August 12, 2012

history trivia? Has the GOP ever nominated a non-Protestant for President or Vice President until

now?

It has been pointed out by someone that this is the first time the Republicans ever ran without a Protestant on the ticket. But I'm thinking that this is the first time any non-Protestant has been nominated by the GOP for either office. Unless someone can point to another case that I'm not aware of. Not that it matters that much..

August 11, 2012

Ryan to be named Romney's running mate

Source: USA Today

NORFOLK, Va. – Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan will be named Mitt Romney's running mate on Saturday, ending weeks of speculation about the No. 2 slot on the GOP ticket.

The Associated Press and several TV networks confirmed the news.

Ryan, 42, is best known as the chairman of the House Budget Committee and author of a dramatic plan to overhaul Medicare, the government-run health insurance program for senior citizens.

Romney is set to reveal his running mate here at a museum next to the U.S.S. Wisconsin, a retired battleship, before setting out on a bus tour of key swing states to highlight his economic plans for the middle class.




Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-08-11/romney-paul-ryan-running-mate/56959466/1?csp=34news

August 11, 2012

Paul Ryan is currently leading on Intrade as Romney's VP choice

Now granted Intrade is only of value at the moment and reflects trends that can change on a dime and at any second...but currently
Intrade is rating Ryan at 29.8%, Portman at 25.9%, Pawlenty at 16.8% Rubio at 9.3%, Thune at 4% -

http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/contractSearch/

August 10, 2012

Scott Brown outraged at prospect of poor people voting

Helping welfare recipients register to vote is the new committing voter fraud, apparently

By Alex Pareene for salon.com

Sen. Scott Brown — Massachusetts moderate — has just released one of the most brazen anti-franchise statements I’ve seen from a prominent Republican this year. Apparently the daughter of his challenger, Elizabeth Warren, is the chairwoman of one of a few voting rights groups contracted by the state of Massachuetts to send voter registration forms to people who weren’t offered the chance to register when they applied to receive welfare benefits. That was a violation of federal law, and Massachusetts is sending these people registration forms as part of a legal settlement. And this makes Scott Brown really mad, because if you help welfare recipients vote, they’ll vote against Scott Brown, probably.

I want every legal vote to count, but it’s outrageous to use taxpayer dollars to register welfare recipients as part of a special effort to boost one political party over another. This effort to sign up welfare recipients is being aided by Elizabeth Warren’s daughter and it’s clearly designed to benefit her mother’s political campaign. It means that I’m going to have to work that much harder to get out my pro-jobs, pro-free enterprise message.

It’s actually a “special effort” to comport with federal law, as I said, but the fact that helping legally qualified citizens register to vote is now considered improper is startling. Or at least that a non-insane Republican said as much out loud is startling. This goes beyond phony accusations of voter fraud: Brown is outraged that his opponent’s daughter is working for an organization making it easier for people to legally vote. Because they’re poor.

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/09/scott_brown_outraged_at_prospect_of_poor_people_voting/

August 9, 2012

Romney meets with Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, who has said Islam "should not be protected under the First

Amendment"

Jerry Boykin: Romney’s new Muslim-bashing pal

By Alex Seitz-Wald for salon.com



Lieutenant General William G. Boykin (Credit: U.S. Army)

He may be too extreme for West Point and George W. Bush, but apparently not for Mitt Romney. Politico reports today that the Republican presidential nominee met with retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, who is now a highly controversial anti-Islam activist, in a private conclave with four other social conservative leaders in Denver last week. The day after the meeting reportedly took place, Romney dodged a question on Rep. Michele Bachmann’s witch hunt against Muslims in the U.S. government. “I’m not going to tell other people what things to talk about. Those are not things that are part of my campaign,” he said at a press availability about Bachmann’s allegations last Friday.

Boykin is best known for earning a public rebuke from President Bush himself in 2003 for his vitriolic anti-Islamic rhetoric. Boykin, in uniform at the time, gave a speech portraying the war against Islamist militants as a Christian struggle against Satan, and suggested that Muslims worship an ”idol” and not ”a real God.” Some Republican lawmakers spoke out against him, as well as the president, who said, Boykin’s opinions “didn’t reflect” his or the government’s views. A year later, a Department of Defense investigation determined that Boykin had violated three internal rules while delivering his controversial anti-Islamic speeches.

Since then, Boykin has taken up fighting the perceived threat of Shariah law full-time. As People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch blog notes, “his rhetoric is often bigoted, and he regularly traffics in wild-eyed conspiracy theories — like the one about Obama creating a Hitler-style militia to force Marxism on the American people.” In 2010, he joined with Frank Gaffney, a key anti-Islamic activist, to lead an effort to produce a massive report on the threat of Sharia law.

Boykin’s rhetoric goes beyond the careful position most activists tend to stake out — condemn Islamists, but praise “peaceful, pro-America” Muslims. Boykin, on the other hand, goes right after the religion itself, saying Islam “should not be protected under the First Amendment.” He’s declared that there should be “no mosques in America” because “a mosque is an embassy for Islam and they recognize only a global caliphate.”

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/08/jerry_boykin_romneys_anti_muslim_general/

August 8, 2012

Philippine floods: Nineteen dead as rain continues

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/photos/monsoons-pummel-phili

Heavy rains pounded the Philippines capital on Aug. 8, prompting a new danger alert as emergency workers rushed food, water and clothes to almost one million people through streets turned into rivers after 11 straight days of monsoon downpour.



http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/CuGZsY9Xbo6WPKcsOY0klA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD00MTI7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/monsoons-pummel-philippines-slideshow/residents-wade-floodwaters-return-submerged-houses-marikina-city-photo-063738957.html?_esi=1

Residents wade through floodwaters to return to their submerged houses in Marikina City Metro Manila August 8, 2012. Emergency workers and troops rushed food, water and clothes to nearly 850,000 people displaced and marooned from deadly floods spawned by 11 straight days of southwest monsoon rains that soaked the Philippine capital and nearby provinces. About 60 percent of Manila, a sprawling metropolis of about 12 million people, remained inundated on Wednesday, Benito Ramos, head of the national disaster agency, told Reuters. REUTERS/Cheryl Ravelo (PHILIPPINES)

BBC: Philippine floods: Nineteen dead as rain continues

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19174538

At least 19 people have died in severe floods in the Philippine capital, Manila, and nearby areas.

More than 80,000 people are being looked after in emergency shelters, with torrential rain leaving low-lying areas underwater.

Rescuers are using rubber boats to reach stranded people, but some have refused to leave amid fears of looting.

The flooding - neck-deep in some parts of the city - forced the closure of offices and schools.



Read more: Reuters/BBC

August 8, 2012

Veep Beat: Paul Ryan’s Rising Momentum

RYAN RISING: There has been a surge in mentions about Rep. Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s potential running mate in recent days, and, as National Review Online’s Robert Costa writes, the chatter about a Romney-Ryan ticket could just be true. “These days, you hear it everywhere – from Republican donors and veteran operatives, and at Capitol Hill watering holes. A few weeks ago, it was a wishful rumor floating in the Beltway ether. Now, sources close to the Romney campaign say it’s for real, that the taciturn former Massachusetts governor is quietly warming to the idea.


PARTY INSIDERS SPLIT ON RYAN: The prospect of Rep. Paul Ryan joining the GOP ticket excites one side of the Republican Party wishing Romney would be more forthcoming with the policy change he’d bring to Washington while at the same time, spurs hesitancy among others who are concerned Democrats would slash away at a Romney-Ryan ticket based on the Wisconsin representative’s budget plan, Politico’s Jonathan Martin, Jake Sherman and Maggie Haberman reprort. “As Mitt Romney’s vice presidential selection nears and buzz about Rep. Paul Ryan’s prospects builds, a split is emerging among Republicans about whether the choice of the House Budget chairman and architect of the party’s controversial tax and spending plan would be a daring plus for the ticket or a miscalculation that would turn a close election into a referendum on Medicare,” Martin, Sherman and Haberman wrote. “Ryan advocates, including some of his colleagues and high-profile conservative elites, believe Romney will lose if he doesn’t make a more assertive case for his candidacy and that selecting the 42-year-old wonky golden boy would sound a clarion call to the electorate about the sort of reforms the presumptive GOP nominee wants to bring to Washington. Call them the ‘go bold’ crowd. Their opposites, pragmatic-minded Republican strategists and elected officials, believe that to select Ryan is to hand President Barack Obama’s campaign a twin-edged blade, letting the incumbent slash Romney on the Wisconsin congressman’s Medicare proposal and carve in the challenger a scarlet ‘C’ for the unpopular Congress. This is the cautious corner. Romney and his high command have kept a close hold on the vice presidential selection process, but sources familiar with the candidate’s thinking say Ryan remains under consideration. The two men, both consumers of weighty tomes and papers, have bonded over policy and developed an easy professional rapport this year. Ryan told colleagues in Washington last week, before the House escaped for a month-long recess, that he hadn’t spoken with top Romney aides in about a month though he had submitted paperwork for vice presidential vetting, according to a source close to the Budget chair.”

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/veep-beat-paul-ryans-rising-momentum/

August 6, 2012

Sikhs in metro Detroit fear misdirected hate is behind Wisconsin temple attack

News that a gunman killed at least six people Sunday inside a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee stirred fears in the metro Detroit Sikh community that the religion once again may have been targeted with a misdirected hate crime.

"They think we are Muslims," said Amrinder Singh, who was praying Sunday at the Sikh Society of Michigan in Madison Heights when news spread about the attack on an Oak Creek, Wis., temple.

Observant Sikh men can be confused with Muslims because they wear full beards and turbans.

Earlier this year, anti-Muslim graffiti was sprayed on a new temple in Sterling Heights that the Madison Heights group is building, Singh said. The graffiti included a cross, a pistol and several misspelled words, including "Don't Builed" and "Mohmed."

http://www.freep.com/article/20120806/NEWS05/308060135/Sikhs-in-metro-Detroit-fear-misdirected-hate-is-behind-Wisconsin-temple-attack

August 5, 2012

live online stream of shooting incident still going on at Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconson

http://livewire.wisn.com/Event/Oak_Creek_Temple_Shooting

August 4, 2012

Grandson of President Truman lays wreath for Hiroshima dead

Clifton Truman Daniel, left, is greeted by Japanese peace activist Masahiro Sasaki at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park Photograph: AP

A grandson of former US president Harry Truman – the man who ordered the atomic bombings of Japan during the second world war – is in Hiroshima to attend a memorial service for the victims.

Daniel said in a statement that he decided to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki because he needed to know the consequences of his grandfather's decision as part of his own efforts to help achieve a nuclear-free world.

He said he hoped to hear stories from survivors about how they overcame their adversity.

Susumu Miura, a 78-year-old Hiroshima native, wrote in the newspaper Tokyo Shimbun that he was enraged when he learned that many Americans still support the decision to drop the atomic bombs.

"But when I heard on the news that former President Truman's grandson is visiting Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I felt as if I lost some weight from my chest," Miura wrote in an op-ed article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/04/truman-grandson-hiroshima-memorial-wreath?newsfeed=true