot more to this woman and maybe she has deeply personal reasons for changing time as well.”
Matalas, however, notes that messing with time has its consequences both to Cole and time itself. Throughout the Night Room, Cole starts to experience debilitating headaches. “Keep in mind, this is a new process. Cole is the pilot program for this. No one has traveled as much as him. He does have a time clock on himself,” Matalas said.
The changes brought about from the destruction of the Precursor are a major according to Matalas. It’s big enough to break time. “We are not talking about multiple universes. We are talking about one singular timeline. Jones, in [episode] six, explains the difference between loops, or what’s called a jinn, and that’s basically the Sarah Connor. … How Reese had to come back in time to pregnate Sarah Connor so that she can give birth to John Connor who will send his father back in time. It’s one of the infinite loops. That’s called a jinn,” Matalas explains. “When there are more traumatic changes to the timeline, then you can break the change and that’s what happens in episode six.”
Among the big changes was The Pallid Man’s first mention of hierarchy within the Army of the 12 Monkeys by naming dropping someone called The Witness. When questioned about the character, Matalas and Fickett remained tight-lipped, promising only that the answer will not be what viewers expect. “It’s not the answer Cole is expecting either,” Matalas said. “Or any of our characters,” Fickett added.
“There is a lot going on with the Army of the 12 Monkeys and by episode eleven you’ll learn a lot more about them. Enough to make your brain explode,” Matalas said. “Releasing the virus could be one of their intended goals, but the end result may not be what you expect it to be. With time travel you’re playing the long game and if you’re dealing with the fate of the entire planet, destruction can be creative in the long run.”
Arrow showrunner Marc Guggenheim is not one of those who subscribe to the theory (mentioned last week) that John Diggle might be John Stewart, who succeeds Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern. I do think that Diggle plays such a key role on Arrow that it makes sense to keep him as he is, although it might be a way to give him a spin-off series in the future after Arrow ends.
We do know that Arrow is on the verge of introducing another superhero. Ray Palmer will put on the Advanced Technology Operating Mechanism (A.T.O.M.) suit, which so far we have only seen as a holograph, in episode 15, Nanda Parbat. His course as a superhero sounds a lot like Laurel’s. Guggenheim said, “He’s definitely a sloppy superhero in the sense of all of our characters don’t immediately have the easiest time fighting crime. I would say episode 19 really digs underneath what does it mean for Ray to be a hero. Is he a hero because of who he is? Or is he a hero because of the suit that he’s made?” He will not be shrinking initially but will fly:
For me, the most satisfying thing about the costume is, it looks like Brandon walked off of a movie set. I’ve never seen a TV show do a costume of this level of ambition before. He’s got a lot of cool tricks up his sleeve. People who are immediately expecting him to shrink are going to be disappointed. I will say that upfront.
We always say, we’re doing the “Arrow” version of The Atom. That said, there will be some flying involved, which looks remarkably amazing. He has a lot of little gadgets and tricks and abilities built into that suit. I don’t want to spoil exactly what they are, because I think part of the fun of watching is seeing what that suit’s going to do next.
A Felicity Smoak action figure is being released. I won’t discuss this further to avoid getting into Lars And The Real Girl territory.
After several weeks of rumors, it has now been announced that Spider-Man will become part of the Marvel cinematic universe. It is believed that this means that The Amazing Spider-Man trilogy will not be completed and Andrew Garfield is out as Spider-Man. The deal will allow Spider-Man to appear in an upcoming Marvel Studios movie, assumed to be the upcoming Captain America movie considering that in the comics Spider-Man played a role in the civil war storyline. Afterwards, while Sony will retain ownership and handle distribution, Marvel Studies will collaborate with Sony on the creative end. Considering that Sony has failed in two different attempts at a Spider-Man trilogy, this deal should help both Sony and Marvel. There is also talk of future Marvel cross overs in future Spider-Man movies.
While most fans seem to have been rooting for Marvel Studies to get creative control of Spider-Man, I recently discussed a contrary opinion that this would reduce exposure for some of the lesser comics characters which Marvel Studies has done an excellent job with. I think that, if necessary, it would be worth reducing the number of other Marvel movies in order to have a quality Spider-Man movie series. So far it appears that the only consequence will be to move back the releases dates of four of the planned phase 3 movies. The updated release schedule can be found here.
Hugh Jackman discussed future Wolverine and X-Men movies and the possibility of an X-Men cross-over with the Marvel cinematic universe.
“I like to think there’s that possibility for all of it, and I would even like to think more that it doesn’t happen out of necessity, y’know, when someone’s run it into the ground or something. I optimistically love the idea of “What the hell, Batman versus Iron Man versus Wolverine!” Let’s just chuck ‘em in.
We’ll see what happens, but maybe as these things go on more and more they’ll want to and need to do all that stuff. I’m optimistic, I’d think it’d be great, but hey, it’s not my billions of dollars behind this promise. [laughs] It’s easy for us to speculate, “Why did they do that?!”
Agent Carter has primarily tied into the Marvel cinematic universe with connections to Captain America and SHIELD. Another connection has been the revelation that Carter’s former neighbor Dottie was trained in the Black Widow program. Bridget Regan discussed her role with Comic Book Resources.
I was a bit skeptical when I first heard that the Thor comic was to change to feature a female version of the character, but I saw it more as an attempt to bring in female readers as opposed to anything political. As I do not read it I cannot judge it myself but it does seem from the blogs that comic fans are receiving this favorably. Some conservative see it differently, both disliking the comic and turning it into a political argument. An article on the comic at Breitbart has the title, Female Thor Is What Happens When Progressive Hand-Wringing And Misandry Ruin A Cherished Art-Form.Vox Populi says it is “exactly the same thing as a communist government taking over a capitalist society.”
BBC America has released a set of teasers for the upcoming season of Orphan Black, which returns on April 18.
Many people were predicting that Constantine would never make it to a second season after the decision to limit it to the first thirteen episodes this season. Now there are rumors that NBC might keep it alive, except move it to the Syfy network and renaming it Hellblazer. This would help with the goal of increasing the number of origianl shows on Syfy, and ratings expectations would be far lower. It is expected that if it does move to Syfy, it would also be able to concentrate more on the horror elements as opposed to trying to be a network procedural.
How To Get Away With Murder is really getting wild as it approaches its season finale. Despite all the flash backs earlier in the season regarding the attempts to burn Sam’s body, they now appear to be in serious danger of getting caught due to portions of his body being found. Didn’t any of them watch the first season of Breaking Bad? Knowing that the show will be coming back for a second season has major implications for any speculation as to how the season will end. Any of the students could conceivably get arrested but Annalise will have to continue with the show. Either she gets off, the mystery is dragged into next season, or perhaps they do a variation on the second season of Broadchurch in which she is arrested and next season deals with her trial. That would also spare them from having to either come up with a new season-long mystery or settle for case of the week episodes.
The Blacklist shows how great acting can save what otherwise would probably be a weak show. Repeatedly we get hope of really learning something and it turns out to be very little. We saw Elizabeth’s memories from the night of the fire, and then were told her memories might have been tampered with and are not accurate. There was more talk about the Fulcrum and it was ultimately found in Elizabeth’s bunny, but it is really just a McGuffin. I just could not imagine watching this show without James Spader.
The Americans remains the best drama which continues a story from season to season on television. (I used this awkward description to exclude Fargo and True Detective, two shows which some critics ranked above The Americans last season.) Personally I didn’t find packing Annelise into the suitcase all that cringe-worthy, but Elizabeth’s tooth-extractions were a different matter. Executive producers Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg discussed the creation of the scene in the video above, from Slate.
Frank Langella is also an excellent addition to the cast as their former and current handler Gabriel. Among the many history lessons from the series, the episode also showed today’s kids how television stations did not stay on around the clock, signing off for the night by playing The National Anthem and then running a test signal. I haven’t bothered to watch, but I hear that the NBC rip-off, Allegiance, is doing terribly in both reviews and ratings and is not expected to last very long.
A television version of The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling airs tonight on BBC One. The Guardian has a review.
The Guardian reports that the creators of The IT Crowd are working on a sitcom set in space for Channel 4. Shows from Channel 4 have sometimes been made available in the United States over Hulu.
The mention of Maureen Dowd in the tweet is presumably due to her interest in UFO’s, expressed in a column from 1997.
This is not the first time Podesta has raised this question the question of whether UFO’s are out there. This exchange was from 2002. Podesta said, “It’s time to find out what the truth really is that’s out there. We ought to do it, really, because it’s right. We ought to do it, quite frankly, because the American people can handle the truth. And we ought to do it because it’s the law.”
Karen Tumulty had once asked Podesta about reports that the Clinton Library was inundated with Freedom of Information Act requests for email with with subject lines like “X-Files” and “Area 51.” Podesta’s response was the tag-line to The X-Files, “The truth is out there.” Podesta also wrote an introduction to the 2010 book UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record.
The news reports do not answer the real questions I had when reading. Does Podesta claim to have inside information which he knows is being kept secret, or is he just like many others who suspect the government knows more than it is telling but has no evidence? Is he basing this on real inside information or episodes of The X-Files?
This also raises the question of whether the government is keeping other things from us. For example, do they know more about the Kennedy assassination than has been made public? Do they know whether Tony Soprano lived and how Game of Thrones will end? With Podesta giving reason to speculate but zero information, this sure could set off conspiracy theorists, who don’t need actual facts to back up their views.
“CNN is developing a game show to be hosted by Anderson Cooper. It will be just like the other CNN shows except the contestants will make wild guesses instead of the news anchors.” –Seth Meyers
Ken Ham believes that “Darwin Was Wrong Day” has been a big hit. It is not clear that it was a hit beyond thinking it is good that he is being mocked considerably on Twitter today. Declaring a day to claim a falsehood hardly makes it true, even if a number of right wing science-deniers were to back the day.
I imagine that next we will start seeing a whole new set of holidays from the anti-science/anti-fact right. These might include “Climate Change Is A Hoax Day,” “Cigarettes Do Not Cause Cancer Day,” “Ebola Can Become Airborne Day,” “Tax Cuts Pay For Themselves Day,” “Saddam Had WMD And Helped Osama bin Laden Day,” “Vaccines Cause Autism Day,” “Ban Abortion Because A Twenty-Week Fetus Can Feel Pain Day,” and “The Earth Is Flat Day.” In Texas, Rick Perry will proclaim “Texans Don’t Want Insurance Day.”
There is one group which might help Ken Ham celebrate “Darwin Was Wrong Day.” Denial of evolution is popular among the current group of potential Republican nominees, with Scott Walker being the latest Republican to look foolish on evolution. Salon looked at the views of all the candidates after summarizing the overall anti-scientific mood of the Republican candidates:
From climate change to vaccines to the theory of evolution, much of the Republican Party has made clear that it’s not exactly enamored of modern science. This anti-intellectualism can take a few forms: Republicans may flatly reject empirical evidence. They may accept parts or all of the evidence, but with major caveats — the climate is warming, but humans aren’t causing it; vaccines work, but parents should have the right to opt their children out of them; evolution occurred, but it should be taught alongside creationism in public schools. Or, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, they take the “I’m not a scientist” tack, and simply decline to state their views.
Asked during a trade mission to London today whether he accepts evolution, Walker replied, “I’m going to punt on that one… That’s a question a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or another.” The Boston Globe’s Matt Viser quipped that following Chris Christie’s disastrous trip across the pond, during which the New Jersey governor said that “parents need to have some measure of choice” in whether to vaccinate their children, Walker seemed to have learned that the best approach is to stay mum on such topics.
But Walker’s refusal to indicate whether he accepts a fundamental tenet of biology underscores the GOP’s tortured relationship with science, not least on evolution. With Walker and other GOP hopefuls gearing up to launch their 2016 campaigns, Salon now provides you with a comprehensive guide to where the Republican candidates stand on the origin of life.
Check out the full article for the break-down by candidate. While there is a range in how much each candidate is on the record denying science, not a single one of the potential Republican candidates is willing to say they accept the science regarding in evolution without qualifications.
Since Jeb Bush began unofficially running for the Republican nomination he has had a couple problems with technology. These are primarily presented as examples of how politicians must be careful, not necessarily criticism of Jeb Bush personally. First there was the problem of old tweets from a campaign aide, such as calling women sluts. The solution was fairly simple, deleting the old tweets and apologizing:
Ethan Czahor’s tweets began disappearing today after news broke that he had been hired by Jeb Bush. A spokesperson for Bush told BuzzFeed News: “Governor Bush believes the comments were inappropriate. They have been deleted at our request. Ethan is a great talent in the tech world and we are very excited to have him on board the Right to Rise PAC.” Czahor also apologized in a tweet on Monday.
Nothing totally disappears from the internet, but old tweets from a campaign aide are not likely to cause any significant problems for Bush, as stories of his own earlier actions might, unless a trend develops. It does serve as a reminder that anything posted on social media can come back to haunt the writer when seeking a job, although in this case it did not prevent the Bush campaign from hiring Czahor.
This was quickly followed by another problem when Bush wanted to give the appearance of transparency by releasing hundreds of thousands of emails sent to him when he was governor of Florida. This was largely show as the press already had copies of the email. Bush ran into a problem when it was reported that the released emails also contain email addresses and Social Security numbers of constituents.
It was certainly a mistake to dump such information but I also suspect that these are problems which any campaign might have faced. In the lists of Bush family errors, this hardly ranks with invading the wrong country following a terrorist attack. The Wall Street Journal reports that, “he is leaning toward his father’s more pragmatic and restrained philosophy” compared to the philosophy of his brother. Of course George W. Bush also spoke out against nation-building as a candidate.
There is no news as to what Stewart plans to do next. Considering he plans to be free prior to the first primaries, maybe Stewart plans a last minute challenge to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Or perhaps he will replace Brian Williams at NBC News. It is only fair that Williams be punished for lying about Iraq, but I’m still waiting for Bush and Cheney to receive their punishment.
