Rep. Franks' bill passed the U.S. House 228 to 196.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-votes-to-ban-abortion-after-20-weeks/2013/06/18/c14e9c48-d835-11e2-9df4-895344c13c30_story.html

Oddly enough, the first thing which jumped to mind when I read this was the incident from 2012 when Jason Thompson (Tommy Thompson's adult son) was twice caught on camera at Republican events saying, "We have the opportunity to send President Obama back to Chicago -- or Kenya!"

I won't blame Sen. Flake for his bigoted teenage son's behavior, but these incidents are a contributing factor as to why most minorities are alienated from the GOP.  Too often you pull back the Republican curtain and find something like this.

[1] Gass3268
[2] Superique
[3] Jerryarkansas

1.  Fuzzybigfoot
2.  drj101
3.  Seatown
4.  Xahar

The House Abortion bill has been revised to include an exception for rape and incest:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/14/house-abortion-bill_n_3443744.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

Funny how the Republican leadership did this in the wake of Franks rape/abortion comment.  Perhaps they felt something was wrong with it after all.  Or perhaps it was just too much on top of the spectacle of Sens. Jeff Sessions and Saxby Chambliss saying that "sexually explicit magazines" and the "hormone level" of young people were causes of rapes in the military. 

The GOP seems incapable of following its own memo or perhaps it just doesn't care that it lost women voters 55%-44%.  These are the actions of people who are not serious about governing the entire country.  Do Republican leaders really think an abortion ban is how they will "rebrand" themselves with women voters?  But if y'all want to blame a "made up war" on women for your own performance, be my guest. 

Once again it looks like House Republicans did not get the memo.

Rep. Franks bill which bans abortions after 20 weeks and his insensitive comments are a kind of companion to the recent House vote to defund the President's DREAM Act-like executive order (a measure sponsored by the racist Steve King).  The GOP tries to pretend it is friendly to women, minorities and immigrants, but the party's actual track record reveals this front for what it is.

Unfortunately, House Republicans probably won't face serious consequences.  But their Senate and Presidential candidate counterparts (who must appeal to a broader electorate) have not been so lucky in the past.  I don't think they'll be lucky in the future either.

As Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. was struggling with how to cast the decisive vote in a 1986 Supreme Court case that would end up devastating the gay rights movement, he told his fellow justices that he had never met a homosexual.

In truth, one of his four law clerks that term was gay.

The atmosphere at the court today is far different from 1986, with a pace of change that may have surpassed that in the rest of society. Openly gay law clerks are now common in the chambers of both liberal and conservative justices.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/us/exhibit-a-for-a-major-shift-justices-gay-clerks.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

It's about time, the battle over Plan B has been going on since 2005.

If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee I'd say there is about a 40% chance she would outperform assuming a fairly neutral political environment.  Granted her youth and minority turnout levels might not be as good as Obama's, but do we really need to guess if women would turn out in record numbers to vote for Hillary as the first female president?  They might not for just any woman candidate but for her I believe they would.

If the Democratic nominee is someone else I don't think they would outperform Obama.

No Deal.  I care too much about future appointments to the Supreme Court itself, not to mention the lower federal courts, to accept this.

Michelle is in good company because I remember Hillary also being called Lady Macbeth by the lunatic right during the 1990s.  Funny how history repeats itself.

The Democratic Party today is more unified than I have ever seen it.  Certainly moreso then when I was growing up in the 1990s.  And there is nothing on the horizon as nearly as divisive as Iraq.

A source of tension I see --

The Democratic Party has traditionally been the defenders of Medicare and Social Security.  But older voters are usually not voting for Democrats these days.  Already we have begun to see the effects of this in Obama's support for chained CPI.

I actually think a major strength of a Clinton nomination is that it would almost certainly guarantee a unified, energized Democratic coalition that can still appeal to moderates.  The notion we are going to win right-wing votes is foolish.

[Upscale social liberals in the Northeast and Pacific Coast are so well off that they are basically recession-proof]

from Jay Cost, now he does have some right wing hackishness to him but what do you think of this quote?:

"The Democratic coalition is bound to have trouble doing what is necessary to grow the economy. The party of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s was a party of farmers and industrial laborers who depended on private-sector economic growth, so the Democrats of that era focused their efforts accordingly. But today’s Democratic party has many powerful constituents within it who are isolated from the ebbs and flows of the private economy. Upscale social liberals in the Northeast and Pacific Coast are so well off that they are basically recession-proof. And, what’s more, the position of the farmer-industrial working class has been usurped by unionized government workers and far-left gray-collar labor unions like the SEIU, which are more interested in expanding government than the economy."

One of my questions is, what happens when half the country becomes insulated from the private economy? Will it make recession that much harder to get into?

Cost has no damn clue how hard the West Coast was hit by The Great Recession.  Those of us who live there know better.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-gop-rejects-deportation-deferrals-20130606,0,5055504.story

Looks like House Republicans did not get the memo.  This is what happens when so many in the party represent custom drawn, conservative cocoons.  Are they actually trying to follow Phyllis Schlafly's advice? 

Actually the potential 2016 GOP bench looks pretty good, certainly better than their field in 2012 which was the worst I have seen in my life.  We'll see who actually runs.

Your "analysis" of the 2016 Democratic Primary field cannot be taken seriously.  We are not looking for Republican advice on who we should nominate.  But if Clinton runs and age and Benghazi are the best attacks your side can come up with, Republicans are in for a long 2016 campaign.

Obama defeated Romney among self-identified moderates by a whopping 56%-41%.  And has been widely noted, Obama ran up huge margins among Latinos (71%) and Asians (73%), two of the fastest growing demographics.  Is Saint Rubio going to save Republicans now that he is waffling on his own immigration bill?

If the information in the AP story is accurate, then (as an Asian myself) I find the Arizona law discriminatory and offensive.  How convenient that this anti-abortion law justifies itself by portraying Asians and African-Americans in a bad light.  It doesn't take a genius to see who the GOP was throwing red meat to with this bill.

I also agree with others here that the title in the OP is highly misleading.

 

But Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and other Republicans are pushing legislation that would eliminate those seats and keep the court where it is: with eight judges, four of whom were appointed by Democrats and four of whom were appointed by Republicans.

It's quite bizarre for Grassley to claim the President is "court packing" when Grassley is the one trying to make changes to the allocation of judicial seats.

If the GOP won't budge on the nominations, I fully support the nuclear option.  They have been obstructing Obama's appointments for far too long.

I originally thought that the VA Governor's race was a pure tossup due to both candidates being badly flawed, but now I'd have to give a slight edge to McAuliffe.  Cuccinelli, Jackson and Obenshain have a collective history on women's rights which I think is going to be a big problem.  It should not be difficult for us to tie them together.

[including those of the State Department]

They're summaries of the emails rather than the emails themselves, but the basic narrative they presented still stands.

The narrative the summaries present is inaccurate and misleading.  And a difference of a few words makes a big difference in the journalism business when quotes are involved.  The "summaries" provided by the source say the White House wanted the concerns of the State Department specifically addressed.  

We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.

The actual email does not mention the State Department:

Sorry to be late to this discussion. We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.

“There is a ton of wrong information getting out into the public domain from Congress and people who are not particularly informed. Insofar as we have firmed up assessments that don’t compromise intel or the investigation, we need to have the capability to correct the record, as there are significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression.

It would be interesting to know who provided this bad information.

Jonathan Karl:

Clearly, I regret the email was quoted incorrectly and I regret that it’s become a distraction from the story, which still entirely stands. I should have been clearer about the attribution.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/20/185544994/abcs-karl-expresses-regret-but-stands-by-benghazi-story

Lol, Jonathan Karl should be forced to wear a dunce cap and a t-shirt reading "I got played."  How can he stand by his story when the linchpin piece of evidence he was using is false?  This whole incident does not reflect well on ABC.

Karl has not revealed his source for this bad information.  Going the Judith Miller route, eh? 

Franken has been a good senator and I would vote for him in a general election.  That said, I would have serious concerns about his electability in a national race.

Unlike Ronald Reagan's rather bland past in the entertainment industry, Franken's was filled with a lot of pointed, biting social/political commentary and satire.  Many of the controversies of his Senate campaign would come flaming back in a national race and probably new ones.  He'd be a opposition researcher's dream.

I'm having trouble seeing Franken as a commander-in-chief.  Part of this is just an image problem which possibly could be overcome, but he does not sit on any Senate Committees which are relevant to that aspect of the President's job.  In contrast, Barack Obama sat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Hillary Clinton was on the Armed Services Committee.

I fear jfern may be correct that Franken is too (outspokenly) liberal to win.  Surely the media would accuse us of returning to our George McGovern/Jesse Jackson/Michael Dukakis roots.  She's a little less liberal, but I suspect Amy Klobuchar would be a stronger general election candidate.

We need to have some folks who strongly represent the base but the downside is that they are not necessarily well suited for a national race.

An independent, nonpartisan investigation has already been done on Benghazi by the Accountability Review Board led by Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired Admiral Mike Mullen.  This report found serious problems at State but did not put direct blame on either Clinton or Obama.  Congressional Republicans (led by Rep. Issa) and their media mouthpieces have tried to discredit the independent report and continue to throw inflammatory attacks at the President and former Secretary of State.  Issa is now feuding with Pickering and Mullen, which is telling.

http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/16/first-on-cnn-pickering-mullen-challenge-issa-to-let-them-testify-in-public/

[Tell me again who is making this political...]

As has been said, this is far from proving that the GOP edited the e-mails. Wrong information from a bad source is more likely but if someone intentionally edited the e-mails, I'm obviously not going to defend them. I'd want them punished. Seems like certain people are more interested in throwing around attacks and seeing what will stick so this will just go away. Tell me again who is making this political...

Screenshot of the NRCC Benghazi fundraising web page:




https://www.nrcc.org/BenghaziCoverUp-contribute/?utm_source=boltonutm_medium=listrentalutm_campaign=BenghaziCoverupFollowUp_listrental_bolton_CIM_20130509_d_v1

Given how prone the right-wing base is to nutty conspiracy theories, I'd prefer we not do the same unless clear evidence emerges.  This story alone does not convince me.

[I bet that if all three of these were happening to a Republican administration, every Democrat on this forum would be chanting "death to the GOP". Instead, since it's a Democratic administration, every Democrat is shrugging it off as no big deal.]

I bet that if all three of these were happening to a Republican administration, every Democrat on this forum would be chanting "death to the GOP".  Instead, since it's a Democratic administration, every Democrat is shrugging it off as no big deal.

In fact, people are acting like it's acceptable and encouraged to target a group based on political ideology.  There was indeed a crime committed and heads should roll and the very people who targeted conservative groups because they are conservative should be thrown into the slammer.

This false equivalency is not accurate.  Not every Democrat considers the IRS story "no big deal."  It would be fairer to say there is a diversity of opinion on this matter.

Now, if we are talking Benghazi, then yes, that investigation is crap and a GOP fishing expedition/witch hunt.  I think there is a wide consensus on our side about it.