The Goat Pen

Sen. Cruz says he'll renounce Canadian citizenship

http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article ... houtexhcat

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has released his birth certificate to reflect that he was born in Canada but says he will renounce citizenship from that country.

Cruz first gave a copy of the document to The Dallas Morning News but then provided it to The Associated Press late Monday.

The tea party favorite has been mentioned as a possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate — even though only natural born U.S. citizens can hold the office.

Cruz had long maintained that he was a U.S. citizen at birth because his mother is American.

But he issued a statement Monday citing suggestions he may actually hold dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship. As a result, he said he would formally renounce his Canadian citizenship.

Cruz added: "Nothing against Canada, but I'm an American by birth."

On Aug. 6, 2001, President George W. Bush received a classified review of the threats posted by Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist network, Al Qaeda. That morning's "presidential daily brief" -- the top-secret document prepared by America's intelligence agencies -- featured the now-infamous heading: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." A few weeks later, on 9/11, Al Qaeda accomplished that goal.

A minor slip-up. Too many dots to connect. A red flag in a sea of red flags.

Benghazi, otoh, is worse than Pearl Harbor. Believe it.

Professor Tiger wrote:JD, I agree with you insofar that wealthy East coasters are the original - and probably still predominant GOP constituency. The social conservatives never existed in the GOP until the 80's. There are a lot more Bubba's out there than Thurston Howell III's. So when the social conservatives (or Bubba's as you put it) signed on by the millions, the R Party suddenly started winning elections. They took the House for the first time since the Depression, for example.

But I also think that the Bubba's are about done with the R's. I know I am. The plutocrats that really run the GOP are fairly contemptuous of the social conservatives - almost as much as liberal Democrats. Social conservatives are getting the hint from our betters and aren't voting for the nominees that were picked on the greens of Augusta National anymore.

In the Black faith community, the term used is "moral conservatives" (or for the older cats, PLD for pro-life Democrats) and the question asked is: should there be a 3rd party created?

For Black moral conservatives, the issue is especially tough because most of them live in the South and they see that those politicians whom they agree with on moral issues are generally so entrenched on issues of race (e.g. - Texas School Board Curriculum Committee removing "slave trade" from text books and replacing it with "triangle trade" or NC reinstituting virtual "grandfather clause" in voting) that they just cannot bring themselves to vote for candidates whose goal is to marginalize them, so they're Democrats by default - or don't vote.

There are also any number of centrists who just cannot stomach the efforts to legislate (and re-legislate) settled law. The abortion debate is really simple - if you don't believe in them, don't have them. But blocking of others (to the point of murdering doctors and burning clinics) raises a fundamental fear and visions of an Iranian-style theocracy rising in America.

Modern practices have virtually eliminated the center in American politics, but the "Bubba" agenda is SO FAR RIGHT that traditional conservatism looks like liberalism.

For all of the lifting up of Reagan as an icon, issues that were dear to him (Gun Control, Women's Rights, etc.) are anathematic to today's GOP.

This is what's wrong w/this country.....too few people making too much money.....I want economic justice!!1111


Gisele Bundchen, Brady’s supermodel wife, had the household’s real championship season — raking in $42 million in 2012-13 as the world’s richest catwalker, according to Forbes.

It’s the seventh consecutive year the financial mag has named Bundchen, 33, as the runway’s No. 1 earner.

She outdid her hubby — who was the No. 11 highest-earning athlete in 2012-13, according to Forbes — by some $4 million. Brady reportedly made a little more than $38 million in salary, signing bonuses and endorsement deals in the year that ended in June.

I wonder if they argue about that...

he probably beats her

For Prof:

"The right will keep telling itself that it can win power by going even further to the right and that a majority of Americans would prefer them in power to Obama, if push came to shove. They have shown that they can talk themselves into anything – even an imminent Romney landslide as late as election night! But that is part of the problem too. They have a media-industrial complex that has a vested interest in pandering to conservative paranoia and extremism, rather than moderating it. Putting Limbaugh and Hannity on the primary debates panel would simply increase the epistemic closure."

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/08/ ... the-abyss/

Pretty much nailed it

This would be my avatar if I was a Bama fan.

hedge wrote:For Prof:

"The right will keep telling itself that it can win power by going even further to the right and that a majority of Americans would prefer them in power to Obama, if push came to shove. They have shown that they can talk themselves into anything – even an imminent Romney landslide as late as election night! But that is part of the problem too. They have a media-industrial complex that has a vested interest in pandering to conservative paranoia and extremism, rather than moderating it. Putting Limbaugh and Hannity on the primary debates panel would simply increase the epistemic closure."

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/08/ ... the-abyss/

I think you misunderstand me on one point, but it is a significant one: I have no delusions about the prospects of conservatism in the 21st century USA. Any "lurch to the right" by the R's is unlikely to succeed. America is now all about petitioning the federal government into providing them with subsidized freebies. We are now Greece before the bills come due. This is true of the left and the right.

There aren't enough Bubba's to counteract the piglets lined up at the federal government teat. That's just the way it is. I am above all a realist. And right now, realism ain't cool.

Johnette's Daddy wrote:

Professor Tiger wrote:JD, I agree with you insofar that wealthy East coasters are the original - and probably still predominant GOP constituency. The social conservatives never existed in the GOP until the 80's. There are a lot more Bubba's out there than Thurston Howell III's. So when the social conservatives (or Bubba's as you put it) signed on by the millions, the R Party suddenly started winning elections. They took the House for the first time since the Depression, for example.

But I also think that the Bubba's are about done with the R's. I know I am. The plutocrats that really run the GOP are fairly contemptuous of the social conservatives - almost as much as liberal Democrats. Social conservatives are getting the hint from our betters and aren't voting for the nominees that were picked on the greens of Augusta National anymore.

In the Black faith community, the term used is "moral conservatives" (or for the older cats, PLD for pro-life Democrats) and the question asked is: should there be a 3rd party created?

For Black moral conservatives, the issue is especially tough because most of them live in the South and they see that those politicians whom they agree with on moral issues are generally so entrenched on issues of race (e.g. - Texas School Board Curriculum Committee removing "slave trade" from text books and replacing it with "triangle trade" or NC reinstituting virtual "grandfather clause" in voting) that they just cannot bring themselves to vote for candidates whose goal is to marginalize them, so they're Democrats by default - or don't vote.

There are also any number of centrists who just cannot stomach the efforts to legislate (and re-legislate) settled law. The abortion debate is really simple - if you don't believe in them, don't have them. But blocking of others (to the point of murdering doctors and burning clinics) raises a fundamental fear and visions of an Iranian-style theocracy rising in America.

Modern practices have virtually eliminated the center in American politics, but the "Bubba" agenda is SO FAR RIGHT that traditional conservatism looks like liberalism.

For all of the lifting up of Reagan as an icon, issues that were dear to him (Gun Control, Women's Rights, etc.) are anathematic to today's GOP.

JD, I am pleased to hear that there is such a thing as "black moral conservatives." By that term I assume you mean African-Americans who publically disapprove of abortion, gay marriage, and the rest of the liberal social agenda. If there is such a thing as pro-life or pro-traditional marriage African-Americans, I certainly take your word for it although I have never seen any public evidence of their existence. All I ever see is Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton et al, whose moral compass is totally determined by the latest edicts of the DNC.

But if you say there are some African-Americans out there that are pro-life and pro-traditional marriage, then I am mightily heartened. I'd like to hear from one of them someday.

Professor Tiger wrote:

Johnette's Daddy wrote:

Professor Tiger wrote:JD, I agree with you insofar that wealthy East coasters are the original - and probably still predominant GOP constituency. The social conservatives never existed in the GOP until the 80's. There are a lot more Bubba's out there than Thurston Howell III's. So when the social conservatives (or Bubba's as you put it) signed on by the millions, the R Party suddenly started winning elections. They took the House for the first time since the Depression, for example.

But I also think that the Bubba's are about done with the R's. I know I am. The plutocrats that really run the GOP are fairly contemptuous of the social conservatives - almost as much as liberal Democrats. Social conservatives are getting the hint from our betters and aren't voting for the nominees that were picked on the greens of Augusta National anymore.

In the Black faith community, the term used is "moral conservatives" (or for the older cats, PLD for pro-life Democrats) and the question asked is: should there be a 3rd party created?

For Black moral conservatives, the issue is especially tough because most of them live in the South and they see that those politicians whom they agree with on moral issues are generally so entrenched on issues of race (e.g. - Texas School Board Curriculum Committee removing "slave trade" from text books and replacing it with "triangle trade" or NC reinstituting virtual "grandfather clause" in voting) that they just cannot bring themselves to vote for candidates whose goal is to marginalize them, so they're Democrats by default - or don't vote.

There are also any number of centrists who just cannot stomach the efforts to legislate (and re-legislate) settled law. The abortion debate is really simple - if you don't believe in them, don't have them. But blocking of others (to the point of murdering doctors and burning clinics) raises a fundamental fear and visions of an Iranian-style theocracy rising in America.

Modern practices have virtually eliminated the center in American politics, but the "Bubba" agenda is SO FAR RIGHT that traditional conservatism looks like liberalism.

For all of the lifting up of Reagan as an icon, issues that were dear to him (Gun Control, Women's Rights, etc.) are anathematic to today's GOP.

JD, I am pleased to hear that there is such a thing as "black moral conservatives." By that term I assume you mean African-Americans who publically disapprove of abortion, gay marriage, and the rest of the liberal social agenda. If there is such a thing as pro-life or pro-traditional marriage African-Americans, I certainly take your word for it although I have never seen any public evidence of their existence. All I ever see is Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton et al, whose moral compass is totally determined by the latest edicts of the DNC.
But if you say there are some African-Americans out there that are pro-life and pro-traditional marriage, then I am mightily heartened. I'd like to hear from one of them someday.

Just goes to show you . . . MOST African Americans are moral conservatives.

It was the Black vote that defeated gay marriage in California http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008 ... vil-rights

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 6 -- Any notion that Tuesday's election represented a liberal juggernaut must overcome a detail from the voting booths of California: The same voters who turned out strongest for Barack Obama also drove a stake through the heart of same-sex marriage.

Seven in 10 African Americans who went to the polls voted yes on Proposition 8, the ballot measure overruling a state Supreme Court judgment that legalized same-sex marriage and brought 18,000 gay and lesbian couples to Golden State courthouses in the past six months.

Similar measures passed easily in Florida and Arizona. It was closer in California, but no ethnic group anywhere rejected the sanctioning of same-sex unions as emphatically as the state's black voters, according to exit polls. Fifty-three percent of Latinos also backed Proposition 8, overcoming the bare majority of white Californians who voted to let the court ruling stand.

Those SAME black voters, however, cannot support a GOP whose platform consistently marginalizes them. Self-preservation trumps moral outrage. The GOP did well with Black voters for 100 years. You didn't see the monolithic Black democratic vote until the 60s and the GOP Southern Strategy.

When I grew up Democratic governors in PA had to be pro-life to win election. Governor Casey was famous for not being allowed to speak at the DNC because of his pro- life stance. The Keystone state was extremely religious, but also extremely union.

democrats are the devil's spawn.

Are we to believe that the WSJ is now in the tank for oprama?

Economists now predict 2014 will be the best year for growth since 2005 - Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 57362.html

After four bumpy years, the U.S. recovery finally appears to be on a smoother road.

Many economists now predict 2014 will be the best year for growth since 2005, while joblessness is expected to click below 7% next year for the first time since 2008. Houses are selling again, the energy sector is booming and jobs, while not plentiful, are being created at a steady pace. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve upped its estimate for next year's expansion as well.

Christopher Lane, of Melbourne, was found dead of a gunshot wound on Friday, according to police in Duncan, Oklahoma, about 80 miles south of Oklahoma City.

“They followed him, shot him in the back and drove off,” Duncan, Okla., police chief Danny Ford said yesterday.

“When asked why he [a 17-year-old suspect] did it, he said, ‘We were bored and decided to kill somebody.’ ”

According to police, Jones admitted that the teens decided to kill someone "for the fun of it."

Charged with first-degree murder are Chancey Allen Luna, 16, and James Francis Edwards Jr., 15. Michael Dewayne Jones, 17, who allegedly drove the vehicle carrying the other suspects, was charged with use of a vehicle in the discharge of a weapon and accessory to murder after the fact, according to the Stephens County District Attorney's office.

Police said Jones named Luna as the gunman.

Lane was out jogging during a visit to his girlfriend and her family in Duncan on Friday, when he was shot in the back, police said. He attended East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, where he was on a baseball scholarship.

Police said a witness called 911 when she saw Lane stagger across the road and fall.

According to police, Jones told police on Sunday that they saw Lane jogging and decided he would be their target. Police said the three followed him in their vehicle and shot Lane in the back, police said.



The reaction from Jackson, Sharpton & Obammer is both predictable and silent. I'm guessing Lane would NOT look like Obammer's son.

bluetick wrote:CEOs of the largest U.S. companies made 354 times what the average worker was paid in 2012 - the widest pay gap in the world - according to SEC filings. Thirty years ago CEOs were paid 42 times what rank-and-file workers in the U.S. earned

Partly because D's put extra taxes on CEO cash pay which moved them to more stock option based pay and when the stock goes up their pay skyrockets. Its all on paper and not cash, but I would still love to have it.

Exec pay is out of whack and boards scratch each others backs. The pay/options and unicorn parachutes need to be tied to company performance.

bluetick wrote:

sardis wrote:Obama wants to search your cellphones without a warrant.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the ... s/?print=1

Naturally I have to side with the crack dealer and sardis on this one.

But the decision by the scotus may be a foregone conclusion, right? Individual liberty has taken several punches to the groin the last dozen or so years. As the usual suspects - patriots to the core - always say: 9/11 changed everything.

Throw in Roberts decision on Opramacare. We are not free when we can be taxed for breathing. Limited govt my ass.

"America is now all about petitioning the federal government into providing them with subsidized freebies."

You mean like the bailout of the financial behemoths in 2008? Yeah, you're right...

"There aren't enough Bubba's to counteract the piglets lined up at the federal government teat."

If by "the piggies" you mean the CEO's of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Morgan Stanley (etc, etc, etc, etc), than I'd agree with you. But somehow I suspect that's not exactly who you were talking about...