And on ~ and on ~ and on ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating info in the original ~ Sooz

Hawaii Flies Its Homeless Away and Other Ideas From the Fringe
by Caitlin Dickson Aug 4, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
Hawaii wants to fly its homeless away, Christians fight for their right to discriminate, and other wacky ideas from the fringe.

Hawaii: Combating Homelessness With One-Way Tickets to the Mainland

Hawaii has a serious homelessness problem--so now it wants to pass that problem off to the rest of the country. Having reached the highest rate of homelessness in the U.S., lawmakers in paradise have decided to try a new tactic for getting people off the streets: flying them to the mainland. Yes, instead of setting aside money for more shelters or outreach programs, Hawaii’s state legislature has approved a $100,000 fund to offer about 17,000 homeless people one-way tickets off the islands. The “return to home” program is idealistically billed as a way to help people stuck on the island reach family or job opportunities. The program may be labeled “voluntary,” but as in other cities with similar programs, like New York and San Francisco, homeless people who get arrested could wind up faced with the option of jail or the one-way flight, regardless of whether that person has better opportunities elsewhere. Also, there are very few requirements to qualify for the program, so ostensibly non-homeless people from other states could game the system by flying to Hawaii and “volunteering” for a free ride home.

North Carolina: Why Read a Whole Voter-Suppression Bill Before Signing It?

When a governor signs into law a bill that will drastically suppress voting rights in his state, one would hope that he has thoroughly read the bill and knows what he’s doing. So it’s a bit disconcerting to find out that, ahead of signing a bill that would require identification at the polls, prohibit 17-year-olds from registering to vote ahead of their 18th birthdays, eliminate same-day registration, and cut down on early voting, and put in place several other restrictions, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory admitted to not being well versed in all of the bill’s provisions. When a reporter asked McCrory about the limits the bill would place on allowing new voters to register, McCrory admitted, “I don’t know enough. I’m sorry. I haven’t read that portion of the bill,” and went on to dodge further questions about its other restrictions.

Arkansas: Teachers Will Now Wield Weapons at School

Clarksville High School in Arkansas is planning to turn its teachers, administrators, and other staff into armed guards, having them go through 53 hours of training to carry concealed weapons at school throughout the day. Clarksville is heeding the recommendation of the NRA to arm school staff following last year’s shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. “The plan we’ve been given in the past is, ‘Well, lock your doors, turn off your lights, and hope for the best,’” said Superintendent David Hopkins, explaining that the school district decided that was not a sufficient plan. Though no state officials are making any effort to kill the initiative, not everyone thinks it's a genius idea. The state’s education commissioner doesn’t believe armed teachers are a sufficient substitute for professional law enforcement. Donna Morey, the former president of the Arkansas Education Association, more bluntly called the initiative “awful.” “We just think educators should be in the business of educating students, not carrying a weapon,” she said.

Texas: San Antonio’s Religious Leaders Say Banning Anti-Gay Discrimination Is Discriminatory

Christian leaders in San Antonio are up in arms over the state’s proposal to ban discrimination against gays, lesbians, transgender people, and veterans in the workplace. Part of the ordinance also blocks anyone who has exhibited bias or acted discriminatorily against a member of one of these protected groups. Those freaking out about the ordinance, such as the Family Research Council and pastors from a number of churches around the city, believe it effectively bans from the City Council Christians who are morally opposed to homosexuality and, potentially, from doing business with the city in general. “If it’s passed, any person who has either expressed any belief in favor of traditional marriage or in terms of Judeo-Christian morality regarding sexuality in general, verbally or in writing, could be barred from participating in public life on that City Council,” the Family Research Council’s Ken Klukowski told Fox News, calling the proposal, “a shameful form of anti-clergy bias.” Steve Branson, the pastor at a local Baptist church echoed Klukowski’s concerns. “If it passes and you attend a church that opposes gay marriage, you could be disqualified from getting a city job,” he said. “I would be disqualified from running for office. My church members couldn’t run for office if they held the same views I do.” Not all the ordinance’s opponents are religious leaders. The conservative Washington Times published an editorial calling the City Council “bigots” and Councilwoman Ivy Taylor told the local television news station that she was concerned the new rules would “legislate moral or religious convictions.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/03/hawaii-flies-its-homeless-away-and-other-ideas-from-the-fringe.html

Alberta does that too.

Still working on finding back installments as time allows ~ found a NON-chronological index or sorts, so it's taking longer than I had hoped ~ but one of the things I find so fascinating about the 3 "political" recurring threads [Daily Beast, AlterNet, and RightWingWatch] is that there is enough "material" for virtually no repeats ~ and there's still enough for Steve Benen's recurring This Week in God, which is tangentially "political" ~ ~ here's here's the next round in my catching up ~ Sooz

Fringe Factor: Gay Love Is Just Like What Ariel Castro Had With His Victims
By Caitlin Dickson
August 11th 2013 4:45 am
Ariel Castro’s love is just like same-sex marriage. Obama is racist against white people. Physically fit people don’t need food stamps. Yet another week in far-out theories from our fearless leaders.

American Family Association Host: The Love Between Gay Couples and the Love Ariel Castro Had for His Victims Are Totally the Same

Fox News contributor Sandy Rios and Chicago pastor Erwin Lutzer agreed on Rios’s American Family Association radio show this week that love is no reason to allow gay couples to get married. After all, pedophiles, kidnappers and even rapists probably love their victims for all we know. “A pedophile, I’m sure, says that he loves children—as a matter of fact he does—but you can see how destructive that love is,” said Lutzer, arguing that same-sex marriage is equally as destructive to the institution of marriage. Rios took it a step further, comparing love between same-sex couples to the love Ariel Castro probably had for Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. “You know, the gentleman that was just sentenced yesterday for holding those women hostage in Ohio, and molesting them for years, and doing terrible things to them…” Rios said. “His defense was that he ‘loved’ his family, he ‘loved’ his child that was born out of one of the rapes that he did of the women. He ‘loved’ and he couldn’t understand. He said, ‘I’m not a monster.’”

Florida: Obama Is Racist Against Whites

Not only is Rep. Ted Yoho of Florida more than eager to throw his support behind a proposed birther legislation, he’s also on board with the fun new accusation that President Obama’s tax on tanning beds is “racist.” During a Tea Party meeting this week, Yoho boasted about convincing Speaker of the House John Boehner that the tax was racist. “I had an Indian doctor in our office the other day, very dark skin, with two non-dark skin people, and I ask this to him, I said, ‘Have you ever been to a tanning booth?’ and he goes, ‘No, no need,’” Yoho told the Tea Party crowd. “So therefore it’s a racist tax and I thought I might need to get a sun tanning booth so I can come out and say I’ve been disenfranchised because I got taxed because of the color of my skin. As crazy as that sounds, that’s what the left does right. By God, if it works for them, it’ll work for us…”

Oklahoma: Obama Is Totally A Kenyan, But What Can You Do?

Rep. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma has come out of the closet—as a birther. Unfortunately, while he believes all viable evidence proves Barack Obama probably was born in Kenya and forged his birth certificate so he could run for president, he’s afraid that it’s a little too late to do anything about it now. At a town hall meeting on Thursday, Mullin refused the insistence of a self-proclaimed “Birther Princess” that he take documents from an investigation conducted by Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Cold Case Posse” that concluded Obama’s birth certificate was a sham. “I believe what you’re saying and I don’t support this president whatsoever,” Mullin explained. “But ma’am, we lost November 6th. We had the opportunity to get another president in there…Who would’ve thought we would ever actually be questioning if we had a natural-born president being president?…Now let’s move on to some other issues. I believe it’s still there, but my God if we didn’t prove it in the first four years, what do you think the chances are now?”

Oklahoma: Physically Fit People With Food Stamps Is Proof of Fraud

Markwayne Mullin was really on a roll Thursday. At the very same town hall meeting where he admitting to being a birther, the Oklahoma representative decried food stamp programs, rife with fraud, arguing that they should be done away with altogether. How, exactly, does Mullin know about all this food stamp fraud? Because the other day he was at the grocery store and basically everyone there was paying with food stamps which, apparently, is pretty typical. But then he saw a really physically fit couple using food stamps to buy groceries and that was it. “Fraud,” Mullin declared. “Absolutely 100% all it is is fraud…it’s all over the place. And there you go, to the fact that we shouldn’t be supporting those who won’t work. They’re spending their money someplace.” So based on Mullin’s argument, poor people must by definition be fat—otherwise they’re scamming the government.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/11/fringe-factor-gay-love-is-just-like-what-ariel-castro-had-with-his-victims.html

I seriously question how some of these "great minds" are able to function in day-to-day life ~ ~ Sooz

Fringe Factor: Latin Americans Bring Violence to the U.S.
By Caitlin Dickson
August 18th 2013 4:45 am
The further south you go, the more violent Latin America is? From impeachment logic to immigration geography, yet another week in far-out theories from our fearless leaders.

The House would totally impeach President Obama if it didn’t have the Senate standing in its way. Global warming is, yet again, a hoax. And Latin American immigrants are inherently violent. Another week in fun from the fringe.

Iowa: Latin Americans Are Violent and They Make the U.S. Violent

At this point we all know how Rep. Steve King feels about immigration. Yet, when the Iowa Republican makes bizarre claims—such as Latin America gets more violent as one moves farther south and that people immigrating to the U.S. from a “violent civilization” will bring that violence with them—it’s hard not to be a bit shocked, not to mention puzzled. This time it was at a Tea Party “Stop Amnesty” rally, where King unleashed his latest ludicrous theory. “If you bring people from a violent civilization into a less-violent civilization, you’re going to have more violence right?” he asked. “It’s like pouring hot water into cold water. Does it raise the temperature or not?” As Think Progress pointed out, “King’s characterization of undocumented immigrants as violent individuals is not only offensive, but geographically nonsensical.” The most typically violent Latin American countries are Ecuador and Honduras, whereas the largest southern country in Latin America, Chile, actually has lower rates of homicide, rape, and car theft than the U.S.

Texas: The House Could Get Enough Votes to Impeach Obama

Like his Oklahoma colleague Markwayne Mullin, Texas Rep. Blake Farenthold realizes that “unfortunately the horse is already out of the barn on this, on the whole birth-certificate issue.” He lamented the fact that Congress did not do enough to verify the president’s birth certificate at an open house meeting in Luling, Texas over the weekend. He also brought up an issue that’s really been getting his goat lately: if everyone hates Obama so much, why don’t we just impeach him? Well, Farenthold explained, “If we were to impeach the president tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it. But it would go to the Senate and he wouldn’t be convicted.” Despite the fact that apparently enough members of the House would surely vote to impeach the president, Farenthold doesn’t think it’s worth trying. “What message do we send to America if we impeach Obama and he gets away with what he’s impeached for and he is found innocent? What then do we say is OK?” he asked. “Aside from the fact that it wouldn’t be effective, I think there’s some potential damage to society that would be done with a failed attempt at impeachment.”

Environmentalists: Mincing Words to Make a Point

The environmentalist League of Conservation Voters was caught misusing a quote by Republican Rep. Rodney Davis to make him look like a total climate-change-denying extremist. As part of its new $2 million campaign targeted at four specific congressional Republicans, of which Davis is one, the League released an advertisement that includes a clip of Rep. Davis saying, “Global warming has stopped 16 years ago.” That’s a pretty outrageous claim, right?! Except, that’s not exactly what the congressman said. FactCheck.org went back and watched the entire clip, only to discover that Davis really said, “They say that global warming has stopped 16 years ago… But climate change is real.” It’s not hard to find many Republican lawmakers making extreme or outlandish statements denouncing climate change (see Dana Rohrbacher below). The League of Conservation Voters should have just picked from the broad selection of comments that have actually been made.

California: “Global Warming Is a Total Fraud”

Republican Rep. Dana Rohrbacher of California says it’s really funny that liberals like Sen. Barbara Boxer are trying to blame the wildfires that have been ravaging their state recently on global warming. In fact, Boxer’s suggestion of a relationship between climate change and the atypical ferocity of this year’s wildfire season should be seriously examined, Rohrbacher laughed. “Just so you’ll know, global warming is a total fraud and it’s being designed because what you’ve got is you’ve got liberals who get elected at the local level want state government to do the work and let them make the decisions,” Rohrbacher, who has served on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology for years, said at a recent town-hall meeting. “Then, at the state level, they want the federal government to do it. And at the federal government, they want to create global government to control all of our lives.”

Texan in Iowa: Gay Marriage Will Replace God with Government

Sure, he’s not a politician, but his son is a pretty influential one, so his public comments should be taken seriously—especially when they’re this ridiculous. Rafael Cruz, the father of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and a well-known pastor in his own right, compared President Obama to Fidel Castro, warned that the Affordable Care Act will “destroy the elderly,” and that “homosexual marriage” will replace God with government ++at a Family Leadership Summit in Iowa++[http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/cruzs-dad-homosexual-marriage-designed-to-make-government?ref=fpb] on Saturday. “Socialism requires that government becomes your god,” said the elder Cruz. “That’s why they have to destroy the concept of God. They have to destroy all loyalties except loyalty to government. That’s what’s behind homosexual marriage.” He also warned that “our lives are under attack” by “Obamacare.” Cruz’s senator son also had a chance to speak at the same venue later that day—and expressed his embarrassment at not being able to live up to his father’s resounding speech.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/18/fringe-factor-latin-americans-bring-violence-to-the-u-s.html

And more idiocy that, luckily, is accompanied by more snark ~ ~ Sooz

Fringe Factor: Obama Hates White People—and White Dogs
By Caitlin Dickson
August 25th 2013 4:45 am
The Boy Scouts will award merit badges for sodomy, radical environmentalists get all the science grants, and the president is prejudiced against white pooches. Caitlin Dickson on the week's wackiest proclamations.

Sunny is cute and all, but have you noticed that the President doesn’t own any white dogs? And Obama is definitely to blame for the government response to a disaster that took place three years before he was elected. It’s Hate On The President week at the Fringe Factor.

Maine: President Obama Hates White People

The Portland Press Herald reported Monday that, while speaking to a room full of Republicans at a private fundraiser last week, Maine Governor Paul LePage said the president “hates white people.” Two state lawmakers who asked that their names not be used confirmed with the local newspaper that they’d heard the governor lament President Obama’s failure to be the best president ever by failing to highlight his biracial heritage because of his hatred of white people. “It was one little thing from a speech, but I think most people there thought it was totally inappropriate.” The next day, however, LePage--who has compared the IRS to the Gestapo, said he would tell Obama to “go to hell” if he was elected governor, and this very month joked that he wanted to blow up the Press Herald building--insisted those two anonymous lawmakers were sorely mistaken. “No, I never said that. And you guys are all about gossip,” he told the local Portland TV station wagging his finger at the camera. Meanwhile, in other Obama-is-a-racist news, The Daily Caller made the very keen observation that the first family, which just acquired its second Portuguese Water Dog puppy this week, doesn’t “have any white dogs.”

Louisiana: More Republicans Blame Obama for Katrina Response than Bush

For most of the country, the memory of President Bush’s disastrous handling of Hurricane Katrina won’t soon be forgotten--except in the state most devastated by the storm. A Public Policy Polling Survey released this week reveals that 29 percent of Louisiana Republicans blame President Obama, a freshman senator at the time of the hurricane, for the federal government’s response, while 28 percent blamed George W. Bush. Perhaps even more shocking than the fact that anyone holds Obama--who would not become president until three years after Bush infamously eyed ravaged New Orleans from Air Force One--responsible for the Katrina response, was that 44 percent of Republicans who responded to the survey said they didn’t know who to blame.

Colorado: Chicken and Barbecue Make Black People Poor

Colorado State Senator Vicki Marble knows exactly how to curb poverty rates among black people and Hispanics: cut down on all that chicken and barbecue. During a meeting of the Colorado Economic Opportunity Poverty Reduction Task Force on Wednesday, Marble attempted to blame racial disparities in the poverty rate on diet. She noted that while certain “problems in the black race,” like sickle-cell anemia and diabetes, are genetic and unavoidable, “I’ve got to say, I’ve never had better barbecue and better chicken and ate better in my life than when you go down south and you--I love it.” She then argued that while Mexicans eat fresh vegetables in Mexico, they adopt bad eating habits once they move to the U.S., eliciting, as one senator described it, “an audible gasp in the room.”

Christian Radio: Boy Scouts to Give Merit Badges for Sodomy and Cannibalism

Boulder-based Christian Right radio hosts Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner are seriously concerned about the Boy Scout’s decision to allow openly gay members. Because by not ostracizing gay kids who also want to learn to be prepared, the group is essentially “going through the list of sins in the Bible, finding the very worst ones and creating merit badges for them.” It’s “just a matter [of time] until they invite homosexuals, active homosexuals, to be leaders of the troops and pretty soon you’re going to have the sodomy merit badge,” Buehner predicted on the show this week. “And after that I guess it’s incest; after that I guess it’s the cannibal merit badge, where I guess you cut up human flesh, fry it,” Swanson suggested with Buehner adding, “Cook it in a Dutch oven out in the wilderness.”

Colorado: Science Grants Only Given to ‘Radical Environmentalists’

Don’t you just hate how only those who “submit to the...orthodoxy of climate change by the radical environmentalists” receive all the grants for science research? Colorado Representative Mike Coffman is sick of it, he told a local radio station on Wednesday. First of all, he said, 97 percent of scientists are wrong about climate change. It’s “naturally occurring,” and “man-made activity influences out at the margins and I think it’s debatable how much that is.” Well, what do you expect from science when “radical environmentalists” are doing all the research?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/25/fringe-factor-obama-hates-white-people-and-white-dogs.html

I wonder if this apparently "deep thinking" comes naturally or if these bozos have to work at it ~ ~ Sooz

Fringe Factor: Penn. Health Dept. Says Gays Are Like 12 Year Olds
By Caitlin Dickson
September 1st 2013 4:45 am
Gay couples should be treated like children under the law, minorities are to blame for racism, and more clever ideas from our fearless political leaders.

Pennsylvania: Gay Couples Have the Same Rights as 12-Year-Olds

Here’s a creative and totally (not) legitimate new reason for why gay people shouldn’t be allowed to get married. Pennsylvania’s Department of Health is suing to get the Montgomery County clerk to stop issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples by arguing that gays and lesbians are just like children. And everyone knows children can’t get married! The state filed a brief Wednesday, claiming that gay marriage licenses are invalid and have no standing in court. “Had the clerk issued marriage licenses to 12-year-olds in violation of state law, would anyone seriously contend that each 12-year-old...is entitled to a hearing on the validity of his ‘license’?” read the brief. Even Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, who supports the suit against the Montgomery County clerk, thinks this is ridiculous. Corbett issued a statement Thursday saying, “the analogy chosen in the legal brief filed on August 28 is inappropriate.”

Louisiana: Minorities to Blame for Racism in America

Bobby Jindal has done it! He’s figured out why, in 2013, there is still racism in America--and just in time for the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Minorities, Jindal argued in a Politico op-ed, perpetuate racism by not letting go of their heritages and just assimilating already. The Louisiana governor, who himself is an Indian-American, explained that minorities place “far too much emphasis on our ‘separateness,’ our heritage, ethnic background, skin color, etc.” Everyone’s cultural identity is hyphenated. “Asian-Americans, Italian-Americans, African-Americans, Indian-Americans, and Native Americans, to name just a few,” he wrote. “Here’s an idea: How about just ‘Americans?’ That has a nice ring to it, if you ask me. Placing an undue emphasis on our ‘separateness’ is a step backward. Bring back the melting pot.”

Arizona: Recall Heroic Giffords Intern Because He’s Gay

Daniel Hernandez Jr., may be an actual hero but he’s also gay and therefore does not deserve to sit on his local school board. Gabby Giffords’ former intern, who helped save the former congresswoman’s life when she was shot in Tucson in 2011, is now the subject of a smear campaign to get him kicked off Tucson’s Sunnyside Unified School District (to which he was elected last year). Hernandez opponents are apparently passing flyers around town alerting people to the dangers of Hernandez’s sexual orientation and his support for gun control. “Put a REAL Man on the Sunnyside Board,” declares one flyer. “Daniel Hernandez is LGBT. We need someone who will support Sports and cares about our kids. We don’t need someone who hates our values. RECALL Daniel Hernandez TODAY.” Another flyer warns, “Daniel Hernandez only cares about one things [sic] taking your guns away.” In response to the recall campaign, Hernandez told The Huffington Post, “I’ve had a target on my back from my fellow board members for a while because I don’t go with the flow, and if something doesn’t sound right or make sense, I call them out on it...It’s disheartening that this is where we are in 2013, that people think it’s okay to put out these kinds of flyers about anybody.”

Alabama: Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” Is Child Pornography

“The Bluest Eye” is a classic American novel about being a young, black girl in Ohio during the Great Depression and touches on such heavy and uncomfortable topics as incest, child molestation, and racism. It’s a book most high schoolers in the U.S. are required to read and Alabama Senator Bill Holtzclaw wants to put a stop to that. Holtzclaw is campaigning to get the Toni Morrison book banned from the new federal Common Core curriculum, calling it “completely objectionable, from language to the content.” Holtzclaw’s crusade against the book seems more like an attempt to make up for not following fellow Republicans’ lead in opposing the controversial Common Core standards in the first place. But regardless of his motive, his mission has picked up some steam. One conservative blog, Polichicks, even went so far as to excerpt some of the more graphic passages from the novel and label them “child pornography,” a term that effectively accuses Morrison’s book of endorsing and promoting the types of lewd and reprehensible acts it so accurately describes. Holtzclaw himself has not—at least not reportedly—used the term “pornography” to describe the book. Still, he’s not only determined to keep the objectionable material off all state reading lists, he’s also said he’d support removing it from school libraries altogether.

New Jersey: Gays Are Not Guys

Cory Booker may not care if people think he’s gay, but his Republican opponent for the Senate thinks that’s “weird” because, personally, he likes being a guy (which, of course, gays aren't?) “Maybe that helps him get the gay vote, by acting ambiguous,” Steve Lonegan told Newsmax this week. Lonegan, the former head of the New Jersey branch of the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, referenced a DuJour magazine interview that revealed the Newark mayor’s guilty pleasure for late-night manicures and pedicures. “It was described as a particular fetish, is how it was described,” said Lonegan. “I have a more particular fetish: I like a good Scotch and a cigar, that’s my fetish.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/01/fringe-factor-penn-health-dept-says-gays-are-like-12-year-olds.html

The real crazies/fools are those who get taken in by this kind of nonsense.

I don't get why these "people" are so hateful towards others they don't know and likely never will know ~ I also don't get how "acting out" can make them feel better about themselves ~ ~ Sooz

Fringe Factor: Gay Panic, Secession Fever & More
By Caitlin Dickson
September 8th 2013 4:45 am
A strike on Syria is doomed by all the gays and women in the military, Texas is ready to become its own country, and Pennsylvania is racking up a huge legal bill to defend an anti-gay marriage law. Another week in wild theories from our fearless leaders.

American Family Association: U.S. Military Too Gay, Feminine to Strike Syria

Lots of people from both ends of the political spectrum have made compelling arguments for and against U.S. intervention in Syria. This is not one of them. American Family Association radio host Sandy Rios thinks “the homosexual takeover of so much of our military” and the increased amount of women serving in key roles makes the U.S. Navy incapable of carrying out a strike against Syria. “When I looked at those battleships getting ready for battle in Syria, I couldn't help think about all the stories I've read about how women now are in the ranks of the Navy, getting pregnant at exponential numbers,” she said on air this week. “When I think about the folding in and the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell and the homosexual takeover of so much of our military I'm not sure how effective those naval ships will be.”

Pennsylvania: No Price is Too High to Defend Traditional Marriage

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett is so determined to keep a 17-year-old state law banning same sex marriage on the books that he's willing to shell out a whole lot of taxpayer money to a fancy private law firm to defend it. The ACLU is challenging the law, arguing that it violates the “equal protection and due process clauses that protect against discrimination and infringement on liberties," and is therefore unconstitutional. In addition to the $400 an hour the state will be paying former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice William H. Lamb to defend the law, Lamb's associates at the West Chester firm Lamb McErlane PC will receive $325 an hour and state lawyers will also be compensated for contributing to the case.

Texas: On Its Way to Independence

Texas Railroad Commissioner Barry Smitherman is currently carrying out a dual campaign: to become the next state attorney general and to help Texas become an “independent nation.” According to Smitherman, Texas is on the road to secession. “We are uniquely situated because we have energy resources, fossil and otherwise, and our own independent electrical grid. Generally speaking, we have made great progress in becoming an independent nation, and ‘island nation’ if you will,” Smitherman said during an interview with the far-right website WorldNetDaily. “I think we want to continue down that path so that if the rest of the country falls apart, Texas can operate as a stand-alone entity.” Don't let the title fool you, the Texas Railroad Commissioner is actually not in charge of the state's railroads. Instead, he is charged with regulating the Texas energy industry—gas, coal, oil, etc—making him one powerful Texan with a radical plan.

California: Northern Secessionists Want Their Own State

Smitherman isn't the only one with secession on the brain. The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted almost unanimously this week to break its Northern California county off from the rest of the Golden State. Fed up with such issues as “regulation, restriction of rights, lack of representation, regionalism and restoration of limited government,” the people of Siskiyou County plan to invite neighboring counties in both California and Southern Oregon to join them in forming a new state called "Jefferson." While Doug La Malfa, U.S. Rep. for California's 1st district—where Siskiyou County is located—has not clarified his thoughts on the secession plan, one of his staff members attended the meeting and said that she and other staffers were in favor of the effort. Jefferson would require the approval of both California and Oregon state legislatures as well as Congress to even exist—and that's highly unlikely. But if Siskiyou were successful in its secession scheme, its roughly 45,000 residents would receive the same amount of representation in the Senate as the 38 million other people living in California.

Virginia: Hold On To Your Voter Registrations

Virginia voters beware: if you've ever lived in another state, make sure to check your mailbox for notice that your registration has been cancelled. Fifty-seven thousand have been flagged for being registered in another state and, in an effort to carry out a state-wide voter-roll purge in a timely fashion, some counties are not even notifying voters that they've been removed, let alone offering them the opportunity to first respond to the claim. While voter roll purges are common and necessary to keep registries up to date, getting rid of people who've registered and since moved states, the policy used in many Virginia counties seems to be not asking voters whether they still live in the state but notifying them that they've been cut from the rolls after the fact. While some county registrars say they're going above and beyond to ensure that no mistakes are made, some voters say they were added to the list in error and already claim to have had their registration cancelled. The real problem with this hasty purging process is the fact that the October 14 deadline to register before the gubernatorial election is fast approaching. Think Progress points out that if all 57,000 flagged registrations are cancelled, that would account for about three percent of all votes in the state (based on the turnout in 2009), which could make a big difference in a tight race.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/08/fringe-factor-gay-panic-secession-fever-more.html

Iowa is waaaaay ahead on the "idiocy scale" [see below] ~ ~ Sooz

Fringe Factor: Wendy Davis Is Too Stupid to Be Governor
By Caitlin Dickson
September 15th 2013 4:45 am
Harvard Law–educated Wendy Davis is too “stupid” to be governor, blind people can carry guns, and other brilliant notions from our fearless political leaders.

Texas: Wendy Davis Is “Too Stupid To Be Governor”

Apparently even Texas’s top political operatives are not above middle-school-style name-calling. David Carney, the top political adviser for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who wants to fill Rick Perry’s shoes as the next governor, tweeted a link to a post on the conservative blog UrbanGrounds along with its full headline: “Total Recall in CO (and Why Wendy Davis Is Too Stupid to Be Governor).” The article Carney tweeted refers to the Democratic state legislator—who gained notoriety this year for her 11-hour filibuster attempt to block state abortion restrictions—as “Abortion Barbie” and describes her as “even dumber than her fake blonde hair would imply.” It might be worth mentioning that Davis got her law degree from Harvard Law School, but clearly that means very little when you consider that she has blonde highlights and supports gun control. Just a few weeks ago Abbott thanked a supporter on Twitter who called Davis “Retard Barbie,” only to later clarify that he didn’t endorse the supporter’s “offensive language.” This isn’t the first time Carney, who ran Perry’s Texas campaigns from 1998 to 2012, has gotten in trouble for his immature insults either. He pissed off GOP darling Sarah Palin by complaining that the logistics for a 2010 gubernatorial debate were not only “just retarded,” but “the most retarded thing I’ve ever heard.”

Iowa: You Don’t Have to Be Able to See to Carry a Gun

Far be it from the state of Iowa to deprive anyone of the right to carry a concealed weapon in a public place—even someone who can’t see where they're aiming. While other gun-loving states like Nebraska and South Carolina require gun-permit applicants to show “proof of vision,” The Des Moines Register reported this week that Iowa now allows its legally blind to not only own but also carry guns in public. The rule is, unsurprisingly, hotly debated, as some, like Disability Rights Iowa executive director Jane Hudson, argue that the visually impaired have Second Amendment rights, and denying them would be a violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The Iowa law also allows the legally blind to hunt with laser sighting devices as long as they’re accompanied by someone who can see, which sounds at least somewhat safer, though given what we know about the dangerous mistakes sighted people tend to make while hunting, it isn’t all that reassuring. The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action praised the Iowa measure for encouraging “more disabled sportsmen to pursue their love of hunting.” Opponents obviously think that giving guns to blind people is dangerous and irresponsible. Famous blind person and gun-control advocate Stevie Wonder marveled at the ease with which he could purchase a weapon earlier this year, telling CNN’s Piers Morgan, “Imagine me with a gun. It’s just crazy.”

Texas: Textbooks Should Offer Creationist Alternative to Evolution

Texas’s state textbook-review panels are stacked with conservative creationists determined to block several proposed high school biology textbooks that do not offer alternatives to the theory of evolution. The panels’ creationists are pushing the State Board of Education to reject the proposed books unless they are republished with several suggested disclaimers, such as “‘creation science’ based on biblical principles.” Some of the books’ reviewers also charged that “no transitional fossils have been discovered,” and there is no evidence of a human carbon footprint or that climate change has affected the diversity of species, among other anti-evolution claims. In an article titled “Textbooks Under Attack in Texas,” the National Center for Science Education’s Joshua Rosenau explained, “This is scary because of Texas’s big influence on publishers and on textbooks used across the country. Publishers should listen to real experts, not unqualified reviewers who don’t seem to understand even basic scientific terms.”

WND: Obama’s Sending Secret Messages to the Muslim Brotherhood

Nothing gets past Andrea Shea King. This clever WorldNetDaily writer has cracked the president’s secret code, calling Obama out on sending “a wordless message of support to the Muslim Brotherhood, Arab street, and Islamic community in general,” through a photo of him with his foot on the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. To the naked eye, the photo in question, taken by White House photographer Pete Souza and plastered across the Drudge Report, may look simply like the president was caught stretching or even taking an aggressive stance while talking on the phone. But King knows better. Obama deliberately put his foot on “an historic American treasure” as a symbol of his “disdain and disregard for all things traditionally American.” In her post, King proves her point by citing an Al Jazeera article that explains, “In Arab culture it is considered rude to even display the sole of one’s shoe to a fellow human being.” Also, she points out, this isn’t the first time the president has been photographed with his feet up, so it must be true.

Florida: Information on Obamacare Not Welcome Here

The Florida Department of Health is so determined to block Obamacare from taking hold in its state that it has gone out of its way to ban federally sponsored “navigators” from coming to their offices to teach people how to sign up for insurance coverage. According to a directive sent to local county health departments, navigators are not allowed to conduct outreach on their grounds. County health departments could get information on how to sign up for coverage from the navigators to share with citizens, but only if citizens request it. Though the directive was issued quietly, it didn’t take long for some health departments, like Pinellas County’s, to push back, arguing that the health department is in a county-owned building, and therefore the state cannot control who works on its property. The state Health Department, under the direction of anti-Obamacare Gov. Rick Scott, gave in to the Pinellas health department’s complaints and said it could hire whatever staff it wanted—but for now the directive to block Obamacare information stands for the rest of the Florida.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/15/fringe-factor-wendy-davis-is-too-stupid-to-be-governor.html