computer parts posted:

It's funny though because there's a lot of hysteria about drones that was redirected* as "scary new military tech"* rather than "US military killing people".

*Assuming that wasn't the feeling from the start.

quote:

The man who said he was paid $2,000 to falsely accuse Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) of a vote-buying scheme to get African-Americans to vote for him in the runoff election of the Mississippi race for U.S. Senate is now saying state Sen. Chris McDaniel's (R) spokesman, Noel Fritsch, was the one who paid him to do the interview, according to the Clarion-Ledger and WJTV.

quote:

Last Wednesday Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood (D) said his office was investigating whether Johnson himself paid Fielder to point the finger at Cochran. At the time Hood said he did not know who paid Fielder. On Monday evening Hood spokeswoman Jan Schaefer confirmed to the newspaper that Fielder said it was Fritsch who paid him.

Fritsch denied Fielder's accusation in an email to TPM and, instead, pointed the blame at Johnson and Saleem Baired, who has served as the Cochran campaign's minority outreach director.

quote:

"Charles Johnson paid for the texts & emails Cochran/Wicker staffer Saleem Baird sent that prove Cochran bought Democrat votes," Fritsch wrote in the email. He did not respond to additional questions from TPM.

The claims from the people involved in the vote-buying report keep changing. Johnson has said that he paid Fielder for the interview but hasn't said how much. Fielder, also, previously claimed that he was paid by the Cochran campaign to get African-Americans to vote for Cochran. He later changed his story and said he was only describing a hypothetical situation.

Johnson, in a tweet on Wednesday, said he found it a "touch ridiculous" that after he admitted to paying Fielder the "media lies."

Radbot posted:

These rulings about religious belief essentially only cover Christians and vaginas, right? I'm sure I wouldn't be able to deny service to anyone who believed in a God at my Atheist Bakery.

A Winner is Jew posted:

The founder(?) has gone on record saying that they basically follow the tenants of Rand. Now this might be to troll people like Ryan and Paul but IIRC that comment was made before there were Randoid politicians so yeah.

Samurai Sanders posted:

Sometimes I think 90% of religion in America is about vaginas in one way or another.

Fried Chicken posted:

There is a good case to be made that the split between democrat/republican is all tied up in views on sex and what is acceptable. Which is how you get millennials who talk the GOP agenda points and identify as Dems and vote straight ticket Democrat. There was some polling back in the Clinton years where they polled on sexual opinions and practices along with political leanings (because of the Lewinsky scandal) and found a huge correlation. The rise of the internet has thrown even more behind that (eg one of the linking triggers was "viewed "pornography", with the internet everyone has seen porn these days)

Samurai Sanders posted:

Sometimes I think 90% of religion in America is about vaginas in one way or another.

Samurai Sanders posted:

Sometimes I think 90% of religion in America is about vaginas in one way or another.

quote:

GOP lawmakers are planning to attack the National Labor Relations Board if they take back the Senate this fall.

With majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans say they would push back against NLRB rules that have made it easier for unions to speed up their elections and organize multiple departments within a single company, among other things.

Republicans are making their stance clear in advance of the midterm elections, hoping it will help draw out the GOP base.

And Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), the top Republican on the Senate Labor Committee, is using the issue as part of his campaign theme ahead of his Thursday primary.

“The Tennesseans I talk with are tired of Washington bureaucrats telling them how to live their lives and run their businesses,” Alexander said. “The NLRB is pursuing some of the most intrusive and misguided policies under this administration.”

When Congress returns from recess, Alexander said he plans to introduce a bill that would overhaul the NLRB and “make it more of an umpire than an advocate.”

Even with a Senate majority, Republicans are unlikely to be able to move major legislation through a narrowly divided Senate.

But they may not need to pass legislation in order to tinker with the NLRB, according to Michael Lotito, an employment and labor attorney and co-chairman of the conservative Workplace Policy Institute.

Lotito says Republicans could also use the appropriations process to slow down the NLRB, even if President Obama tries to block their legislation.

“So you could have an appropriations rider that could prohibit the NLRB from attempting to implement its ambush election proposal,” Lotito explained.

Backers of the NLRB aren’t too worried about the GOP chest-thumping.

“Obviously, what the NLRB has to do is continue to do the business in front of it,” said Wilma Liebman, a former NLRB chairman who is a Democrat. “The board is no stranger to controversy or political opposition, so they know how to deal with it.”

Lawrence Mishel, president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, said he would expect Senate Republicans to “harass” the NLRB much in the same way that House Republicans do now, if the party gains control of the Senate in November.

He also suggested it will be difficult for Obama to win confirmation of new board members if the Senate goes Republican. [Edit: No poo poo]

“I think what they really want to do is shut down the inner workings of the NLRB and keep them from making rulings and doing their job,” Mishel said.

Democratic board member Nancy J. Schiffer’s term expires in mid-December, and a GOP-controlled Senate would likely block any replacement Obama nominates, giving Republicans on the labor board more sway to influence decisions made after her term expires.

Schiffer’s exit would leave the board with two Republican appointees and two Democratic appointees.

The board is in the process of reissuing hundreds of decisions invalidated by a Supreme Court ruling. The Supreme Court ruled that Obama did not have the power to make recess appointments to the NLRB, meaning decisions issued by the board that included the recess appointees were also invalidated.

Senate Democrats later changed the upper chamber’s filibuster rules, and new members of the NLRB were confirmed.

If Republicans have a Senate majority in January, the NLRB’s current members would only have between now and the end of the year to review those cases, said Marshall Babson, a former Democrat board member of the NLRB.

Republicans hope to turn back several NLRB rules if they win the majority.

One example is a rule, which must still be finalized, that speeds up union elections to occur as little as 10 days after a petition is filed. Business groups call it the “ambush election” rule and say it would give employers too little time to discuss the decision to unionize with their workers.

The NLRB’s Democrats say the rule is aimed at preventing companies from intimidating employees against joining a union.

It is one of the NLRB’s most controversial rules and one of the first things Republicans say they would look to strike down if they gain control of the Senate.

“I think there’s a lot of interest in pushing back on these things,” said a Republican aide on the Senate Labor Committee. “If they finalize the ambush election rule, there would be pushback here in the Senate on that.”

Republicans and business groups have also expressed disappointment with recent NLRB decisions to allow employees to organize multiple “micro-unions” within a single company.

Just last month, the NLRB ruled a group of cosmetics and fragrance workers at a Macy’s store in Massachusetts could organize, even without the consent of the rest of the store’s employees.

This would create the potential for employees to negotiate with multiple collective bargaining units represented by different unions, labor experts say.

Republicans have called it labor’s version of “gerrymandering,” because it allows unions to pick the employees who are most likely to say yes and ignore the others.

The NLRB laid the groundwork for such decisions in a 2011 case known as Specialty Healthcare, in which the NLRB ruled that a group of nurse assistants could form their own union without including other employees at the company.

“We would want to look at legislation to make sure bargaining units are appropriately sized in response to the NLRB’s micro-union decision,” the Republican aide said.

Another issue Senate Republicans say they would look at is the NLRB’s new joint employer standard, which allows franchise employees to sue the corporate owners of a company in addition to their franchise bosses.

Republicans were critical of the NLRB’s decision last week to allow this at McDonald’s. They say franchises should be treated as independent companies.

“The joint employer standard is something the Senate would want to push back against as well,” the aide said.

Samurai Sanders posted:

Yeah, but even beyond that, it seems to be about what sex is acceptable for women, not just in general.

Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:

quote:

In the discussion that followed, audience members were particularly interested in discussing LGBT issues. One woman was so thankful — a little choked up about it, actually — for the film’s perspective on these matters because she really struggles with how many same-sex couples live in her Washington, DC neighborhood, such that she sometimes doesn’t even go outside on Saturdays. She apparently engages with them often, and someone once asked her why she couldn’t appreciate — as a woman with a physical disability — the same kind of stigma they experience for their identities. “I didn’t choose to have a disability,” she told them. “You have chosen the lifestyle.” Many nodded and hummed in agreement.

A Winner is Jew posted:

The founder(?) has gone on record saying that they basically follow the tenants of Rand. Now this might be to troll people like Ryan and Paul but IIRC that comment was made before there were Randoid politicians so yeah.

zoux posted:

I just realized that is supposed to be tyranny.

Here's a account from a thinkprogress reporter who was invited to screen the new movie made by Rick Santuorum's Hentai studio at the Heritage Foundation.

quote:

Because watching people just talk at the camera is a bit dull, the film’s visuals are supplemented with newspaper and blog headlines and more stock footage than I’ve ever seen in my life. The footage was mostly cityscapes and people looking American — there’s a city skyline, there’s every single recognizable Washington monument and memorial, there’s some woman buying corn at a farmer’s market, here are some people boating, there’s the NYC subway, etc. At least half the film’s visual content consists of this irrelevant stock footage shown under the interviews, and each clip only shows for a quick second, advancing to the next at a seizure-inducing pace. They used so much random stock footage that I noticed some of it repeating before the film was over.

A Winner is Jew posted:

The founder(?) has gone on record saying that they basically follow the tenants of Rand. Now this might be to troll people like Ryan and Paul but IIRC that comment was made before there were Randoid politicians so yeah.

zoux posted:

I just realized that is supposed to be tyranny.

Here's a account from a thinkprogress reporter who was invited to screen the new movie made by Rick Santuorum's Hentai studio at the Heritage Foundation.

SubponticatePoster posted:

I understand what the guy was going for, but trying to draw a parallel between a physical disability and being gay probably isn't the best analogy.

A loving Cardinal on Nov. 3, 2012 posted:

I am (correctly) quoted as saying that I expected to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.

zoux posted:

You see with Christians becoming even MORE AND MORE PERSECUTED EVERY DAY, in 40 years Catholic Cardinals will be routinely jailed for their beliefs by the Athiest New World Order and 40 years after that we will be putting Christians to death in public squares.

zoux posted:

You see with Christians becoming even MORE AND MORE PERSECUTED EVERY DAY, in 40 years Catholic Cardinals will be routinely jailed for their beliefs by the Athiest New World Order and 40 years after that we will be putting Christians to death in public squares.

SedanChair posted:

Get into the persecution narrative bro! Obviously the liberals who want women to have health care will team up with ISIS and massacre all bishops.

e: b

Badera posted:

I mean, if loving only, but here in reality, I fail to see how anyone could think this was anything other than the frothing lunacy that it is.

zoux posted:

Here's a account from a thinkprogress reporter who was invited to screen the new movie made by Rick Santuorum's Hentai studio at the Heritage Foundation.

quote:

[Santorum] even said at one point that he’d wished conservatives had lost the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case if only because it would have forced them to redouble their efforts more passionately. According to Santorum, anything that might fire up local pastors and ministers to speak out more would help advance their “religious liberty” effort and bring the church back to the center of culture where he believes it belongs. “The sooner the fight,” Santorum concluded, “the better.”

Badera posted:

From that Santorum article:


http://www.catholicnewworld.com/cnwonline/2012/1021/cardinal.aspx

I mean...just...what?

zoux posted:

You see with Christians becoming even MORE AND MORE PERSECUTED EVERY DAY, in 40 years Catholic Cardinals will be routinely jailed for their beliefs by the Athiest New World Order and 40 years after that we will be putting Christians to death in public squares.

Badera posted:

From that Santorum article:


http://www.catholicnewworld.com/cnwonline/2012/1021/cardinal.aspx

I mean...just...what?

Relentless posted:

Well, if they would stop loving kids we would stop persecuting them. He's going to die in bed because of the coverups, his successor will be jailed when they can't hide paperwork behind religious exemption anymore and his successor will die in the streets because WHAT PART OF STOP loving KIDS DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND.

VitalSigns posted:

No you missed the best part:


Just shows how much Rick Santorum really cares about Christians' religious freedom or about precious unborn babies for that matter. Rooting for more "persecution" of Christians, and wishing the court would rule against them because more "murdered" zygotes means more money and influence for him.

Caros posted:

Well that isn't really all that surprising considering they are the Church of Satan after all.

From what I read a while back they actually don't follow Rand's beliefs, which are nonsensical psuedo-philisophical bullshit, but rather the core tenant which is that you are the most important person in the world. Selfishness is a virtue, other people only exist insofar as what they can do for you etc.

The sad thing is that I would still take a large group of those types over a lot of the christian right. You know what to expect from them, and they aren't out to be actively malicious against you or other people unless it gives them tangible, material benefits. None of this 'crush abortion because think of the babies' bullshit from them.

quote:

“I wanted to tell a love story that takes the idea of Godly romance seriously,” said Rik Swartzwelder, writer-director and lead actor. “A story that, without apology, explores the possibility of a higher standard in relationships; yet, is also fully aware of just how fragile we all are and doesn’t seek to heap guilt upon those of us that have made mistakes.”

Swartzwelder plays a former frat boy and Elizabeth Ann Roberts will portray a free-spirited woman. The tagline is “Chivalry makes a comeback.”