Alabama

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News/Politics 2-10-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. So they won’t meet with Israel’s leader, and refuse to attend his speech to Congress, but they’ll go to Germany to meet with his opposition……

From IsraelToday  “Is the Obama Administration interfering in Israel’s upcoming elections? Recent statements and moves by America’s leaders sure would seem to suggest so.

Last week, both Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry announced they would not be in attendance when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of the US Senate dedicated to the threat of a nuclear Iran.

The White House has been furious with Netanyahu over the planned appearance, which Obama officials insist had breached protocol by being organized without their approval and involvement.

Just days after letting everyone know they wouldn’t be on hand to greet and listen to Netanyahu, both Biden and Kerry met with Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, Germany on Saturday. And this just a month before Israel’s March 17 elections.”

“In Herzog’s own description to Channel 10 News, the episode represents “a complete boycott [of Netanyahu]. Even if that’s not stated, that’s the story.””

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2. So Bibi’s reaction is as you’d expect.

From FoxNews  “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will travel to Washington to speak before the U.S. Congress next month despite calls to cancel his speech.

His remarks Monday at an election rally come amid an uproar over his planned speech about Iran before Congress next month.

Netanyahu said: “A bad deal with Iran is forming in Munich that will endanger Israel’s existence. … Therefore I am determined to go to Washington and present Israel’s position before the members of Congress and the American people.””

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3. A little judicial defiance in Alabama. Good. Let’s see how the federal judge enforces his ruling, or if he even can.

From TheWashingtonPost  “On the day that same-sex unions became legal in Alabama, local officials in dozens of counties on Monday defied a federal judge’s decision and refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, casting the state into judicial chaos.

Gay couples were able to get licenses in about a dozen places, including Birmingham, Huntsville and a few other counties where probate judges complied with the judge’s decision. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled early Monday that it would deny Alabama’s request to put the marriages on hold.

But in the majority of counties, officials said they would refuse to license same-sex marriages or stop providing licenses altogether, confronting couples — gay and heterosexual — with locked doors and shuttered windows.

Many of the state’s 68 probate judges mounted their resistance to the federal decision at the urging of the firebrand chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore. He is best known for refusing more than a decade ago to comply with a court order to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments from the state Supreme Court’s offices.”

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4. Justice Thomas is pretty ticked off about the way this is playing out.

From AP/MyWayNews  “The Supreme Court is inappropriately signaling it intends to clear the way for gay marriage across the nation, Justice Clarence Thomas complained Monday in a stinging dissent to the court’s refusal to block the start of same-sex marriages in Alabama.

Bitterly objecting to Monday’s action, Thomas provided a rare insider’s perspective on the widely held view that the court’s embrace of gay marriage is a done deal.

Thomas filed a dissenting opinion after his colleagues rejected Alabama’s plea to put a hold on same-sex marriages in the state until the Supreme Court resolves the issue nationwide in a few months.

He criticized his fellow justices for looking “the other way as yet another federal district judge casts aside state laws,” rather than following the customary course of leaving those laws in place until the court answers an important constitutional question.”

“”This acquiescence may well be seen as a signal of the court’s intended resolution of that question,” Thomas wrote in an opinion that was joined by Justice Antonin Scalia. “This is not the proper way” for the court to carry out its role under the Constitution, he wrote, “and, it is indecorous for this court to pretend that it is.””

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5. Welcome to the club Ben. Personally, I’d consider it an honor to make the list for the reasons he did. 🙂

From LegalInsurrection  “The Southern Poverty Law Center ceased long ago to be a neutral source of information.

As we have documented over the past years, SPLC has used the credibility it earned decades ago fighting the Klan to turn itself not only into a huge money-raising machine, but also to poison the political process:”

“Yesterday I noticed a name I was surprised to see on the list: Ben Carson, listed as “anti-LGBT.””

“If you read through the SPLC explanation, it boils down to Carson strongly supporting traditional marriage, and speaking in front of other groups that SPLC does not approve of.  The SPLC narrative is highly political.”

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News/Politics 4-11-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open thread, as always.

This morning these first few are links with a brief description.

Sebelius Resigns- NYTimes

House Votes Lerner In Contempt- CNN

Deportations Cut In Half Under Obama- WashingtonExaminer

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Now these I’ll spend a little more time on.

1. Like Bob said yesterday, suckin’ the air right out.

From WashingtonExaminer  “How big is ObamaCare in this year’s midterms? More than 80 percent of respondents in a new poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for USA Today said that a candidate’s stance on the troubled health law is important to them, with 54 percent saying it is “very important.” The worst news for Democrats is that among the majority of registered voters who said the law was “very important,” there were twice as many opponents as there were supporters. Overall, support for the signature Obama initiative, which pairs expanded welfare and entitlement programs with far-reaching regulations on health insurance, fell to 37 percent. That’s the lowest level since the summer after the law was passed in 2010 when incumbents’ town halls across the country erupted with ObamaCare outrage. The takeaway: The electoral climate this year is defined by ObamaCare and the forecast is getting worse for Democrats.”

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2. The number of believers in China is rising, and the govt. has taken notice.

From TheTelegraph  “Communist officials in China have denied waging a “demolition campaign” against churches in the country’s most Christian regions, after reportedly ordering a dozen to be destroyed.

The churches – in the eastern province of Zhejiang – are currently facing demolition or having their crosses removed, activists claim. Other churches are said to have been ordered to make themselves “less conspicuous” by turning their lights off at night.

Local preachers accuse Party officials in Zhejiang, a wealthy coastal province, of “gross interference” in Church affairs and have urged them to abandon what they believe is an orchestrated campaign.”

“However, in a recent speech the provincial official in charge of religious affairs hinted at Communist Party discomfort at how fast congregations were growing in what is already considered China’s most Christian region. More than one million of Wenzhou’s nine million residents are thought to be practicing Protestants, according to some estimates.”

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3. This one makes me smile. 🙂

From ABC33/40  “A statement made on the floor of the state house last month in Montgomery got a loud reply this afternoon from angry parents.

State representative Alvin Holmes (D) Montgomery, said republican lawmakers would support abortion if their daughters became pregnant by black men. Holmes later said he would offer $100,000 cash to anyone who could show “a whole bunch of whites” have adopted black children in Alabama.

Today at the state house, white parents who adopted mixed race or minority children said it’s time for Holmes to ‘pay up.'”

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