With its affordable housing, thriving student population, emerging arts and hip-hop scene, and fast-growing job market, Pittsburgh is quickly becoming the newest hipster haven.
The Steel City is attracting and retaining these young creative types with its cool cultural scene and thriving economy.Coming to Starbucks the world over: Pierogies!
Rally to celebrate the Affordable Care Act and tell Corbett we demand a PA Healthcare ExchangeRSVP at link above or via MoveOn.
When: Today! June 29, 2012, Noon
Where: Piatt Place 301 5th Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222 (map)
What: The Affordable Care Act has been upheld by the Supreme Court, guaranteeing that millions of Americans will receive healthcare! As Attorney General, Tom Corbett filed a lawsuit against the ACA. We are going to rally to celebrate the SCOTUS decision and to remind Corbett that WE WON and that we demand he stops dragging his feet to create PA's healthcare exchange.
Roberts is the Severus Snape of the Supreme Court.
— Erin Gloria Ryan (@morninggloria) June 28, 2012
10:13
Tom:
The bottom line: the entire ACA is upheld, with the exception that the federal government's power to terminate states' Medicaid funds is narrowly read.
10:15
Tom: Chief Justice Roberts' vote saved the ACA.
10:18
Amy Howe:
The money quote from the section on the mandate: Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in Section 5000A under the taxing power, and that Section 5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. This is sufficient to sustain it.
10:20
Amy Howe:
The court reinforces that individuals can simply refuse to pay the tax and not comply with the mandate.
10:20
Amy Howe:
On the Medicaid issue, a majority of the Court holds that the Medicaid expansion is constitutional but that it w/b unconstitutional for the federal government to withhold Medicaid funds for non-compliance with the expansion provisions.
10:26
Lyle:
Justice Ginsburg makes clear that the vote is 5-4 on sustaining the mandate as a form of tax. Her opinion, for herself and Sotomayor, Breyer and Kagan, joins the key section of Roberts opinion on that point. She would go further and uphold the mandate under the Commerce Clause, which Roberts wouldn't. Her opinion on Commerce does not control.
Normally I shy away from apocalyptic readings of the American predicament. We're a big, messy country; we've been through a lot -- perhaps even more than we thought, what with Abraham Lincoln and the vampires. We'll probably muddle through this and be very worried about something else ten years from now. But when you look at the sequence from Bush v. Gore, through Citizens United, to what seems to be coming on the health-care front; and you combine it with ongoing efforts in Florida and elsewhere to prevent voting from presumably Democratic blocs; and add that to the simply unprecedented abuse of the filibuster in the years since the Democrats won control of the Senate and then took the White House, you have what we'd identify as a kind of long-term coup if we saw it happening anywhere else.**You can read the whole article here.
House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny) suggested that the House’s end game in passing the Voter ID law was to benefit the GOP politically.
“We are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we’ve talked about for years,” said Turzai in a speech to committee members Saturday. He mentioned the law among a laundry list of accomplishments made by the GOP-run legislature.
“Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation – abortion facility regulations – in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”I guess that means all those Voter ID laws passed around the same time by Republican-controlled states weren't about some mythical massive voter fraud -- they were about voter suppression of folks most likely to vote for a Democrat. Either that, or Turzai is saying the vast majority of voter fraud is done by Democrats -- you know, Republicans only need a fighting chance to win. It couldn't possibly be about their extremist policies or candidates...
Isn't lying on the House floor an ethics violation? If not it should be and should be cause for censure or expulsion. When Representatives and Senators willfully lie and fabricate arguments while passing legislation they should be expelled from office. It is a stain on all of us when the likes of Mike Turzai get up to speak in OUR hallowed hall and lie to us about what they're doing.
He also revealed they lied about Senate Bill 732 the ambulatory surgical center abortion bill. We've said all along this was back door legislation to outlaw abortion. His quote " First pro-life legislation - abortion facility regulations - in 22 years" reveals it for what it was: pro life, anti-abortion legislation. By making onerous regulations impossible or financially impossible to meet they are banning abortions in Pennsylvania for most women. Even if clinics could retrofit the cost would make abortions unaffordable for anyone but the wealthy.I guess it's a good thing that at least one Republican is finally being honest about their lies.
Romney has figured out a loophole – one can lie over and over, and those lies quickly become part of the political narrative, practically immune to "fact-checking". Ironically, the more Romney lies, the harder it then becomes to correct the record. Even if an enterprising reporter can knock down two or three falsehoods, there are still so many more that slip past.(h/t to Jonathan Capehart for the phrase "Land of Mitt-Believe")
By now declaring executive privilege, the administration is legally stipulating that there was direct White House involvement. And it has placed itself in Catch-22 jeopardy: It was more intimately involved in Fast and Furious than previously stated and it has been involved in nothing less than a cover-up to prevent that public disclosure.I wonder if they'll retract that now that Issa himself has stipulated that there's no evidence of any White House involvement and no cover up. From ThinkProgress, here's Issa's interview with Chris Wallace (of Fox "News" no less):
WALLACE: Do you have any evidence that White House officials were involved in these decisions, that they knowingly misled Congress, and are involved in a cover-up?And:
ISSA: No, we don’t.
WALLACE: I want to be clear, because we’ve got to get out, no evidence that the White House is involved in the cover up?So how long do you think it'll take Scaife's braintrust to admit that they (at the very least) misspoke.
ISSA: And I hope they don’t get involved.
Jerry Sandusky convicted on 45 of 48 counts. It should have come a lot sooner.
Monsignor William Lynn convicted of child endangerment -- becomes the first U.S. church official convicted of a crime for how he handled abuse claims.
Do you believe that the following statement is true or not true? "Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded in 2003."62.9% of Republicans said "true."
I have always believed President Obama was born in another country.55.6% of Republicans said yes. And it's actually 63% when you include the Republicans who said:
I used to think President Obama was born in the United States, but now I think he was born in another country.Even though he wasn't. They must've been uninformed about that, too.
In the grand scheme of things, a congressional committee’s vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents related to the failed and fatal Operation Fast and Furious gun-running scandal doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.And:
By now declaring executive privilege, the administration is legally stipulating that there was direct White House involvement. And it has placed itself in Catch-22 jeopardy: It was more intimately involved in Fast and Furious than previously stated and it has been involved in nothing less than a cover-up to prevent that public disclosure.By not stating all of the details, it's the Tribune-Review editorial board that's lying. Let's start with the second paragraph. Is the White House legally stipulating that there was "direct" involvement? In what? Fast and Furious?
Either the White House lied or the White House lied.
The [House Oversight] Committee has made clear that its contempt resolution will be limited to internal Department [of Justice] "documents from after February 4, 2011 related to the Department's response to Congress." Letter for Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General, from Darrell E. Issa, Chairman, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives at 1-2 (June 13, 2012) ("Chairman's Letter"). I am asking you to assert executive privilege over these documents. They were not generated in the course of the conduct of Fast and Furious. Instead, they were created after the investigative tactics at issue in that operation had terminated and in the course of the Department's deliberative process concerning how to respond to congressional and related media inquiries into that operation.Hmm. So the documents Issa's committee subpoenaed are not about Fast and Furious but about the internal administration discussions about it after the program was terminated.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), a libertarian hero, last year said that allowing Social Security to exist is akin to permitting slavery. But during an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe today, Paul admitted to the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein that he collects Social Security checks anywayRepresentative Paul, in that quoted link, goes so far as to assert that Social Security is unconstitutional. ThinkProgress gives a transcript of an interview with Chris Wallace:
WALLACE: You talk a lot about the Constitution. You say Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are all unconstitutional.Social Security is unconstitutional, says Representative Ron Paul - and yet he takes the money anyway.
PAUL: Technically, they are. … There’s no authority [in the Constitution]. Article I, Section 8 doesn’t say I can set up an insurance program for people. What part of the Constitution are you getting it from? The liberals are the ones who use this General Welfare Clause. … That is such an extreme liberal viewpoint that has been mistaught in our schools for so long and that’s what we have to reverse—that very notion that you’re presenting.
WALLACE: Congressman, it’s not just a liberal view. It was the decision of the Supreme Court in 1937 when they said that Social Security was constitutional under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
PAUL: And the Constitution and the courts said slavery was legal to, and we had to reverse that.
Divided along party lines, Allegheny County's election board voted this afternoon to file a lawsuit challenging the state's new Voter Identification law.The fact that Councilmember Heidelbaugh would vote against the measure is hardly surprising considering what's found on her election website:
Board chairman John DeFazio and county Executive Rich Fitzgerald, both Democrats, voted to sue, while Heather Heidelbaugh, the lone Republican on the three-member board, voted against the measure. Both Mr. DeFazio, of Shaler, and Ms. Heidelbaugh, of Mt. Lebanon, serve on the election board because they are at-large members of county council.
"We should be making it easier to vote," Mr. Fitzgerald said. "This legislation [the Voter ID law] is trying to deny that right and make it more difficult for people to vote."
Heather Heidelbaugh has been an advocate of smaller government, lower taxes and has stood up to those engaged in voter fraud around this Commonwealth.As much as I like Attorney Heidelbaugh, she's blurring the lines here. Her complaint against ACORN was about voter registration not voter fraud.
County solicitor Andrew Szefi said the lawsuit likely would be brought on behalf of both the election board and the county.
The heart of the county's argument would be that the state constitution sets just four requirements for voting eligibility: minimum age, U.S. citizenship, residence in Pennsylvania and a specific election district.
The new requirement that voters show photo identification before they can cast ballots should have been imposed via constitutional amendment, he said.
Every citizen 21 years of age, possessing the following qualifications, shall be entitled to vote at all elections subject, however, to such laws requiring and regulating the registration of electors as the General Assembly may enact. 1. He or she shall have been a citizen of the United States at least one month. 2. He or she shall have resided in the State ninety (90) days immediately preceding the election. 3. He or she shall have resided in the election district where he or she shall offer to vote at least sixty (60) days immediately preceding the election, except that if qualified to vote in an election district prior to removal of residence, he or she may, if a resident of Pennsylvania, vote in the election district from which he or she removed his or her residence within sixty (60) days preceding the election.That's right. Nothing about showing any photo ID.
A state lawmaker who says she was barred from speaking in the Michigan House because Republicans objected to her saying "vagina" during debate over anti-abortion legislation performed "The Vagina Monologues" on the Statehouse steps — with a hand from the author.Vagina.
Eve Ensler, whose groundbreaking play about women's sexuality still packs theaters 16 years after it debuted, oversaw Monday night's performance by Democratic state Rep. Lisa Brown, 10 other lawmakers and several actresses.
Capitol facilities director Steve Benkovsky estimated about 2,500 spectators — women and men — watched the play in downtown Lansing from lawn chairs and blankets. Billed on Facebook as the "Vaginas Take Back the Capitol!" event, the combination play and protest included political signs and chants of "Vagina! Vagina!"
"If we ever knew deep in our hearts that the issue about abortion ... was not really about fetuses and babies, but really men's terror of women's sexuality and power, I think it's fully evidenced here," Ensler told The Associated Press by phone Monday before arriving in Lansing.Vagina.
House Republicans say they didn't object to her saying "vagina." They said Brown compared the legislation to rape, violating House decorum.Which is why, as I quoted the Detroit Free Press:
"What she said was offensive," said Rep. Mike Callton, R-Nashville. "It was so offensive, I don't even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company."Of course it was the rape metaphor! That makes complete sense! And THAT'S what Callton wouldn't say in mixed company! OF COURSE it was.
Terrorist-killing drone strikes carry an often overlooked cost: lost opportunities to gather intelligence about terrorist plots. And the Obama administration's renunciation of interrogation techniques that helped foil at least 10 such plots exacerbates that problem.Here's the article on Rodriguez in the Free Beacon.
So says Jose A. Rodriguez. Some think the former CIA counterterrorism chief and best-selling "Hard Measures" author could be CIA director in a Romney administration.
He tells The Washington Free Beacon that there's no U.S. system or facilities in place today for questioning captured terrorist leaders: "They are not taking prisoners in Guantanamo, (and) the black sites have been closed." He blames the Obama administration for America's terror intelligence gap.
President Obama's 2009 Cairo speech "unequivocally" prohibiting "torture" outraged and disgusted him and his colleagues. They believed they had proper authorization for harsh interrogations.Note the quotation marks. The first set actually quotes but the second imposes an ironical spin. It's not torture if it's "torture". And George W. Bush isn't a war criminal if he's a "war criminal". See how the ironic quotation marks work?
For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.That's Article 1. Article 2 includes this:
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.No extenuating circumstances. No "I was just following orders" either. That's been a part of US Law for almost 2 decades.
3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.
PASSING THE STOVEPIPE HAT. The Harrisburg-based Lincoln Institute is going through some trying times.Here's Lowman's full message, in the event you wanted to read it. In it he blames the economic downturn (the one that started in the Bush Administration and that happened because of precisely the economic policies pushed by think tanks like the Lincoln Institute) for his financial woes. Poor guy.
First, Albert Paschall, the conservative think tank's co-founder, died last month at age 58. Now, institute CEO Lowman Henry is acknowledging the organization is experiencing financial difficulties.
"The cost of polling, producing and distributing our radio programs and maintaining our websites are all paid for by voluntary contributions," he wrote in an email to institute supporters. "I've done everything I can to cut expenses. But the plain facts are costs are going up."
Henry is asking folks to pony up for the Lincoln Institute cause.
Yesterday we heard from the Representative from Holland, speak about religious freedom. I'm Jewish. I keep kosher in my home. I have 2 sets of dishes--one for meat and one for dairy, and another 2 sets of dishes on top of that for Passover. Judaism believes that therapeutic abortions, namely abortions performed in order to preserve the life of the mother, are not only permissible, but mandatory. The stage of pregnancy does not matter. Wherever there's a question of the life of the mother, or that of the unborn child, Jewish law rules in favor of preserving the life of the mother. The status of the fetus as human life does not equal that of the mother.
I have not asked you to adopt and adhere to my religious beliefs. Why are you asking me to adopt yours?
And finally, Mr. Speaker, I'm flattered that you're all so interested in my vagina, but no means no!Looks like some "religious freedoms" are more equal than others.
The debate over proposed new abortion regulations in the state House this week was heated, loud, even graphic, with words like "vagina," "vasectomy" and "stirrups" being mentioned.Vagina.
The words didn't stop passage of the legislation, but they did get two Democratic lawmakers -- state Reps. Lisa Brown of West Bloomfield and Barb Byrum of Onondaga -- silenced Thursday from speaking about any issue before the House on its final day of session before the Legislature's summer break.
Brown and Byrum were told they wouldn't be recognized to speak because of comments they made Wednesday during the emotional abortion-rights debate.
Brown, who voted against the abortion regulations, told supporters of the bill: "I'm flattered you're all so interested in my vagina. But no means no," referencing the proposal.Vagina.
Byrum was gaveled out of order after she protested when she wasn't allowed to speak on her amendment, which would have required proof of a medical emergency or that a man's life was in danger before a doctor could perform a vasectomy.
Brown's comment prompted a rebuke Thursday by House Republicans, who wouldn't allow her to voice her opinion on a school employee retirement bill.Vagina.
"What she said was offensive," said Rep. Mike Callton, R-Nashville. "It was so offensive, I don't even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company."
“Both Representative Byrum and I were gaveled down without cause yesterday while voicing our opposition to the Republican’s war on women here in Michigan, “said Rep. Brown. “Regardless of their reasoning, this is a violation of my First Amendment rights and directly impedes my ability to serve the people who elected me into office. I was either banned for being Jewish and rightfully pointing out that House Bill 5711 was forcing contradictory religious beliefs upon me and any other religion. Or it is because I said the word ‘vagina’ which is an anatomically, medically correct term. If they are going to legislate my anatomy, I see no reason why I cannot mention it.”Vagina.
Pastor John Hagee, senior pastor of San Antonio’s Cornerstone Church, is making People for the America Way very angry with some comments about atheists.See?
Here’s what he said in a talk captured on YouTube by the group: “This nation was not built for atheists or by atheists. It was built by Christian people who believed in the Word of God. To the atheists watching this telecast, if our belief in God offends you, move. There are planes leaving every hour on the hour, going every place on planet earth. Get on one, we don’t want you and we won’t miss you, I promise you.”
That may sound harsh, coming from a Christian minister of a mega-church with 20,000 members.
But let me take what Hagee said a step further.
Atheists can’t be real Americans in the truest sense of the word – and People for the American Way should be renamed People for the un-American Way.So from Hagee, we learn that atheists should leave Amurika and from Farah, that we're not "real Americans" anyway.
America was founded on a creedal statement. It can be found in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;...And so on.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. [emphasis added.]And do I really need to quote the 1st Amendment at yinz?
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.So who's being un-American? The folks who believe that all citizens are equal citizens or the religious zealots who want everyone that disagrees with them to just leave?
The Congressional Budget Office is predicting that the debt of the United States will be twice the size of our economy by 2037. (It's now 73 percent of the GDP). And it more than suggests that tax hikes should be a part of the "solution."And then:
There is no more compelling argument for spending cuts (real cuts, not simply reductions in the rate of spending increases) and real tax cuts (rate reductions that have the private capital-fueled stimulative effect that government spending in no way can mimic).Buuuuut...when you actually take a look at the CBO Report, you'll see the depths of the mendacity at play here.
The historical record of such actions' success is indisputable. And that success has come in administrations both Republican and Democrat over the last century.
That significant increase in revenues and decrease in the relative magnitude of other spending would more than offset the rise in spending on health care programs and Social Security.If you look carefully, they're talking about the tax benefits of "Obamacare" and letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Nothing about the doubling of the debt by 2037.
Those scenarios span a wide range of possible policy choices, and neither represents a prediction by CBO of what policies will be in effect during the next several decades.So right there, there are TWO bits of dishonesty from Scaife's braintrust. One, that the "doubling of the debt by 2037" is a prediction and two that it's the only "prediction" they make. THe CBO report is more of a "if we do this, then this happens, if we do that, then that happens."
Under those policies, federal debt would grow rapidly from its already high level, exceeding 90 percent of GDP in 2022. After that, the growing imbalance between revenues and spending, combined with spiraling interest payments, would swiftly push debt to higher and higher levels. Debt as a share of GDP would exceed its historical peak of 109 percent by 2026, and it would approach 200 percent in 2037.Funny how the braintrust didn't say that.
The American Civil Liberties Union did the Obama Justice Department's bidding in challenging Arizona's law cracking down on illegal immigrants. Now, Judicial Watch is fighting to determine whether Justice and the ACLU also are in cahoots on an ACLU lawsuit seeking to keep Pennsylvania's voter ID law from taking effect before November's election.Here's what Judicial Watch has on this:
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that on June 1, 2012, it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) to obtain records detailing the agency’s communications with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) regarding Pennsylvania House Bill 934, commonly referred to as Pennsylvania’s Voter ID law (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. Case 1:12-cv-00884)). The ACLU and allied organizations have filed a lawsuit to prevent the law, signed by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett on March 14, 2012, from taking effect before the November elections.Ah, so we're talking about HB 934. More on that later. But let's read further down the page. A paragraph or so later we find:
Pennsylvania House Bill 934 requires voters to produce a Pennsylvania driver’s license or another government-issued photo ID, such as a U.S. passport, military ID, or county/municipal employee ID. As reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, on May 1, 2012, so-called “civil rights” groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit to seek to prevent Pennsylvania’ voter ID law from taking effect before the November elections. The trial is scheduled to begin on July 25, 2012.How nice of them to link back to Scaife's paper, isn't it? Especially since it's not a Trib article. If you look, it's actually the AP's work. But, as I said it's nice for Judicial Watch to give a such a subtle shout-out to Richard Mellon Scaife's newspaper.
But [Judicial Watch has] never wanted for cash, in large part because of the deep pockets of crackpot Pennsylvania billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.And:
Through his Carthage Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation, Scaife helps bankroll a number of far-right and nativist groups, such as the Heritage Foundation, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (which was behind writing SB 1070), NumbersUSA, the Center for Immigration Studies, and Judicial Watch (see "FAIR-y Tales," Terry Greene Sterling, December 2).See? So how nice of them to give a shout out to their primary benefactor. Isn't it funny, though, that that little bit of info never seems to make it onto the pages of the Trib?
According to the progressive Media Matters Action Network, the Scaife family foundations mentioned above have given $8.7 million to Judicial Watch since 1997, making Scaife Judicial Watch's primary benefactor.
Scaife has given ALEC more than $2 million since 1975, keeping the group alive in its early years.So the Scaife-funded Judicial Watch is defending some legislation that came from the Scaife-supported ALEC while the Scaife-owned paper is both silent on those connections and yet still accuses the DOJ and the ACLU of being in "cohoots".
A vehemently anti-gay radio show host is making headlines with his latest proclamation that Obama is “making kids gay” — and he’s only 14 years old.And:
Caiden Cowger of West Virginia hosts the “Caiden Cowger” Internet radio show twice a week, where he gabs about his staunchly conservative political beliefs.
“They are encouraging kids to think, ‘Well, you know what? They’re talking about being a homosexual and they’re saying there’s nothing wrong with being gay, so you know what, I think I might try that out for a little bit,” Cowger says. “That is what’s going on!”At this point I have to add something I am sure many many people have already pointed out: If Caiden thinks the only thing standing in the way of "making kids gay" is the the silence of public officials, then that tells you lots about what young Cowger thinks about human sexuality.
“When you’re trying to teach them the word of God and they consider that bullying ... I find that a big problem, not being allowed to convert other people to my religion,” he said.Then there's this from the Daily Mail:
'Homosexuality is a belief,' the outspoken West Virginian begins his speech with.And this from a 14 year old West Virginian. Refreshing, isn't it?
'It’s not mandatory in that person. The person is not born that way, no matter what Lady Gaga says... it is a decision.'
Nearly half of Americans — 46% — believe God created the human race in a single day 10,000 years ago, a newly-released Gallup poll found.Doesn't mean that any of what's believed is true, of course. Just consistently wrong over the last 30 or so years. It's interesting to see how Gallup addresses that point. We'll see it in a minute.
The poll revealed that Americans’ ideas about the origin of mankind have remained virtually unchanged in the 30 years Gallup has surveyed on the topic.
Gallup has asked Americans to choose among these three explanations for the origin and development of human beings 11 times since 1982. Although the percentages choosing each view have varied from survey to survey, the 46% who today choose the creationist explanation is virtually the same as the 45% average over that period -- and very similar to the 44% who chose that explanation in 1982. The 32% who choose the "theistic evolution" view that humans evolved under God's guidance is slightly below the 30-year average of 37%, while the 15% choosing the secular evolution view is slightly higher (12%).Who is this God person, anyway? Anyone? Oolon? Oolon? Oolon Colluphid?
Two-thirds of Americans who attend religious services weekly choose the creationist alternative, compared with 25% of those who say they seldom or never attend churchSo, at the very least there's a correlation between regular weekly church attendance and deep scientific ignorance.
Highly religious Americans are more likely to be Republican than those who are less religious, which helps explain the relationship between partisanship and beliefs about human origins. The major distinction is between Republicans and everyone else. While 58% of Republicans believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years, 39% of independents and 41% of Democrats agree.And a correlation between political party and that same deep scientific ignorance.
Most Americans are not scientists, of course, and cannot be expected to understand all of the latest evidence and competing viewpoints on the development of the human species. Still, it would be hard to dispute that most scientists who study humans agree that the species evolved over millions of years, and that relatively few scientists believe that humans began in their current form only 10,000 years ago without the benefit of evolution. Thus, almost half of Americans today hold a belief, at least as measured by this question wording, that is at odds with the preponderance of the scientific literature.Which is a very nice way of saying that all those nice people (consistently church-going Republicans, for sure) are just simply wrong about the science.
After staying conspicuously absent from the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election, President Barack Obama finally engaged tonight...
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York authorized payments of as much as $20,000 to sexually abusive priests as an incentive for them to agree to dismissal from the priesthood when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee.The Times doesn't give any more information on that notorious pedophile cleric. I will. Here's what was reported in 2006:
Questioned at the time about the news that one particularly notorious pedophile cleric had been given a “payoff” to leave the priesthood, Cardinal Dolan, then the archbishop, responded that such an inference was “false, preposterous and unjust.”
Milwaukee -- A local advocate group for the survivors of sexual abuse from clergy members is questioning a $10,000 payment to a former clergyman accused of sexually abusing young boys.And then:
The Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP) released a videotaped deposition Thursday as part of an $18 million settlement last week between nine abuse victims and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
The videotape includes a confession by former clergyman Franklyn Becker. Becker said he was transferred from parish to parish in the 1970s and '80s, despite allegations of sexual encounters with teenage boys. He said he was even posted at parishes with others who shared his desires.
"I was stationed with a classmate of mine who also had a predilection for teenage boys," Becker said on the tape, which was recorded last month.
After the arrival of Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Becker was removed from active ministry in 2002. He was completely removed from the priesthood in 2004 by Pope John Paul II.No. Not a pay off. Of course not. An act of charity for a known pedophile. This act of charity was about 10 years ago.
Upon his release from the archdiocese, Becker was given $10,000 to cover expenses until his Medicaid supplements began.
Victims' advocates are questioning the money.
"I don't think people donating to the archdiocese are going to be very happy to hear that this man was given any money. For what? He is rewarded. Is it a pension? Is he given a severance? Is this a bonus?" abuse victims' advocate Peter Isely said.
Late Thursday, Dolan released a statement in response, writing, "For anyone to assert that this money was a payoff or occurred in exchange for Becker agreeing to leave the priesthood is completely false, preposterous, and unjust. What this was, instead, was an act of charity, in-line with Catholic Social Teaching, that allowed a person to obtain health insurance coverage he simply could not afford on his own. If people want to criticize me for that charity, so be it."
Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee was one of the Catholic Church's most venerable voices for change until 2002 when he resigned amid revelations that he had used church money to pay a $450,000 settlement to a man with whom he had had a relationship years earlier.His successor? Timothy Dolan.
