Court rules asylum seekers cannot be sent to Malaysia as part of a refugee swap deal in a major blow to Prime Minister Julia Gillard Australia’s highest court has ruled against government plans for a refugee swap with Malaysia in a major policy setback for embattled Prime Minister Julia Gillard, already trailing badly in opinion polls and facing defeat at the next election. Australia and Malaysia signed an agreement in July under which Australia was due to accept 4,000 asylum seekers currently in Malaysia, in return for sending 800 arrivals in Australia to Malaysia where their refugee claims would be processed. “It’s a slap in the face for the Gillard government, it’s a huge setback for the Malaysian solution,” said Marianne Dickie, an expert on migration law at Australian National University. “It effectively hobbles it (the policy), if not ending it.” Gillard signed the Malaysian deal to deter people smugglers, and to fight perceptions her government was soft on asylum seekers. But lawyers for two asylum seekers asked the High Court to declare the people swap illegal, because Malaysia had no legal guarantees to protect the rights of asylum seekers. Australia is a signatory to the UN convention on refugees but Malaysia is not. Australia has already begun negotiations with Papua New Guinea to re-open the mothballed Manus Island immigration detention centre, which closed down in 2004. The High Court ruling means Australia might also need to re-open a detention centre on the remote Pacific islands nation of Nauru. Both the Manus Island and Nauru detention centres were used by the former conservative government under its controversial Pacific Solution, where asylum seekers who arrived by boat were sent to other countries to have their refugee claims processed. Australia Malaysia Julia Gillard Refugees guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …AP’s Kuhnhenn: Obama ‘Hamstrung’ by ‘Limited Tools’ to Improve Economy and Increase Employment
August 30, 2011 No CommentPoor President Obama. There's only so much he can do to lift the economy. He's tried so much already, yet somehow it just hasn't worked. Now his option are limited by those darned Republican demands for “fiscal austerity” and a “tight debt ceiling” (of “only” $2.4 trillion) which was only raised by enough to get him through his reelection effort (in 14-1/2 months). This is the utter garbage in a Tuesday morning report (“Obama faces tight restraints in crafting jobs plan”) the Associated Press's Jim Kuhnhenn expects his wire service's readers, listeners, and viewers to swallow, and its subscribing media outlets to non-skeptically publish or broadcast. If I were to use my annotated style of taking apart a story, I'd have at least 30 items. Other than his very late segment addressing the worthy recommendations of economist Kevin Hassett, virtually every sentence is a teeth-grinder, and almost every statement by anyone other than Hassett is a forehead-slapper. Here are my nominees for the top three ridiculous passages in Kuhnhenn's calamity: (opening sentence) Hamstrung by budget cuts and a tight debt ceiling, President Barack Obama is preparing a September jobs package with limited tools at his disposal to prime the economy and crank up employment. Jim, there are no cuts. Spending continues to increase. Any items advertised as “cuts” are only reductions in projected spending per the Congressional Budget Office assuming Congress just sits there and doesn't try to do its job. If you can point to a major budget where actual spending in fiscal 2012 is projected to be less than fiscal 2011 spending — let alone fiscal 2007, before Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid followed by President Obama tore the roof off of anything resembling spending control — I'd like to know what it is. The federal government is on track to spend well over 35% more in fiscal 2011 (about $3.7 trillion) than it did in 2007 (about $2.7 trillion). “Budget cuts” ? (Paragraph 9) He also has lent support to a proposal to create an “infrastructure bank,” a fund that would be seeded by the government but fed by private investment to pay for major road, bridge and other public construction. Even advocates of the plan, however, say that proposal probably would not be in place to generate jobs for about two years. Then why is he bothering? (Final paragraph) “The debt deal doesn't allow any sizable amount of deficit spending or increased spending,” he (Lawrence Mishel, president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute) said. “If you 're going to pay for it later, how do you do that when you have a tight amount of debt that you can take on over the next year and a half?” This is downright pathological. “The debt deal” allowed the national debt to increase by $2.4 trillion over roughly 18 months. That's a $133 billion per month average. That's a “tight amount”? Someone should ask Mishel what he thinks would be “loose.” As for “any sizable amount of deficit spending or increased spending” — Lord, we've run almost $4 trillion in official deficits during the last three fiscal years (fiscal 2009 and 2010 actuals per the Treasury Department , $1.42 trillion and $1.29 trillion; projected fiscal 2011 , $1.28 trillion; projected three-year total, $3.99 trillion), while the national debt ballooned by $4.6 trillion from September 30, 2008 through yesterday ( $14.625 trillion minus $10.025 trillion . How high would these numbers have to get before they become “sizable”? Rush's reaction to Kuhnhenn's report during the opening segment of his show today was similar to your truly's, and his ending echoes the point I made in the second paragraph of this post's introduction (bolds are mine): AP is very concerned here, folks. They're making excuses for Obama, even before he delivers the big jobs speech that's coming up sometime next week. And remember how they used to do that for Bush? Make excuses? Yeah, guess not. In any case, what this AP story boils down to is that the first round of stimulus is drying up, and according to AP, that's why the GDP, economic growth, is down to 1%. Isn't that cool? Economic growth is down, not because of unemployment, not because Obama has targeted the private sector, not because he has shrunk the private sector while growing the government. No, no, no, no. Our economic slowdown is due to the fact that the first stimulus is now drying up. So consequently Obama is now desperate for another round of stimulus in order to keep the GDP in positive territory and out of an official recession in an election year. The trouble is that Obama can't spend much without raising the debt ceiling yet again, as AP points out. Hey, it's real problem. We just went through a debt ceiling fight, raising it another two point whatever trillion dollars and we can't go back to it too soon. People didn't want the debt ceiling raised this time. So the AP is wringing its hands and they're all concerned over the restraints poor Obama faces in announcing his jobs program. … In the middle of three years of failure, you have a major news organization that's making the case for Obama in advance for more of the same, which is going to get us more of the same: smaller private sector, fewer jobs, no salary or wage increases. Utter failure. And yet they are promoting it. They are making the case for it. Well, both. Making the case for it and for him. But the point is they're saying Obama must up spending to get reelected. How many more votes can he buy? How many more votes can he buy? If this was the way to reelection, he ought to be at 70, 80% in the polls. So I look at this and I chuckle, I laugh, and then I sorta scratch my head because this is a major problem. This story is gonna run in newspapers and on websites all across the country, and a bunch of people (are) gonna read it and think that it's the way it is. I mean it's the height of ignorance, of being uninformed, and journalistic malpractice at the same time. It isn't journalistic malpractice only if you're in Jim Kuhnhenn's Cave on Planet AP. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .
Continue reading …
Leave it to Thom Hartmann, the liberal radio host, to assert that conservative Republicans are un-American, because apparently, unless you love Big Government, you're not very American. He not only said that on Monday's show. He asserted that if there were such a think as a “sentient deity” he would be urgently send us the message “Stop pumping carbon into your atmosphere!” Is it any wonder they can't make liberal radio a ratings smash? Here's the “powerful strain of anti-Americanism” rant: HARTMANN: There is a powerful strain of anti-Americanism that disguises itself as the Republican party and the so-called conservative movement that I think would horrify moderate conservatives like Dwight Eisenhower and even serious conservatives like Barry Goldwater, who actually believed that government can be and should be a force for good…[Neither] of them would have gone so far as Reagan did and say [that] the government is not the solution; the government is the problem. Ronald Reagan, spokesman for a “powerful strain of anti-Americanism”? That certainly sounds like it's twisted backwards and upside down. A few minutes later, Hartmann played a clip of Michele Bachmann's joke about the recent earthquake and hurricane being a message from God to get our house in order, which obviously upsets liberals who don't really believe in God. Hartmann complained:
Continue reading …Update: Wausau, Wis. Mayor Tells Labor Day Union Sponsors to Invite GOP Pols or Pay All Costs
August 30, 2011 No Comment
The plot thickens. On Sunday (at NewsBusters ; at BizzyBlog ), I noted that “GOP politicians aren't welcome in this year's Labor Day parade” in Wausau, Wisconsin, because, according to the Marathon County Central Labor Council, which until today apparently thought it was the only sponsor of said parade, “organizers choose not to invite elected officials who have openly attacked worker's rights.” The Labor Council found out today from Wausau Mayor Jim Tipple that they are not the parade's only sponsor, as a video replay of a local station's news segment at Breitbart (HT to NB commenter ” DaChew “) informs us (transcript follows the jump; bolds are mine throughout): … Wausau's mayor is now calling on Labor Day parade organizers to let Republicans participate. We first broke the news last week that Marathon County labor leaders had decided not to include the GOP in this year's parade. Well now Mayor Jim Tipple says the city is a cosponsor of the parade because it pays the insurance premium, builds a stage and provides city services during the parade for free. Tipple released a statement this afternoon saying, quote: “The banning of a political party at any event co-sponsored by the city is against public policy and not in the best interest of all the citizens … we encourage the event organizer to invite all interested parties, or reimburse the city for other costs.” Reuters also has coverage
Continue reading …Workers confront John Mica in Houston The Communications Workers of America are taking on the House Transportation Committee Chair, Rep. John Mica (R-FL), who is holding the Federal Aviation Administration hostage over an assault on union organizing rights. CWA launched MicaWatch to expose the real motives behind Mica’s attempts to shutdown the FAA in order to make it impossible for workers at airlines to unionize. They are also targeting Mica and two dozen other members of Congress with robocalls and mailers into their districts that tell the truth about what Mica and his allies are doing. The FAA currently is only authorized through September 16 and will again partially shutdown if a deal is not made before then. In July, the agency was shutdown as a part of this fight. The earlier shutdown cost taxpayers $400 million, delayed needed infrastructure projects and left thousands of workers without income while Mica and Delta played political games. Democrats are attempting a permanent reauthorization that has been blocked by Mica over union election rules. As Laura Clawson at Daily Kos noted: They want to revert to an old system of counting votes in union representation elections, in which instead of counting the votes actually cast, even workers who didn’t vote are counted—as having voted no, of course. Republicans are demanding this despite the fact that if congressional elections were held by this standard, there would be no one in the House of Representatives. Mica admitted that the FAA shutdown was a “tool” to get the rules on union elections pushed through. Delta is the leading proponent of the rules changes and has lobbied Congress furiously to get them passed. In the 2010 cycle alone, Mica recieved $170,000 in contributions to his campaign and leadership PAC from the air transport industry. The workers most affected by Mica’s antics are covered by the Association of Flight Attendants, an affiliate of the CWA. CWA has set up a petition to pressure Delta to do the right thing.
Continue reading …
Banking sector using economic turmoil to argue against regulatory change, says business secretary Vince Cable has accused bankers of using the economic turmoil in Europe to try to derail reform of the financial sector. The business secretary said that “louder and louder voices” were being raised among some of the big British banks giving warning that regulatory change in Britain would put the recovery at risk. The Independent Commission on Banking is expected to recommend separating banks’ retail operations from their investment arms when it reports on 12 September. There have been attacks on the proposals from the director general of the CBI, John Cridland, and British Bankers’ Association’s chief executive, Angela Knight. Cridland has said taking action to reform the banks now would be “barking mad” , while Knight warned imposing the measures on lenders risked denting confidence and cutting the supply of credit. However, Cable said in an interview with the Times that the fact that there were still fears about the collapse of big financial institutions was “all the more reason for grappling with this issue”. “It is disingenuous in the extreme to use the current context to argue against reform. Banks are in a way trying to create a panic around something which they know has got to happen,” he said. Cable has long favoured the separation of retail and investment banking. He added: “The governor of the Bank of England and many other people have been arguing that we have to deal with the ‘too big to fail’ problem. We can’t have big global banks with balance sheets bigger than British GDP underwritten by the taxpayer; this can’t go on and it has got to be dealt with.” The business secretary also said that he did not expect another 2008-style meltdown in the banking sector, but acknowledged that difficulties could still lie ahead for the British economy. “To my mind, the greater worry is not a massive financial crisis again but it is a general slowing down of western economies, with all the problems that presents for employment and long-term dynamism,” said Cable. In comments reported in the Financial Times, Cridland had said: “Taking action at this moment – this moment of growth peril, which weakens the ability of banks in Britain to provide the finance that businesses need to grow – is just to me barking mad.” He added that a perceived political need for action after banks were bailed out in 2008 was driving the scale and pace of reform, and warned that “there’s an own goal here about to be scored if we get this wrong”. Vince Cable Banking Market turmoil Economics Global economy Ben Quinn guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Banking sector using economic turmoil to argue against regulatory change, says business secretary Vince Cable has accused bankers of using the economic turmoil in Europe to try to derail reform of the financial sector. The business secretary said that “louder and louder voices” were being raised among some of the big British banks giving warning that regulatory change in Britain would put the recovery at risk. The Independent Commission on Banking is expected to recommend separating banks’ retail operations from their investment arms when it reports on 12 September. There have been attacks on the proposals from the director general of the CBI, John Cridland, and British Bankers’ Association’s chief executive, Angela Knight. Cridland has said taking action to reform the banks now would be “barking mad” , while Knight warned imposing the measures on lenders risked denting confidence and cutting the supply of credit. However, Cable said in an interview with the Times that the fact that there were still fears about the collapse of big financial institutions was “all the more reason for grappling with this issue”. “It is disingenuous in the extreme to use the current context to argue against reform. Banks are in a way trying to create a panic around something which they know has got to happen,” he said. Cable has long favoured the separation of retail and investment banking. He added: “The governor of the Bank of England and many other people have been arguing that we have to deal with the ‘too big to fail’ problem. We can’t have big global banks with balance sheets bigger than British GDP underwritten by the taxpayer; this can’t go on and it has got to be dealt with.” The business secretary also said that he did not expect another 2008-style meltdown in the banking sector, but acknowledged that difficulties could still lie ahead for the British economy. “To my mind, the greater worry is not a massive financial crisis again but it is a general slowing down of western economies, with all the problems that presents for employment and long-term dynamism,” said Cable. In comments reported in the Financial Times, Cridland had said: “Taking action at this moment – this moment of growth peril, which weakens the ability of banks in Britain to provide the finance that businesses need to grow – is just to me barking mad.” He added that a perceived political need for action after banks were bailed out in 2008 was driving the scale and pace of reform, and warned that “there’s an own goal here about to be scored if we get this wrong”. Vince Cable Banking Market turmoil Economics Global economy Ben Quinn guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Americans can be forgiven for assuming Michele Bachmann was deadly serious when she repeatedly joked this weekend that God was using an earthquake and hurricane to send a divine message to restrain federal spending. After all, Bachmann has not only proclaimed time and again that the Almighty called her to seek higher office ; in 2009, she joined an evangelical “prayercast” asking for divine intervention to halt health care reform. As it turns out, she has plenty of company among the Republican 2012 White House hopefuls. When it comes to policy foreign and domestic, from frontrunner Rick Perry on down the GOP field is offering the ultimate faith-based initiative. For years, the leading lights of the Party of Lincoln have been turning Honest Abe’s mantra (“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side”) on its head. But when it comes to making divine intervention the centerpiece of public policy, Texas Governor Rick Perry is hoping to be the chosen one. Before entering the GOP presidential race, Governor Perry tried in vain to end the drought in Texas by proclaiming “the three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas” and urged “Texans of all faiths and traditions to offer prayers on those days for the healing of our land, the rebuilding of our communities and the restoration of our normal way of life.” But while God didn’t hear Perry’s call, Perry heard His . As he explained last month before formally jumping into the GOP race: “I’m not ready to tell you that I’m ready to announce that I’m in. But I’m getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I’ve been called to do. This is what America needs.” If the Lord is calling on Rick Perry to lead the United States, Perry plans to call Him back when it’s time to actually run it. On August 6th in Houston, Governor Perry tunnelled under the wall separating church and state to lead The Response , an evangelical day of prayer and fasting seeking divine intervention for America. As Perry put it: “I sincerely hope you’ll join me in Houston on August 6th and take your place in Reliant Stadium with praying people asking God’s forgiveness, wisdom and provision for our state and nation. There is hope for America. It lies in heaven, and we will find it on our knees.” As Perry later explained, the solutions to America’s woes are above his pay grade : “I think it’s time for us to just hand it over to God and say, ‘God, You’re going to have to fix this.’” By “this,” Perry meant “financial debt, terrorism and a multitude of natural disasters.” And as he made clear during the August 6 gathering, God’s invisible hand was needed to calm a jittery stock market. As Politico reported: “Father, our heart breaks for America,” Perry said, leading the crowd at Reliant Stadium in prayer. “We see discord at home, we see fear in the marketplace, we see anger in the halls of government. And as a nation, we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us.” To which Michele Bachmann would doubtless reply, “Amen.” Long before Rick Perry started to sap her support among evangelical voters, the Congresswoman from Minnesota made clear understood their language ( if not American history ). The self-proclaimed ” fool for Christ ,” who in 2006 warned that ” we are in the End of Days ” and counseled “wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands,” has been also called on by God. As it turns out, more than once . In 2006, Bachmann announced that “God then called me to run for the United States Congress.” But after explaining that she needed “inner assurance” from the Lord before taking the presidential plunge, Bachmann confirmed to Iowa Public Television that she had received it from Him. “Well, every decision that I make I pray about as does my husband and I can tell you, yes, I’ve had that calling.” And Bachmann, who asked “that the Lord will give us a special anointing on how to put our team together,” has in turn called on Him to smite her political opponents. In December 2009, Bachmann joined an evangelical “prayercast” asking God to stop health care reform . “We deserve Your wrath,” Bachmann prayed and asked, “but would You yet give our nation mercy?” And in 2010, Bachmann proclaimed her vengeful God would really get his wrath on if the United States did not support Likud policy in Israel : At a Republican Jewish Coalition event in Los Angeles last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann offered a candid view of her positions on Israel: Support for Israel is handed down by God and if the United States pulls back its support, America will cease to exist… “I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States…[W]e have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play. And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly the verse from Genesis [Genesis 12:3], we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel.” Of course, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann have a lot of company among the Republican contenders claiming that God is in their amen corner. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum , who famously warned against the prospect of ” man-on-dog ” marriages, blamed liberal Boston for clergy sex abuse there and declared the American Left ” hates Christendom ,” explained that his 2012 presidential run is “about going on to the battlefield and defending God’s truth in the World.” He knows this, because God told him so : “It really boils down to God’s will. What is it that God wants? … We have prayed a lot about this decision, and we believe with all our hearts that this is what God wants.” Ditto for former pizza mogul Herman Cain . Cain, who would require special loyalty oaths for Muslim government officials and supports local bans on mosques , told a Tea Party event in April that the Lord wanted him to go from the pizza over into the fire: Cain told the crowd about his battle with cancer in 2006, saying he’s been “totally cancer free” for the past five years. “You want to know why? God said, ‘Not yet Herman,’” Cain told the crowd. “God said, ‘Not yet. I’ve got something else for you to do.’ And it might be to become the president of the United States of America.” While Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin have been no-shows for the 2012 race, they too pass the God Pledge twin tests with flying colors. While God apparently didn’t call Huckabee’s number for 2012, last time around the Arkansas Governor explained his early success by citing “the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people and that’s the only way that our campaign could be doing what it’s doing.” The hand of God wasn’t merely behind his strong performance in the 2008 primaries, Minister Huckabee insisted, but was responsible for other victories, too. As the Virginia Pilot recounted two years ago, the Almighty had helped the GOP battle Teh Gay: “The notion that we are just one of many among equals is nonsense,” Huckabee said. The United States is a “blessed” nation, he said, calling American revolutionaries’ defeat of the British empire “a miracle from God’s hand.” The same kind of miracle, he said, led California voters to approve Proposition 8, which overturned a state law legalizing same-sex marriages. Voters “did it because some things are right and some things are wrong and they had to make a stand.” As for the half-term Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin explained to the February 2010 Tea Party Convention that: “It would be wise of us to start seeking some divine intervention again in this country, so that we can be safe and secure and prosperous again.” And Palin, who asked Alaskans to pray for a natural gas pipeline, called the Iraq war “a task that is from God” and declared that her selection as John McCain’s running mate was ” God’s plan ,” believed that despite grim polling numbers He would be with her on Election Day 2008 : “To me, it motivates us, makes us work that much harder. And it also strengthens my faith, because I’m going to know, at the end of the day, putting this in God’s hands, that the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4. So I’m not discouraged at all.” God, it seems, wanted Barack Obama in the White House. For conservatives, the disappointments and ironies from Above were once again on display during the Hurricane Irene weekend just concluded. While New York Times columnist Ross Douthat chastised the religious right’s liberal critics for their renewed warnings about “American Theocracy,” his boss and editor Bill Keller suggested that the press needs to be “asking candidates tougher questions about faith.” Just days before the 2007 Iowa straw poll victor Michele Bachmann joked about the message from God contained in the earthquake that rocked the east coast, Pat Robertson made a similar point in all earnestness. As the 1987 GOP Iowa straw poll winner put it: “Ladies and gentlemen I don’t want to get weird on this so please take it for what it’s worth. But it seems to me the Washington Monument is a symbol of America’s power, it has been the symbol of our great nation, we look at that monument and say this is one nation under God. Now there’s a crack in it, there’s a crack in it and it’s closed up. Is that a sign from the Lord? Is that something that has significance or is it just result of an earthquake? You judge, but I just want to bring that to your attention. It seems to me symbolic. When Jesus was crucified and when he died the curtain in the Temple was rent from top to bottom and there was a tear and it was extremely symbolic, is this symbolic? You judge.” As the right-wing Daily Caller reported, one jihadist web site seemed to agree with Robertson’s assessment, calling the Northeast tremors “”Allah’s punishment on Americans”: “Allah has struck New York and the capital city Washington by an earthquake as a punishment for their disbelief… “If they don’t listen and don’t stop, Allah will strike them again by an earthquake or a hurricane. You have no other way but to repent and move away from your path that will take you to the abyss.” Meanwhile, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and most of the Republican presidential wannabes have yet to release the details of their plans to expand the economy, create jobs or just about anything else. But for all intents and purposes, the message at the heart of the 2012 Republican platform is already finished. Pray harder. (This piece also appears at Perrspectives .)
Continue reading …Americans can be forgiven for assuming Michele Bachmann was deadly serious when she repeatedly joked this weekend that God was using an earthquake and hurricane to send a divine message to restrain federal spending. After all, Bachmann has not only proclaimed time and again that the Almighty called her to seek higher office ; in 2009, she joined an evangelical “prayercast” asking for divine intervention to halt health care reform. As it turns out, she has plenty of company among the Republican 2012 White House hopefuls. When it comes to policy foreign and domestic, from frontrunner Rick Perry on down the GOP field is offering the ultimate faith-based initiative. For years, the leading lights of the Party of Lincoln have been turning Honest Abe’s mantra (“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side”) on its head. But when it comes to making divine intervention the centerpiece of public policy, Texas Governor Rick Perry is hoping to be the chosen one. Before entering the GOP presidential race, Governor Perry tried in vain to end the drought in Texas by proclaiming “the three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas” and urged “Texans of all faiths and traditions to offer prayers on those days for the healing of our land, the rebuilding of our communities and the restoration of our normal way of life.” But while God didn’t hear Perry’s call, Perry heard His . As he explained last month before formally jumping into the GOP race: “I’m not ready to tell you that I’m ready to announce that I’m in. But I’m getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I’ve been called to do. This is what America needs.” If the Lord is calling on Rick Perry to lead the United States, Perry plans to call Him back when it’s time to actually run it. On August 6th in Houston, Governor Perry tunnelled under the wall separating church and state to lead The Response , an evangelical day of prayer and fasting seeking divine intervention for America. As Perry put it: “I sincerely hope you’ll join me in Houston on August 6th and take your place in Reliant Stadium with praying people asking God’s forgiveness, wisdom and provision for our state and nation. There is hope for America. It lies in heaven, and we will find it on our knees.” As Perry later explained, the solutions to America’s woes are above his pay grade : “I think it’s time for us to just hand it over to God and say, ‘God, You’re going to have to fix this.’” By “this,” Perry meant “financial debt, terrorism and a multitude of natural disasters.” And as he made clear during the August 6 gathering, God’s invisible hand was needed to calm a jittery stock market. As Politico reported: “Father, our heart breaks for America,” Perry said, leading the crowd at Reliant Stadium in prayer. “We see discord at home, we see fear in the marketplace, we see anger in the halls of government. And as a nation, we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us.” To which Michele Bachmann would doubtless reply, “Amen.” Long before Rick Perry started to sap her support among evangelical voters, the Congresswoman from Minnesota made clear understood their language ( if not American history ). The self-proclaimed ” fool for Christ ,” who in 2006 warned that ” we are in the End of Days ” and counseled “wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands,” has been also called on by God. As it turns out, more than once . In 2006, Bachmann announced that “God then called me to run for the United States Congress.” But after explaining that she needed “inner assurance” from the Lord before taking the presidential plunge, Bachmann confirmed to Iowa Public Television that she had received it from Him. “Well, every decision that I make I pray about as does my husband and I can tell you, yes, I’ve had that calling.” And Bachmann, who asked “that the Lord will give us a special anointing on how to put our team together,” has in turn called on Him to smite her political opponents. In December 2009, Bachmann joined an evangelical “prayercast” asking God to stop health care reform . “We deserve Your wrath,” Bachmann prayed and asked, “but would You yet give our nation mercy?” And in 2010, Bachmann proclaimed her vengeful God would really get his wrath on if the United States did not support Likud policy in Israel : At a Republican Jewish Coalition event in Los Angeles last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann offered a candid view of her positions on Israel: Support for Israel is handed down by God and if the United States pulls back its support, America will cease to exist… “I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States…[W]e have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play. And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly the verse from Genesis [Genesis 12:3], we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel.” Of course, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann have a lot of company among the Republican contenders claiming that God is in their amen corner. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum , who famously warned against the prospect of ” man-on-dog ” marriages, blamed liberal Boston for clergy sex abuse there and declared the American Left ” hates Christendom ,” explained that his 2012 presidential run is “about going on to the battlefield and defending God’s truth in the World.” He knows this, because God told him so : “It really boils down to God’s will. What is it that God wants? … We have prayed a lot about this decision, and we believe with all our hearts that this is what God wants.” Ditto for former pizza mogul Herman Cain . Cain, who would require special loyalty oaths for Muslim government officials and supports local bans on mosques , told a Tea Party event in April that the Lord wanted him to go from the pizza over into the fire: Cain told the crowd about his battle with cancer in 2006, saying he’s been “totally cancer free” for the past five years. “You want to know why? God said, ‘Not yet Herman,’” Cain told the crowd. “God said, ‘Not yet. I’ve got something else for you to do.’ And it might be to become the president of the United States of America.” While Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin have been no-shows for the 2012 race, they too pass the God Pledge twin tests with flying colors. While God apparently didn’t call Huckabee’s number for 2012, last time around the Arkansas Governor explained his early success by citing “the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people and that’s the only way that our campaign could be doing what it’s doing.” The hand of God wasn’t merely behind his strong performance in the 2008 primaries, Minister Huckabee insisted, but was responsible for other victories, too. As the Virginia Pilot recounted two years ago, the Almighty had helped the GOP battle Teh Gay: “The notion that we are just one of many among equals is nonsense,” Huckabee said. The United States is a “blessed” nation, he said, calling American revolutionaries’ defeat of the British empire “a miracle from God’s hand.” The same kind of miracle, he said, led California voters to approve Proposition 8, which overturned a state law legalizing same-sex marriages. Voters “did it because some things are right and some things are wrong and they had to make a stand.” As for the half-term Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin explained to the February 2010 Tea Party Convention that: “It would be wise of us to start seeking some divine intervention again in this country, so that we can be safe and secure and prosperous again.” And Palin, who asked Alaskans to pray for a natural gas pipeline, called the Iraq war “a task that is from God” and declared that her selection as John McCain’s running mate was ” God’s plan ,” believed that despite grim polling numbers He would be with her on Election Day 2008 : “To me, it motivates us, makes us work that much harder. And it also strengthens my faith, because I’m going to know, at the end of the day, putting this in God’s hands, that the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4. So I’m not discouraged at all.” God, it seems, wanted Barack Obama in the White House. For conservatives, the disappointments and ironies from Above were once again on display during the Hurricane Irene weekend just concluded. While New York Times columnist Ross Douthat chastised the religious right’s liberal critics for their renewed warnings about “American Theocracy,” his boss and editor Bill Keller suggested that the press needs to be “asking candidates tougher questions about faith.” Just days before the 2007 Iowa straw poll victor Michele Bachmann joked about the message from God contained in the earthquake that rocked the east coast, Pat Robertson made a similar point in all earnestness. As the 1987 GOP Iowa straw poll winner put it: “Ladies and gentlemen I don’t want to get weird on this so please take it for what it’s worth. But it seems to me the Washington Monument is a symbol of America’s power, it has been the symbol of our great nation, we look at that monument and say this is one nation under God. Now there’s a crack in it, there’s a crack in it and it’s closed up. Is that a sign from the Lord? Is that something that has significance or is it just result of an earthquake? You judge, but I just want to bring that to your attention. It seems to me symbolic. When Jesus was crucified and when he died the curtain in the Temple was rent from top to bottom and there was a tear and it was extremely symbolic, is this symbolic? You judge.” As the right-wing Daily Caller reported, one jihadist web site seemed to agree with Robertson’s assessment, calling the Northeast tremors “”Allah’s punishment on Americans”: “Allah has struck New York and the capital city Washington by an earthquake as a punishment for their disbelief… “If they don’t listen and don’t stop, Allah will strike them again by an earthquake or a hurricane. You have no other way but to repent and move away from your path that will take you to the abyss.” Meanwhile, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and most of the Republican presidential wannabes have yet to release the details of their plans to expand the economy, create jobs or just about anything else. But for all intents and purposes, the message at the heart of the 2012 Republican platform is already finished. Pray harder. (This piece also appears at Perrspectives .)
Continue reading …
On Tuesday's Morning Edition, NPR's Julie Rovner promoted the supposed benefits of ObamaCare, and played up a recent poll which found that ” about a third of those without health insurance think the law will help them , and that's because only about half know that it includes key provisions that will make insurance more available and affordable .” The sole source for the correspondent's report was an August 2011 tracking poll conducted by the liberal Kaiser Family Foundation. Rovner played three sound bites from Drew Altman, who works for the foundation, and none from opponents of ObamaCare. In his first clip, Altman highlighted how a majority of people surveyed for the poll agree that “it [ObamaCare] really does help the uninsured. Thirty-two million uninsured people will get coverage .” After noting that according to the poll, “only about half know that it includes key provisions that will make insurance more available and affordable,” the NPR journalist played a second sound bite from Altman, who attributed the low numbers to the opponents of the liberal legislation, and added that it could also be explained by the fact that the law hasn't fully gone into effect yet: ROVNER: One conclusion, he [Altman] says, is that the law's supporters have let opponents define the law on their terms . ALTMAN: That's why it became, in the minds of many, a government takeover . ROVNER: But Altman thinks there's something else. The uninsured, like everyone else outside of Washington, have so far experienced the health law as little more than a political debate. One detail from the poll that both Rovner and Altman omitted during the segment is how more people are opposed to ObamaCare (44%) than support it (39%), and that “six in ten Democrats have a favorable view of the law ( the lowest support among Democrats since the law's passage ).” The NPR correspondent has consistently given biased coverage on health care issues. In March 2011, Rovner played up the “benefits” of ObamaCare . The following month, she slanted towards proponents of federal funding of contraceptives. Just over a month ago, the journalist spun the debate over a propose mandate for private insurance companies to cover birth control as being between “women's health groups” and “conservatives.” The full transcript of Julie Rovner's report from Tuesday's Morning Edition: STEVE INSKEEP: And now let's look at a new study of the government's health overhaul. NPR's Julie Rovner reports that many of the people most likely to be helped by it don't know it. JULIE ROVNER: When it comes to last year's huge health law, there's not much that people agree on, but there is one thing, says Drew Altman of the Kaiser Family Foundation. DREW ALTMAN, KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION: And that's that it really does help the uninsured. Thirty-two million uninsured people will get coverage. ROVNER: But the latest monthly tracking poll by Altman's foundation finds that only about a third of those without health insurance think the law will help them, and that's because only about half know that it includes key provisions that will make insurance more available and affordable- things like new tax credits and a huge expansion of the Medicaid program for able-bodied adults. One conclusion, he says, is that the law's supporters have let opponents define the law on their terms. ALTMAN: That's why it became, in the minds of many, a government takeover. ROVNER: But Altman thinks there's something else. The uninsured, like everyone else outside of Washington, have so far experienced the health law as little more than a political debate. ALTMAN: And what it means is this will be real for people when it's real, which is mostly in 2014. ROVNER: Because that's when most of the new benefits for those without insurance take effect. Until then, the law is just so many words on paper, and so much political hot air. Julie Rovner, NPR News, Washington.
Continue reading …