The Onion: Indiana Governor Insists Religious Freedom Law Has Nothing to do With Thing it Explicitly Intended to do

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat Plus

If I’m a governor of a state like Indiana, is passing laws to cut back on tourism and economic revenue really something that I would be interested in doing? Forget about me, because you could use anyone as an example for this. I mean what does Indiana have outside of Indianapolis, the Indianapolis 500 and a good NFL team and a good NBA team. Unless you love college basketball and auto racing why would you go to Indiana? To see how long to takes to get mugged, beaten, raped or murdered in Gary. Maybe go to a Notre Dame football game. But you’re a fan of Notre Dame like part of the alumni, you hate Notre Dame! And Notre Dame only plays six home games every year.

I don’t say these things to put Indiana down. But they do have a lot Christian fundamentalists who are stuck in the 1800s and actually still believe it is the 1800s. Because they don’t believe in calendars or anything. And that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote, let alone work. And that gays are terrorists and not just people who are attracted to their gender instead of the opposite sex. And that pre-marital sex should be not just be a crime, but punishable by death. Except for these small factors, I’m sure Indiana is a great place to live. Unless you’re gay, or practice a non-Christian religion, perhaps come from another country, or even state.

You would think any state house worth its salt would have an office or at least someone in charge of gauging the economic impact of laws that the legislature passes and the Governor signs. That seems like commonsense anyway and Indiana does have very good schools there. Like Notre Dame and Indiana. So you would think there would be somewhere there to tell Governor Mike Pence, “look Governor, if you sign this law, we may see boycotts of our fair state. And as a result lose some serious tax revenue. Because business’s and other states who don’t look down at homosexuality, marriage or otherwise won’t want to be associated with a state that they see as discriminatory.”

And maybe Governor Pence had that person like a state economist and perhaps economics professors at one of their fine schools tell him those things. And Governor Pence said, “you know what, homosexuality is a sin! That must be wiped out! As Michelle Bachmann said it is a threat to our national security and that includes Indiana. We don’t want dem folk here and we are going to wipe them out. Which is more important than whether business’s and other states want to do business in our state.” No, I’m not saying that Governor Pence actually said that. Well used those words exactly, but he does represent a lot of people who feel that way. And comes from that wing of the Republican Party.

Read Full Post »

ABC News: Good Morning America: Representative Michele Bachmann Won’t Run For Re-Election

Source:ABC News– U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann (Republican, Minnesota) announcing that she’s not running for reelection to the U.S. House, so she can go back home and get the help that she deserves. Actually, I don’t know what she’s saying here.

Source:FRS FreeState

“One of the founding members of the Tea Party Caucus announces she will retire from congress. For more on this story, click here:ABC News.”

From ABC News

I know we are supposed to have a citizen Congress with citizen Representatives and Senators who are supposed to represent the people. And as the great political satirist George Carlin once said, our politicians come from us and represent us. They come from our communities, go to our schools and so-forth, live in our communities. So we can’t really complain about the politicians that we have. Especially the House district that Representative Michele Bachmann represents.

I mean here’s a community that first elected Michele to the U.S. House and then reelected her three times. And had a better choice in at least two of those elections 2010 and 2012. I’m not familiar with her first two opponents, so the people who Michele Bachmann is supposed to represent can’t really complain about. Who represents them unless they didn’t vote for her and they would’ve perhaps moved to another House district in Minnesota. Where mental patients and escaped mental patients would be ineligible to run or serve in Congress, but they didn’t do that. But if George Carlin is right and our politicians are us, then America has a lot of problems.

The good news is that Michele Bachmann is leaving the House of Representatives and Congress. And they’ll have one less (let’s say) oddball among them, an eccentric member. And the House Intelligence Committee should actually receive more intelligence in the next Congress with Representative Bachmann no longer among them. Unless Michele is replaced by someone less qualified, which would be a real scary thought. And we’ll have at least one less person claiming that same-sex marriage is a threat to national security. And actually believing in what they are saying in Representative Bachmann’s case.

Michele who says big government is a threat to our freedom, but then proposes a constitutional amendment that would outlaw pornography. And give Uncle Sam the ability to control what Americans can do in their homes and personal lives. So there will be one less contradictory member of Congress and one less hypocrite. These are all good things and I’m not complaining.

But as a blogger who sometimes writes satire, this is bad news and its bad news for comedians because a lot of our material comes from statements that Michele Bachmann makes. So hopefully she’ll find a way to stay in the public eye. Perhaps as a verbal punching bag.

Michele Bachmann’s long journey of her long hard-fought presidential campaign of 2011, all four months of it ended. Her presidential campaign was run so badly that she ran for President in 2011 even though the presidential election was in 2012. She ran for President during the wrong year and then ended her campaign in December, 2011 after losing her birth state the Iowa Caucus in 2011. She considered running for U.S. Senate in 2012.

At least Michele would’ve run for Senate in a year where there was a Senate election. Against Senator Amy Klobuchar, which would’ve been Democrats best shot of knocking Michele out of Congress completely. Because she would’ve lost to Senator Klobuchar. But instead Michele had decided to do her constituents and state a favor and not run for reelection. And give Minnesota time to recover for her time in office.

Read Full Post »

The Criterion Collection: Chris Hegedus & D. A. Pennebaker- The War Room (1993) Documentary

Source:Roger Ebert– the cover of The War Room film.

Source:The Daily Press

“The 1992 presidential election was a triumph not only for Bill Clinton but also for the new breed of strategists who guided him to the White House—and changed the face of politics in the process. For this thrilling, behind-closed-doors account of that campaign, renowned cinema verité filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker captured the brainstorming and bull sessions of Clinton’s crack team of consultants—especially James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, who became media stars in their own right as they injected a savvy, youthful spirit and spontaneity into the process of campaigning. Fleet-footed and entertaining, The War Room is a vivid document of a political moment whose truths (“It’s the economy, stupid!”) still ring in our ears.”

From The Criterion Collection

“The 1992 presidential election was a triumph not only for Bill Clinton but also for the new breed of strategists who guided him to the White House—and changed the face of politics in the process. For this thrilling, behind-closed-doors account of that campaign, renowned cinema verité filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker captured the brainstorming and bull sessions of Clinton’s crack team of consultants—especially James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, who became media stars in their own right as they injected a savvy, youthful spirit and spontaneity into the process of campaigning. Fleet-footed and entertaining, The War Room is a vivid document of a political moment whose truths (“It’s the economy, stupid!”) still ring in our ears.”

Source:Pennebaker Hegedus– James Carville was Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign manager.

From Pennebaker Hegedus

In 1991-92 I guess was the time that I started getting into politics to the point that I was actually following the news about it. I was 16 and a sophomore in high school and I saw a speech I believe on C-SPAN. I became a political junky pretty early in life and I was actually watching C-SPAN and saw a speech from then Governor Bill Clinton from Arkansas and he was talking about how we could make college more affordable in America, an issue we are still talking about twenty-years later.

And Governor Clinton was talking about an idea called AMERI-CORE, where people would get tax credits, or be able to go to college at no financial cost to them, if they serve their country. They work in community service, join the military, become a teacher, work in law enforcement, become a doctor etc. In other words, be able to go to college if they give back and serve their country. And this program that was enacted shortly after he became President in 1993 and he was able to inspire thousands if not millions of Americans to volunteer for their country and in return would be able to go to college. And when I heard this speech, it gave me the sense that Bill Clinton was a winner, a Democrat who could actually get elected President of the United States.

Listening to Bill Clinton’s speech and following his presidential campaign, gave me the idea that Bill Clinton was a different Democrat. Someone whose called a New Democrat, someone who doesn’t just believe in growing the Federal Government and raising new taxes to pay for it and by doing this, that would automatically solve whatever problem the program was intended to solve. But that you had to make the Federal Government work and be able to reform or eliminate things in the Federal Government that wasn’t working.

That Clinton’s presidential campaign was about the people not government. How do you make government work for the people, so it empowers the people who need to be empowered. Not growing government to take care of people but using it in a way so the people who need it can take care of themselves instead, which are two different concepts. Americans were looking for a change in 1992, that’s clear with a bad economy, lack of economic and gob growth.

Americans saw President Bush as out of touch and not up to the job of turning the country around and were looking for a change. But weren’t sure they were ready to turn it over to the Democrats. People who have been stereotyped as big government tax and spenders and weren’t interested in seeing new tax hikes, but wanted to go back to work and take care of themselves. And what they got from Bill Clinton was a new Democratic voice, someone who could talk about progressivism and communicate it in a way that made it about people and not government.

Bill Clinton had this saying that people who collected public assistance will no longer be able to get it for free in a Clinton Administration. That people on public assistance were going to be expected to use that time to prepare themselves to go to work and serve their communities.

Bill Clinton’s political hero is Jack Kennedy, same as mind along with Bill Clinton and a few other people. And of course one of President Kennedy’s famous lines is, ask not what government can do for you, but what you can do for your country. And I believe Bill Clinton took that to heart and made that a big part of his presidential campaign and a bigger part of his presidency and it worked very well.

Read Full Post »