New National Poll: Four Way Tie For Republican Nomination in 2016; Christie Gives Clinton A Close Race

 

 

 

Public Policy Polling has released it monthly national poll on the 2016 Presidential race. Senator Rand Paul has doubled his support from 7% to 14%. The other interesting factor is that Ted Cruz enters the poll with a solid 7%. Congressman Paul Ryan continues to lag behind in fifth place.

The poll shows basically a four way tie for the Republican nomination. Here are the results:

Marco Rubio: 16%

Chris Christie: 15%

Jeb Bush: 15%

Rand Paul: 14%

Paul Ryan: 9%

Ted Cruz: 7%

Rick Santorum: 5%

Bobby Jindal: 3%

Susana Martinez: 1%

Hillary Clinton continues to dominate the Democratic field with 63% of Democrats wanting her to be the nominee. The Vice-President is way back with just 13%.

If both Hillary and the Vice President don't run then the race is wide open. Interestingly, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has steadily risen in the poll and is now at 5% if the 'big two' don't run. She ties with O'Malley and leads Warner. Cuomo has the lead with 25% in that race.

Finally, which Republican gives Hillary the toughest race? Hands down it is Governor Christie. In a match-up:

Hillary Clinton: 47%

Chris Christie: 44%.

For Rubio and Paul, she leads them by 10%! She defeats both of them by 51% to 41%.

Michele Bachmann Trailing Challenger In Congressional Race! FBI Is Investigating Congresswoman!

 

 

Democrat Jim Graves and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann

Minnesota's Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a long time foe of LGBT equality, is currently trailing in her bid to be re-elected in 2014. Hotel Executive Jim Graves is now leading her in the new Public Policy poll. The results are:

Jim Graves: 47%

Michele Bachmann: 45%

In addition, the Minneapolis Star is reporting that the FBI has joined the investigation into of her presidential campaign in Iowa. The paper reported:

The FBI is investigating complaints of alleged campaign finance violations in Rep. Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign.

The FBI joins the Office of Congressional Ethics, the Federal Elections Commission and an Iowa state Senate ethics committee in probing whether Bachmann's presidential campaign paid an Iowa state senator from her MichelePAC, a fund that should not have been used for campaign expenses, and whether the state senator stole the email list of an Iowa home-school group from another Bachmann staffer, Barbara Hekki, prior to the Iowa caucuses in January, 2012.

Andy Parrish, former Bachmann chief of staff and one of the directors of Bachmann's Iowa GOP presidential campaign, will be interviewed by the FBI, according to his attorney, John Gilmore.

"I can confirm that Andy Parrish has been contacted by the FBI for a scheduled interview next week," Gilmore said. "He will cooperate fully."

Parrish has filed an affidavit with the Iowa ethics committee stating that state Sen. Kent Sorenson was paid for his work on the Bachmann presidential campaign through a fundraising firm that had ties to MichelePAC.

The entry of the FBI into the investigation raises the possibility that there were potential criminal violations. In addition to the alleged theft of the home-school list, the FBI is said to be looking into the campaign's demand that certain former employees, whose pay was withheld at the end of the campaign, sign non-disclosure agreements before receiving their compensation.

YOU CAN DONATE TO DEMOCRAT JIM GRAVES TO DEFEAT MICHELE BACHMANN HERE>>>>>

Texas Judge Orders Lesbian Couple To Separate To Keep Their Kids!

 

 

Justice and full equality continues to be a stranger to Texans.

In an astounding and shocking judicial decision, Republican Judge John Roach, Jr. demanded that a lesbian couple, Paige Price and Carolyn Compton separate in order to keep their kids. In a custody case involving Compton's previous husband, the Judge invoked a 'morality clause' and gave the couple thirty days for one of them to move out of the house. If they fail to comply, then they could lose custody of their children.

The clause was inserted into the divorce papers because the Judge didn't like Compton's 'lifestyle'.

The Dallas Voice reports:

“Our children are all happy and well adjusted. By his enforcement, being that we cannot marry in this state, I have been ordered to move out of my home,” Price wrote.

Price also mentions that Compton’s ex-husband rarely sees their two children and was once charged with stalking Compton. She said he also hired a private investigator in order to bring the case before the judge. Court records show the ex-husband, Joshua Compton, was charged with third-degree felony stalking in 2011 but pleaded to a misdemeanor charge of criminal trespassing.

Price declined an interview until her lawyers figure out the next step.

Compton was granted a divorce from her ex in 2011, according to court records. The case was reopened in April to dispute custody, which she shares with him.

Compton’s attorney, Barrett Stern, didn’t return a phone call seeking comment. Her ex-husband’s attorney, Paul Key, also didn’t return a phone call.

Ken Upton Jr., senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal’s Dallas office, said he is familiar with the case. He said morality clauses are rarely enforced and were historically used to prevent unmarried people from cohabitating with children present. Courts often include the clauses without people knowing, especially in conservative areas like Collin County, he said.

Gay couples are unfairly targeted under the clause because they can’t legally marry in Texas, Upton said.

So, an ex who is upset that his marriage ended because his wife was gay could use it against her later.

“What the clause has become is an extra burden on gay people because they’re no more likely to violate it than straight people,” he said. “It’s a problem that continues with homophobia.”

Ken Mehlman Message To Nevada Republicans: Marriage Equality Is A Conservative Cause

 

 

This weekend in an opinion piece in the Las Vegas Sun, conservative and former Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman made the case that being for marriage equality should be a conservative cause.

As Nevada debates repealing its anti-marriage equality amendment and looks for ways to legalize it, Mehlman urges Nevada Republicans to get behind this issue:

What do Vice President Dick Cheney, Gen. Colin Powell, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Clint Eastwood and more than 130 top officials from the Reagan and both Bush administrations have in common?

All are proud conservatives. Each spent much of their careers fighting on behalf of smaller government. And all support civil marriage for gay couples. Two weeks ago, their ranks increased to include state Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, who took a principled stand in favor of repealing Nevada’s current constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and replacing it with protections that will provide all loving, committed couples in the state the freedom to marry while also protecting religious freedom for churches that feel differently on this issue.

Freedom of Americans across all races is why the Republican Party was founded. And our most important accomplishments, from the economic growth unleashed when we’ve lowered taxes and reduced regulation to the fall of the Berlin Wall, have resulted when we promoted freedom.

Our concept of freedom is based in the Declaration of Independence, where every American was provided by their creator, not government, with the right to pursue happiness.

What freedom could be more basic and personal than the right to marry the person you love?

If we are serious in our belief that every citizen is endowed by his or her creator with the right to pursue happiness, then how can this not include the freedom to marry? What could be more central to a person’s happiness? And alternatively, if we want a smaller, less obtrusive government, shouldn’t individuals, not politicians, decide who they can marry?

Maximizing freedom isn’t the only conservative value enhanced by allowing civil marriage for same-gender couples. It will promote stability, responsibility and commitment — family values that conservatives often encourage in public policy.

Marriage encourages people to think beyond their own needs, to create loving households, to build a support network so people can be cared for in sickness, old age and hard times.

Shouldn’t we want these conservative values to be available to all families? As Ted Olson, solicitor general for President George W. Bush, who has successfully argued some of the most important conservative cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, recently wrote: “The fact that individuals who happen to be gay want to share in this vital social institution is evidence that conservative ideals enjoy widespread acceptance. Conservatives should celebrate this.”

Finally, the proposed amendment approved by Kieckhefer and his Democratic colleagues adds new protections that strengthen religious liberty while advancing other critical values shared by so many Americans of faith.

If passed by the Assembly in the coming weeks and by both chambers again in 2015, the amendment would give Nevada voters the final say in whether to allow same-gender couples to obtain a civil marriage license. The amendment would not require a private religious institution to recognize or perform a wedding. Churches and religious institutions would be protected against litigation, and their nonprofit tax status could not be challenged based on their views regarding marriage.

As Republicans, we respect the individual and work to empower people to live as they see fit, with as little intrusion by the government as practical. This idea is grounded in the Golden Rule to treat others as we would like to be treated.

Put yourself in your neighbor’s shoes. How would you feel if, even though you paid the same taxes, potentially served in the same military and followed the same rules as your neighbor, your government denied you the right to marry the person you love?

Among Republicans in national polls, support for marriage has increased by 50 percent in the past three years, and a growing majority of conservatives under 30 now favor this basic freedom.

This isn’t surprising. The freedom to marry is consistent with core conservative and American values — limited government, personal responsibility, commitment and, above all, freedom for all.

Robert Shrum: Republican Program For America? Destroy President Obama

 

 

 

For many on the right, racism is the root of an otherwise inexplicable resistance to the first African-American in the White House. A shrinking rump of older, rural, white America simply can't abide the country they assumed they would always rule now being in the hands of the "other."

- Robert Shrum

Writing in his weekly column for The Daily Beast, author and commentator Robert Shrum calls out the Republicans for their destructive behavior. Their relentless effort to destroy President Obama has been taking place since day one of his administration. Forget how harmful it is to the country. They have paralyzed Washington and any hope of constructive bi-partisan cooperation in the economic recovery or any other urgently needed program.

This is one of Shrum's best columns:

I've written that in the end, congressional Republicans won't agree to move forward on the budget, tax reform, immigration, job creation, or any other issues that matter to mainstream America before the presidential elections. But the fall of 2016 is a long time away, and they have to do something in the meantime. Now we know what it is.

It's not much different from what they've done, or haven't done, all along: obstruct Obama. Traduce him, delegitimize him—and slow economic recovery in hopes that voters will cast a protest vote for the GOP. It worked in 2010, and failed miserably in 2012.

Conservatives are back at it again because the GOP lacks any coherent program other than cutting taxes for the wealthy. Republicans are deeply divided—between the government-hating Tea Party Torquemadas and an establishment that dreads primary defeat, or in John Boehner's case, defenestration as speaker; between the isolationists like Rand Paul and the neo-cons and John McCain.

The animating principle of today's GOP is relentless animus toward the president.

The hard-core base simply rejects his reelection; 49 percent in a Public Policy Poll claim the White House was stolen for Obama last November by groups such as Acorn, Republican-demonized grassroots organization that had disbanded two years earlier. For many on the right, racism is the root of an otherwise inexplicable resistance to the first African-American in the White House. A shrinking rump of older, rural, white America simply can't abide the country they assumed they would always rule now being in the hands of the "other."

GOP members of Congress are—mostly—not that crude or overt. There is Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, a climate-denying fabulist and scowling denizen of the modern-day, flat-earth society, who has suggested impeaching the president for "the most egregious cover-up in American history." He means Benghazi, of course—a concocted conspiracy incomprehensible to most Americans.

Republican leaders in the Senate and House distance themselves from Inhofe, because of the inevitable backlash from voters beyond the fevered precincts of the far right. But fanning the fires of anti-Obama resentment enables Boehner to hold together his restive, fractured caucus—and lets Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell constantly revalidate his ideological credentials. They—and Republicans in general—are taking advantage of three events to bash the president.

The tactic—you can't dignify it by calling it strategy—may finally backfire. First, though, the GOP will prosecute month after month of a multifront war on the White House.

CONTINUE READING THE ENTIRE COLUMN HERE.....>>>>>>

Massachusetts United States Senate Race Is Toss-Up

 

 

 

As if the Democrats didn't have enough worries for 2014 with so many of their seats up in red states, now Massachusetts is becoming a close call. The seat was vacated by Senator John Kerry when he accepted the President's offer to become Secretary of State. Few worried that it could fall into Republican hands after former Senator Scott Brown decided that New Hampshire might be more friendly toward him!

Congressman Ed Markey easily won the Democratic nomination.

However an attractive 'moderate' Republican Gabriel Gomez won the Republican nomination. The Hispanic former Navy Seal is the kind of Republican that gives Democrats big headaches in Massachusetts.  In fact he might be the new face of the Republican Party.  He is born of Columbian immigrents, hispanic, supports marriage equality and young. 

Markey leads by only 4%!

If Democrats fail to keep this seat, this could spell trouble for the Party to keep the Senate in 2014.

Public Policy Polling recently completed a poll and reported.

PPP's first poll of the general election in the Massachusetts Senate special finds a close race, with Ed Markey leading Gabriel Gomez by a 44-40 margin.

Gomez is starting out as a pretty popular candidate, with 41% of voters rating him favorably to 27% with an unfavorable opinion. Beyond having good numbers with Republicans he's at 42/24 with independents, and actually seen narrowly positively even by Democrats at 33/32. Voters meanwhile are more divided on Markey, with 44% holding a positive view of him to 41% with a negative one. He's at 31/50 with independents.

For a Republican to be competitive in Massachusetts they need to win independents by a hefty margin and get a fair amount of crossover support from Democrats, and right now Gomez is doing both of those things. He's up 47/31 with independents and winning over 21% of Democratic voters. Both those numbers suggest that some folks who supported Stephen Lynch in the primary are being a little reticent about supporting Markey in the general.

Darling Of Hollywood Conservatives Is Notorious Fraud And Holocaust Revisionist

 

 

 

Republicans and conservatives in Hollywood embraced 'David Stein' with a rare enthusiasm. He was Jewish, intellectual and conservative who hosted great events. Around his table you would find politicians, entertainers and conservative intellectuals.

There was one problem, he was a fraud. 'David Stein' was in fact a David Cole who had spent most of his intellectual career challenging history of the holocaust.

The Guardian reports:

To those who knew him, or thought they knew him, he was a cerebral, fun-loving gadfly who hosted boozy gatherings for Hollywood's political conservatives. David Stein brought right-wing congressmen, celebrities, writers and entertainment industry figures together for shindigs, closed to outsiders, where they could scorn liberals and proclaim their true beliefs.

Over the past five years Stein's organisation, Republican Party Animals, drew hundreds to regular events in and around Los Angeles, making him a darling of conservative blogs and talkshows. That he made respected documentaries on the Holocaust added intellectual cachet and Jewish support to Stein's cocktail of politics, irreverence and rock and roll.

There was just one problem. Stein was not who he claimed. His real name can be revealed for the first time publicly – a close circle of confidants only found out the truth recently – as David Cole. And under that name he was once a reviled Holocaust revisionist who questioned the existence of Nazi gas chambers. He changed identities in January 1998.

"That was when David Cole officially expired," he told the Guardian in an interview this week. "That was the end of Cole. Or so I thought. That was when David Stein was brought into this world.

For 15 years I have been David Stein. Now the genie is out of the bottle. I'm done. I'm finished. I'm not going to try to remain as David Stein.

Cole's brazen reinvention as a social networker and political pundit deceived a roll-call of conservative politicians, filmmakers, journalists and broadcasters who had no clue about his past. A falling out with a friend led to his unmasking in his social circle two weeks ago, when a group of former supporters was shown YouTube clips of Cole's incendiary – and until then forgotten – television appearances in the early 1990s.

As a combative twentysomething with tousled black hair, he was a vilified guest on chat shows hosted by Phil Donahue, Montel Williams and Morton Downey, among others, and was depicted as a neo-Nazi on news shows such as 60 Minutes and 48 Hours.

"My friends are horrified," said Cole, now aged 44 and with greying hair. "They rang and emailed to ask if it really was me. The Hollywood types are the ones hurting the most right now because they could be harmed by this. I'm feeling a certain amount of guilt."

The unmasking shocked and angered the small, tight-knit community of Hollywood conservatives, setting their Facebook groups ablaze and prompting emergency meetings.

YOU CAN READ ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE>>>>

Republicans: Blame The Gays......

 

 

 

What to do? What to do?

The Republicans know they have to pass some sort of immigration reform or they run the risk of even greater backlash from Hispanic voters in the mid-terms. The 'Gang of Eight' arrived at a proposal with Senator Marco Rubio giving his considerable blessing. There was one problem. Even Senator Rubio expressed doubt that any immigration reform legislation worth a damn would ever be passed by the right-wing Republicans in the House of Representatives.

Fortunately for the Republicans, 'The Gang of Eight' removed LGBT Americans from the legislation. Evidently, our rights and freedom are viewed as the 'kiss of death' by our elected representatives in Congress. Equally fortunately, LGBT citizens are no longer rolling over and playing dead every time someone denies them their rights and are insisting that we be included in the historic legislation.

Anyone who knows a bi-national LGBT couple knows of the pain, fear and economic uncertainty that dominates their lives. If they were able to get married like straight Americans there would be no issue since they could easily settle in America. An immigration bill without addressing this horror would indeed be hollow and divisive.

Senator Rubio, never one to miss an opportunity, has changed his tune and now proclaims that if all Americans are included in the legislation then it will be defeated. He wants us to forget that he had already proclaimed that the crazies in the House would never pass serious immigration reform. After all, the good Senator has a new excuse.

When failure is at the door just blame the gays.

Thank God! After all, if we can blame earthquakes, hurricanes, Newtown, Boston and every other ailment in America on LGBT Americans, while not just add immigration reform. Hell, most likely, even the Catholic Church would withdraw their support of the legislation if all Americans are treated equally.

Guess what Senator Rubio?

Not going to work this time. Not only are LGBT Americans on to this disgrace but so are Hispanic Americans who are shocked that over a quarter of a million LGBT Americans are not included. The two communities stand side by side - powerfully - to say 'oh no you don't!"

Robert Shrum: Nancy Pelosi Would Be The Perfect Speaker of the House!

 

 

Commentator and author Robert Shrum writing for The Daily Beast says if the Democrats take back the House that Nancy Pelosi would be one of the best Speakers of the House ever. He writes that, despite her unfavorable ratings from relentless attacks from Republicans, she has the politics to gather the Democratic Party and push through progressive legislation for the President to sign. No wonder the Republicans are so worried about her.

Shrum writes:

Even before she was elected Democratic leader in 2003, she was a pioneering architect of legislation to combat HIV/AIDS. She voted against the Defense of Marriage Act—and against the resolution authorizing George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq. And after she became leader, she marshaled near unanimous Democratic opposition to Bush’s scheme to privatize Social Security, and the intimidated the GOP majority didn’t even dare bring it to a vote.

As speaker in 2007, she pushed through an increase in the minimum wage—and a once resistant Bush signed it as part of the bill for Hurricane Katrina relief and supplemental funding for U.S. military forces in Iraq. A year later, she pungently described Bush as “a total failure, losing all credibility…on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject”—an assessment that’s worth remembering during this week’s exquisitely polite rituals at the dedication of the Bush presidential library.

A masterful inside politician, a Democrat’s Democrat, she nonetheless transcended partisanship when the economic crisis hit during the twilight of the Bush administration. After Republicans first defeated the bank bailout bill in the House—and the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 777 points in one day—she persuaded 33 Democrats to switch their votes, and the bill passed despite the opposition of a majority of GOP members. The bailout wasn’t popular, but it was an essential first step back from the brink of a second Great Depression, and then, as now, Pelosi knew that popularity counts in politics, but it isn’t the only standard of public service.

Her chance to change America as well as his came with Barack Obama’s inauguration. The following two years saw what the political scientist Norman Ornstein called “the best Congress you’ll ever hate.” The unrelenting GOP opposition, the distortions and the demagoguery, would cost House Democrats their majority in 2010, but in the meantime they did what had to be done and wrote a new chapter in our national life.

The president, Pelosi, and her leadership team secured a second economy-saving measure, the $800 billion stimulus package, without a single Republican vote in the House. The legislation not only included one of the biggest middle-class tax cuts in history but also pumped resources into broadband and wireless Internet, clean energy, a modern electricity grid, education, transportation, and infrastructure. It responded to “the fierce urgency” of the moment—and it advanced a futuristic vision of America. The investment could have been greater, but it was the most that could be squeezed through a polarized Congress. Or as Michael Grunwald of Time put it in his book The New New Deal, the stimulus was “stocked” with “game-changers” that will strengthen the economy for decades to come.

READ THE ENTIRE COLUMN BY CLICKING HERE.....

American Unity Fund Mobilizes Republicans For Marriage Equality

 

 

 

 

 

In a New York Times Article By Nicholas Confessore, plans were reported of the Republican Unity Fund's efforts to pass marriage equality across America. They were instrumental in lining up all five Republican State Senators in Rhode Island and now focusing on Delaware and Illinois. The journalist reported:

When the Rhode Island State Senate tallied up the votes against a same-sex marriage bill passed there on Wednesday, something was missing: Republicans.

All five of the chamber’s Republican lawmakers had voted for the bill, stunning opponents and sending the measure to the governor’s desk and almost-certain victory next week.

The vote reflected not only the rapidly shifting tides of public opinion on same-sex marriage, but also the influence of a new Republican advocacy group called the American Unity Fund, which spent weeks helping the state’s gay rights organization cultivate Republican senators.

Now the group is preparing a major push in Washington and in state capitals intended to reshape the Republican Party, by building support for same-sex marriage and bolstering its acceptance among candidates and party activists around the country.

Founded and financed by some of the country’s leading Republican fund-raisers and strategists, the fund expects to raise up to $7 million this year, officials said. The fund’s organizers include Paul E. Singer and Clifford S. Asness, libertarian-leaning New York investors; David Herro, a prominent Chicago money manager; and Seth Klarman, a billionaire Boston philanthropist and hedge fund manager.

“The concept of gay unions fits very well within our framework of individual liberty and our belief that strong families make for a stronger society,” Mr. Singer said in an e-mail. “The institution of marriage is in very bad shape in this country, yet gay and lesbian couples want very much to be a part of it, to live as committed husbands and wives with their children in traditional family units. This should be what we want as conservatives, for people to cherish and respect this model and to want it for themselves.”

The fund is one of several advocacy organizations backed by wealthy Republicans and business leaders to shift their party’s stance in recent months on issues like immigration and same-sex marriage. And the new effort traces a rift between Republican elites and grass-roots voters over a handful of hot-button social issues that one group views as handcuffing the party and the other sees as essential to its identity.

“We were fighting for years on the life issue, with the same group of people,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, referring to abortion rights. Mr. Perkins attended the Republican National Convention last year as a delegate and wrote the party’s marriage plank, which states that “the union of one man and one woman must be upheld as the national standard.”

Mr. Perkins added: “They have money, but they’re small in number. It’s still a tension between those who care about social issues and those who would rather not deal with them.”

Those involved with the American Unity Fund said its initial efforts would be focused on more socially liberal states, like Illinois and Delaware, where a handful of Republican votes could enable advocates to win passage of same-sex marriage legislation in the coming months. The group has already set up shop in Minnesota, where the Legislature may vote as early as next week on a same-sex marriage bill that advocates do not yet have enough votes to pass.

But the group is also beginning a long-term push in more conservative states like West Virginia and Utah, seeking to build conservative support for nondiscrimination laws that could help pave the way for same-sex marriage in coming years. A critical part of the effort, fund strategists said, is building lists of Republican supporters of same-sex marriage around the country that could be used to pressure lawmakers in Washington and elsewhere. That could prove critical at the state level, where Republicans now control majorities or supermajorities in more than half the state capitols.

READ ALL OF IT HERE.....