Stable Genius Liberal

Obama poster artist says president is a disappointment

Obama has had a really tough time, but there have been a lot of things that he’s compromised on that I never would have expected. I mean, drones and domestic spying are the last things I would have thought [he’d support]. (via Hope dashed: Obama poster artist says president is a disappointment | US news… Continue reading Obama poster artist says president is a disappointment

The Debate Over the TPP – Washington Center for Equitable Growth

Interesting point on NAFTA and the TPP. Worth a read.

A Woman Tweets #KillAllWhiteMen and the Internet Explodes

Mustafa is not the first to have her reputation raked across the Web on account of some lousy tweets. But she may be the first to crumble over a case of ironic misandry, a tongue-in-cheek form of discourse favored by the young feminist Internet natives. You may have spied them on Twitter or Tumblr, working on their “KILL ALL MEN” cross-stitch or sipping from a mug labeled “MALE TEARS.” Ironic misandrists say they’re poking fun at long-standing stereotypes about militant feminist man-haters. That seems to fit Mustafa’s tweets. In a statement to Goldsmiths students, she owned up to using the hashtags, calling them “in-jokes” between herself and other members of “the queer feminist community.” If some people failed to get the joke, well, that was kind of the point.

I think many people would recognize this overreaction to a bad joke as political correctness. Chalk this up as yet another underreported case of right wing political correctness given a pass.

Why You Can’t Have “Family Values” Without Valuing Fathers

When my wife was pregnant and I realized I would need to be home, I discovered that Time Warner had this strange policy under which anyone could get ten paid weeks, unless you were a man who impregnated the mother of a child. I went, in private, straight to [the Time Warner] benefits [department] and said, “I’m sure this is an oversight and you didn’t mean to exclude dads.” They wouldn’t give me an answer for months. Then my daughter was born in an emergency delivery, and eleven days later I’m home holding my four-pound preemie, messaging benefits, saying “Hey, I need an answer.” That’s when they wrote back to say that they would be unable to give me paid leave benefits. I decided to file a suit with the EEOC for gender discrimination.

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Paid leave is not a law requiring businesses to pay you when you’re out. Paid family leave is an insurance system that would tax 20 cents for every $100 you make. Studies show that when people find out what paid leave is, they support it.

Rand Paul would not abolish the NSA

Does Rand Paul understand that the bulk records collection and all the other awful programs that people are objecting to are defended by the NSA and others as being activities “towards our enemies.”

It’s really hard to tell if he is naive or disingenuous.

Tax cuts for middle, lower income Americans boost economy while tax breaks for the rich do little to help

Not a slam dunk but this reinforces other studies showing little to no growth due to capital gain tax cuts.

Maher did it again

Bill Maher has been raked over the coals on his irrational, anti-scientific attitude towards vaccines; his own guests have scorned his views on his own show; he’s been confronted repeatedly with the evidence and the rebuttals. He’s got to know by now that there is no rational justification for claiming that vaccines or thimerosal cause autism, or that the drug companies are profiting hugely by including poisons in their vaccines (which makes no sense, even if you do believe in greedy pharmaceutical mega-corporations).

So what does he do? He invites anti-vax crank extraordinaire, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to sit around and commiserate with one another about how they’re called cranks and liars for merely denying the scientific consensus.

Maher wants it both ways. He want to be just an comedian and also a serious public intellectual. The last one to pull that off was Mark Twain and he is no Samuel Clemens.

In Arkansas and Indiana, You Can Become a Police Officer Without Any Formal Training

Police Rethink Long Tradition on Using Force

Mr. Wexler’s group will meet with hundreds of police leaders in Washington this week to call for a new era of training, one that replaces truisms such as the 21-foot rule with lessons on defusing tense situations and avoiding violent confrontations.

Worth a read.

The Jade Helm Conspiracy Theories Are Moronic, but They’re Still Right About One Thing

Worth a read. Alex Jones is like pure, uncut, pharmaceutical grade Glenn Beck. His involvement in making the whole thing comedy gold. And before you warn me that he might be right, broken clocks and all, he is wrong way to often about way to much to view as anything other than a nutter.