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FOCUS | Mitt Romney's Test of Moral Fiber |
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Monday, 09 January 2012 12:55 |
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Kennedy writes: "As Governor Mitt Romney grapples with his Party's national banner, the test of his moral fiber will be the vigor with which he resists the dark impulse of ignorance, greed, vitriol, demagoguery and division, and how robustly he safeguards America's interest in a strong and independent democracy. Will Romney lead the GOP with the brand of decency that is his heritage, or will he choose instead, to outsource indecency and mudslinging to surrogates and Super PACs?"
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (photo: Santa Clara University)
Mitt Romney's Test of Moral Fiber
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Reader Supported News
09 January 12
 was surprised when Mitt Romney's son, Matt, resuscitated the "birther" issue in New Hampshire on December 29. Speaking at a campaign event, the young Romney deflected a question about his father's refusal to release his income tax return by citing a proposal that President Barack Obama should first release his own birth certificate. Mr. Romney, who has since retracted his statement, apparently did not realize that, at White House urging, the state of Hawaii released the president's long form birth certificate on April 25, 2011.
The White House deemed that action necessary to quiet a noisy debate that was distracting the country and damaging the national interest. The basis of the tempest was the Constitution's Article II Section 1, which seems to prohibit anyone except "naturalized American citizens" born in the USA from serving as president. A small group of conspiracy crackpots, theorizing that the president was lying about having been born in Hawaii, found a bullhorn for their quackery on Fox News and hate radio. Like milk on a hot stove, the bizarre obsession of a lunatic fringe suddenly grew to envelop even the rational remnants of the Republican Party, drowning sane discourse on vital issues of public import. It was apparent from the outset that the topic's steroidal appeal was its dog whistle usefulness in highlighting the "otherness" of America's first African American president; there was no appetite among these conservative cohorts for applying the Article II Section 1 prohibition against the GOP's 2008 candidate, John McCain, a white man born in Panama.
Mr. Romney's initial choice to stir life back into the issue raised consistency questions peculiar to the Romney clan. Mitt's father - Governor George Romney of Michigan - was driven to distraction by his own "birther" movement when he ran in the Republican presidential primaries of 1968. Supporters of his opponent, Richard Nixon, argued that George Romney's presidency would be unconstitutional because Romney had been born in Mexico where his grandfather and five wives had fled to evade America's polygamy laws.
On a more salient point with relevance to the current campaign, the 1787 Constitutional Convention included the Article II Section 1 prohibition due to the prevailing fear that a foreign power might otherwise gain undue influence over America's democracy. Ironically, the greatest threat of that outcome today comes from those Super PACs which Romney's allies and campaign staffers have pioneered in Iowa. Arguably, Super PACs now pose the most menacing platform for foreign and private interests to gain an alarming hold on the White House. Under the current Supreme Court holding in Citizens United v. FEC, there is nothing to stop foreign governments or foreign owned corporations from secretly donating hundreds of millions of dollars to Super PACs enabling them to pick favored candidates and destroy their opponents.
Prior to his withdrawal from the presidential contest on February 28, 1968, George Romney ran an extraordinarily honest, thoughtful and honorable campaign. The senior Romney, a former Chairman and CEO of American Motors Corporation, criticized the military industrial complex for lying to Americans about Vietnam and mocked the products of Detroit's Big Three as "gas guzzling dinosaurs." He was a vocal advocate of Civil Rights and anti-poverty legislation. He supported strong unions as the launching pad for America's middle class and criticized conservative palaver about "rugged individualism," unrestricted free markets, and wholesale corporate deregulation as "nothing but a political banner to cover up greed." Romney, a Mormon bishop, refused to work on Sundays (with rare exception), fasted before big decisions, spurned dirty campaigning and other appeals to the dark forces of ignorance, greed, racism and division.
As Governor Mitt Romney grapples with his Party's national banner, the test of his moral fiber will be the vigor with which he resists the dark impulse of ignorance, greed, vitriol, demagoguery and division, and how robustly he safeguards America's interest in a strong and independent democracy. Will Romney lead the GOP with the brand of decency that is his heritage, or will he choose instead, to outsource indecency and mudslinging to surrogates and Super PACs?
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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Grow Up, Ron Paul |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=7118"><span class="small">Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News</span></a>
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Monday, 09 January 2012 09:48 |
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Excerpt: "Libertarian views of government regulation are very similar to how a 6-year-old views the authority exerted by their parents. Ron Paul's every-individual-for-themselves rhetoric appeals to young, radical libertarians with simplistic views of authority, and an ignorance of why government exists in the first place."
Texas Congressman Ron Paul speaks during his announcement of an exploratory committee in Des Moines, Iowa, 04/26/11. (photo: Reuters)
Grow Up, Ron Paul
Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News
09 January 12
Reader Supported News | Perspective
 ike most other little kids, all I wanted to do was eat junk food, play video games, and goof around with my friends. I didn't like being made to go to school, going to bed at 9 PM, eating vegetables, doing homework after school, or taking out the garbage. And like most other little kids who don't like abiding by the rules of their parents, I sometimes fantasized about what it would be like to run away from home. But when I packed my backpack full of clothes and individually-wrapped packs of peanut butter crackers from the pantry, I could never go through with my plan. I knew if I ran away I'd be hungry, cold, lost, and eventually, found by the police and returned home.
Libertarian views of government regulation are very similar to how a 6-year-old views the authority exerted by their parents. Ron Paul's every-individual-for-themselves rhetoric appeals to young, radical libertarians with simplistic views of authority, and an ignorance of why government exists in the first place.
In Ron Paul's ideal America, safety regulations imposed on employers by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would be a thing of the past. Clean air and water regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency would be no more. Taxpayers would save money, since Ron Paul would abolish the Department of Education and cut the Food and Drug Administration's budget by 40%. Employers would save money by paying workers as little as they wish, since Ron Paul would abolish the Davis-Bacon Act. Corporate giants would be free to monopolize markets, since Ron Paul opposes federal anti-trust legislation. And employees would no longer be required to pay into Social Security.
So what would this libertarian utopia look like, if Ron Paul were elected and followed through on his campaign promises?
- Families grieving for loved ones lost due to Massey Energy's negligence in the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion would have to accept that their relatives were casualties of the invisible hand of the unfettered free market. And Massey would get off scot-free for polluting Martin County, Kentucky's drinking water supply with 300 million gallons of coal slurry.
- Millions of college students dependent on Pell grants would be forced to move back home and work minimum-wage jobs, no longer financially able to further their education. Oh wait - what minimum wage?
- Food recalls would be a regular occurrence when tainted meat and vegetables hit supermarket shelves and caused record outbreaks of e-coli. And risky new drugs would avoid FDA tests and hit the express lane to the pharmacy, endangering the health of millions.
- Too-big-to-fail banks like Wells Fargo, Citi, Chase and Bank of America would be allowed to merge and/or buy out their competitors, as would oil giants like ExxonMobil and Chevron, and cellphone service-providers like AT&T and Verizon.
- The Social Security trust fund would become insolvent, making retirement that much harder for those who paid into it all their lives.
Ron Paul and his right-libertarian ideology does espouse a new kind of freedom, just as rebellious children who fantasize about running away from home dream of a new kind of freedom. But, as much as we may have rebelled against our parents as little kids, we eventually matured and realized that the rules and regulations our parents imposed on us were meant so we'd grow up to be responsible, functioning adults in society.
An unregulated little kid free to eat junk food and play video games all day won't ever learn the responsibilities of adulthood. And an unregulated society where every individual is out for themselves will quickly collapse.
Carl Gibson, 24, of Lexington, Kentucky, is a spokesman and organizer for US Uncut, a nonviolent, creative direct-action movement to stop budget cuts by getting corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. He graduated from Morehead State University in 2009 with a B.A. in Journalism before starting the first US Uncut group in Jackson, Mississippi, in February of 2011. Since then, over 20,000 US Uncut activists have carried out more than 300 actions in over 100 cities nationwide. You may contact Carl at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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Rick Santorum's Moral Delusions |
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Sunday, 08 January 2012 15:34 |
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Chapman writes: "Why is Rick Santorum running for president? Because America is in trouble and he knows why. Faith and family are under attack. 'Moral relativism' he warns, is breeding 'aberrant behavior.' Gay rights advocates are bent on 'secularization.' Liberals have brought about a 'decaying culture.'"
Rick Santorum, during a Republican presidential candidates' debate, 1/8/12. (photo: Reuters)
Rick Santorum's Moral Delusions
By Steve Chapman, The Chicago Tribune
08 January 12
Where's the evidence of a 'decaying culture'?
 hy is Rick Santorum running for president? Because America is in trouble and he knows why.
Faith and family are under attack. "Moral relativism," he warns, is breeding "aberrant behavior." Gay rights advocates are bent on "secularization." Liberals have brought about a "decaying culture."
Santorum insists that gay marriage will destroy the family, "the very foundation of our country." Lamenting the scandal of pedophile priests, he wrote in a Catholic publication: "When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."
It's a familiar line of argument among religious conservatives, and it has the virtues of clarity, simplicity and plausibility. But there is one notable weakness in his case: a mass of evidence that amounts to a thunderous refutation.
Santorum takes it for granted that religious belief, at least of the Christian variety, is a powerful force for moral behavior. That's not apparent from looking at this country.
He thinks America has been on a downhill slide for many years, thanks to feminism, gay rights, pornography and other vile intruders. But where is the evidence that the developments cited by Santorum are producing harmful side effects?
In the past couple of decades, most indicators of moral and social health have gotten better, not worse. Crime has plummeted. Teen pregnancy has declined by 39 percent. Abortion rates among adolescents are less than half of what they were.
The incidence of divorce is down. As of 2007, 48 percent of high school students had engaged in sex, compared to 54 percent in 1991. What decaying culture is he talking about?
It sounds obvious that when people practice a religion that preaches strong morality and responsible conduct, they will behave better than people who follow their own inclinations. But what is obvious is not always true.
America is a good place to judge the value of faith in promoting virtue. There is a great deal of variation among the 50 states in religious observance - and a great deal of variation in social ills. It turns out that religiosity does not translate into good behavior, and disregard for religion does not go hand-in-hand with vice. Quite the contrary.
Consider homicide, which is not only socially harmful but a violation of one of the Ten Commandments. Mississippi has the highest rate of church attendance in America, according to a Gallup survey, with 63 percent of people saying they go to church "weekly or almost weekly." But Mississippians are far more likely to be murdered than other Americans.
On the other hand, we have Vermont, where people are the most likely to skip church. Its murder rate is only about one-fourth as high as the rest of the country. New Hampshire, the second-least religious state, has the lowest murder rate.
These are no flukes. Of the 10 states with the most worshippers, all but one have higher than average homicide rates. Of the 11 states with the lowest church attendance, by contrast, 10 have low homicide rates.
Teen pregnancy also tends to follow a course precisely the opposite of what Santorum preaches. Almost every one of the most religious states suffers from more teen pregnancy than the norm - while the least religious ones enjoy less.
What impact does gay marriage have on how kids handle sex? Massachusetts, the first state to legalize it, has less teen pregnancy than the country as a whole. Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire and Vermont, which have also sanctioned same-sex unions, are also far better than average.
Does gay marriage undermine the health and stability of heterosexual marriage? Not so you can tell. Massachusetts has the nation's lowest divorce rate. Iowa and Connecticut are also better than most. Vermont and New Hampshire are about average. In the Bible Belt, by contrast, marriages are generally more prone to break up.
Santorum presents himself as a man of faith who insists on confronting stark facts that many people would rather ignore. In fact, in his indictment of tolerance, individual conscience, sexual freedom and secular morality, he is not telling truths but spinning sanctimonious fairy tales. American culture is not sick, and Santorum is no healer.
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Can a Kennedy Rescue the Dems? |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=7093"><span class="small">Michelle Cottle, The Daily Beast</span></a>
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Sunday, 08 January 2012 10:03 |
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Intro: "Joseph P. Kennedy III has announced he will run for Congress this year, at last raising the prospect of a Kennedy on Capitol Hill - and the rebirth of Massachusetts as a Democratic redoubt."
Joseph P. Kennedy III, son of former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II. (photo: AP)
Can a Kennedy Rescue the Dems?
By Michelle Cottle, The Daily Beast
08 January 12
Joseph P. Kennedy III has announced he will run for Congress this year, at last raising the prospect of a Kennedy on Capitol Hill - and the rebirth of Massachusetts as a Democratic redoubt.
 amelot groupies, rejoice! The Kennedys are girding for a comeback.
While most of the political world was glued this week to the Republican presidential field's tussle for the hearts of Granite Staters, a fresh Democratic front was opening just down the road in Massachusetts.
After months of low-level chatter, Joe Kennedy III - son of former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II and grandson of Bobby - announced Thursday that, come January 20, he will leave his job with the Middlesex County District Attorney's office to pursue the congressional seat being vacated by the crankily transcendent Barney Frank.
What's the big deal, you ask? Isn't a Kennedy running for office in Massachusetts the definition of dog-bites-man - the electoral equivalent of Lindsay Lohan failing a breathalyzer?
Not lately. After an impressive run, the nation's most famous political dynasty has fallen on hard times in recent years. In early 2009, Caroline somehow let Hillary Clinton's Senate seat slip through her fingers. Later that year, liberal lion Teddy was felled by a brain tumor. And in 2010, after years of struggling with prescription drug and alcohol abuse, Teddy's son, Patrick, opted not to run for reelection to his Rhode Island congressional seat.
As for the younger generation, most have shunned the political arena. Indeed, since Patrick left office last January, the nation's capital has been devoid of elected Kennedys for the first time since 1947 (that's right: 64 consecutive years). At this point, the family standard has been relegated to Maria Shriver's older brother, Bobby, the mayor of Santa Monica and the only member of the Kennedy clan currently in elective office.
How the mighty have fallen.
All things considered, there are worse horses the family could bet on. A hail and hearty 31, JPK3 has got the smile, the jawline, the shoulders. (Although, good Lord, could that hair be any brighter orange?) And if his much-talked-about speech last January commemorating JFK's "City on a Hill" address is any sign, he's not too shabby an orator.
As for his CV, young Joe has the sterling ed cred one would expect - Stanford undergrad, Harvard Law - along with a bleeding-heart stint in the Peace Corps. Post-Corps, he spent a couple of years as a prosecutor on - where else? - Cape Cod. But the electoral winds weren't as friendly on the Cape as in other parts of the state. (Last year, there were reports that Kennedy had commissioned a poll that showed that Cape Cod and Southshore voters were suffering from "Kennedy fatigue.") So in September, he moved over to become an assistant DA for the vastly more populous, and more Democratic, Middlesex County - a far more propitious platform from which to launch a political career. (It certainly worked wonders for Great Uncle Teddy.)
That said, this run is about more than the reboot of a single dynasty. It is also about the Democratic Party's fierce struggle to repaint Massachusetts deep blue, thus erasing one of its most searing recent embarrassments.
JPK3 has got the smile, the jawline, the shoulders.
It'd be tough to overstate the shock to the Dems' system when they allowed Ted Kennedy's Senate seat to be captured by Scott Brown in 2010. A Republican! In Teddy's chair! We're talking deep psychic scarring here, along with much weeping, gnashing of teeth, and drowning of sorrows in tall green bottles of Jameson.
This year offers a shot at redemption, if only Dems can fire up their voters. And what better way to do so than with a Kennedy on the ticket? Barack Obama may no longer make Bay State hearts go pitter-pat, but add a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed new Kennedy to budding liberal heartthrob and Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren?
If that doesn't bring 'em to the polls, nothing will.
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bizarre incident took place during the "60 Minutes" 
