Tag Archives: Marco Rubio

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Good news from the Trayvon Martin tragedy

07/18/2013 Nativegrl77

Good news from the Trayvon Martin tragedy, by Horace Boothroyd III
Elizabeth Warren reduces CNBC “Squawk Box” team to rubble, by Upper West
Black shooter of white victim in Florida claimed ‘Stand Your Ground,’ still arrested & tried, by vyan
Viral Daily Kos Facebook meme thanks to Bill Maher: How could anyone in their right mind vote for some of these clowns?
Man arrested for having a stroke while black, left to die on jail floor, by Kristina4
There’s one sequester cut Marco Rubio is sad about, and it’s not Meals on Wheels or Head Start, by Laura Clawson
John Oliver BLASTS Zimmerman verdict, by BruinKid
The GOP pickup artist’s guide to seducing female voters, by Tom Tomorrow
A letter from Marissa Alexander – the battered woman serving 20 years for firing a warning shot, by Leslie Salzillo
Why Isn’t NRA arguing Trayvon Martin tragedy could have been averted if only he had a gun?, by David Harris Gershon

Create Daily Kos content of your own by clicking here and signing up (link won’t work if you are signed into Daily Kos).
Keep fighting, Sarah Burris, Daily Kos

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Shame!

07/05/2013 Nativegrl77

By CAP Action War Room

Sneak Attack on Abortion Rights in North Carolina

The GOP’s outrageous attacks on abortion rights and women’s health are spreading — and fast. After the dramatic showdown in Texas, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) signed a budget that included nearly two dozen new restrictions on abortion rights. Then Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) announced that he would become the lead sponsor of the unconstitutional 20-week abortion ban that passed the House of Representatives last month.

Abortion rights activists rallying in Texas on Monday.

The most devious attack, however, just came out of nowhere in North Carolina. As we’ve observed before, the state government has been taken over by right-wing extremists. One of the many extreme bills to emerge from the North Carolina House was an offensive and unnecessary ban on Sharia law in the state. (Unfortunately, these Republican anti-Sharia law bills have become something of a trend in recent years.) At the very last minute before a holiday weekend, the North Carolina Senate took this bill up, added sweeping restrictions on abortion that would probably shutter all but one of the state’s clinics, and sent the bill back to the House. Protesters shouted “shame!” as the legislation was pushed through the Senate.

Abortion rights activists protesting today in North Carolina as the GOP rushed through a draconian anti-abortion law.

In Texas, the GOP tried to change the rules in the middle of the game but they did so in front of thousands of activists in the state capitol and more than 100,000 people watching online. In North Carolina, the sneak attack on abortion rights prompted even the state’s Republican governor to rebuke legislators for trying to rush the abortion restrictions through.

This latest controversy comes after weeks of Moral Monday protests against other measures before the legislature, which now include a shocking attack on voting rights following last week’s Supreme Court ruling that gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.

BOTTOM LINE: The GOP has shown that it will resort to nearly any tactic, no matter how sneaky or unfair, in order to attack women and deny them the choice to exercise their constitutionally-protected right to have an abortion.

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84 Votes

06/13/2013 Nativegrl77

By ThinkProgress War Room

Senate Makes Major Move on Immigration Reform

Immigration reform including a pathway to earned citizenship moved one step closer to reality today as the Senate voted overwhelmingly, 84-15, to began debating and amending the bipartisan bill that passed the Judiciary Committee last month. Unsurprisingly, all of today’s no votes came from Republicans, including those leading the opposition to the bill: Sens. Jeff Sessions (AL), Mike Lee (UT), and Ted Cruz (TX).

While many of those who voted to take up the bill today are expected to oppose it in the end, today’s vote is the latest sign of strong momentum. By contrast, the vote to take up the 2007 immigration reform effort, which ultimately failed, was a much narrower 64-35.

Good news also came from the other side of the Capitol today, with Speaker Boehner (R-OH) predicting that the bill will become law before the end of the year. In another positive sign, Boehner also refused to rule out passing a bill through the House with mostly Democratic votes.

Finally, the president also held an event today with DREAMers and a bipartisan group of others who support reform with a pathway to earned citizenship.

The only unfortunate news on the immigration front today came from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who appears to want to have it both ways once again. Rubio was reportedly asking his Republican colleagues to refrain from coming out in support of the bill so he could use the appearance of a lack support among Republicans as an excuse to drag the bill to the right. Discouraging fellow senators from supporting one’s own legislation is a relatively unheard of move.

A new poll out today shows that 81 percent of Latinos polled reject the notion of the “border-security first” approach that Rubio is inching toward. That includes 76 percent of Latinos who have voted for a GOP candidate in the past. Instead, Latinos want to see the pathway to citizenship and border security implemented concurrently, just as it is in the Gang of 8 bill Rubio himself helped author.

BOTTOM LINE: We are closer than we’ve been in a generation toward achieving real reform to our broken immigration system. Reforming our broken system will allow 11 MILLION undocumented immigrants to come out of the shadows, something that will boost our economy by a cumulative $832 BILLION over the next ten years.

Evening Brief: Important Stories That You Might’ve Missed

Google asks the government to let them reveal how many national security data requests they receive.

Bipartisan group of senators introduces legislation adding transparency to surveillance programs.

The other massive online surveillance program that no one is talking about.

Obama administration ends effort to restrict Plan B.

Nike now has a line of pro-LGBT shoes and sports fashions.

House Republicans launch new battle in war on women: unconstitutional 20-week abortion ban.

Overdraft protection actually hurts consumers, study finds.

Elizabeth Warren already has regulators considering tougher actions against the banks.

Another day, another false and misleading Republican attack on Obamacare.

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Liberal Media

03/15/2013 Nativegrl77

By ThinkProgress War Room

The National Media’s Misbegotten Sequester Coverage

First, Republicans accused the president of over-hyping the impact of the sequester and many reporters dutifully began asking the White House if they regretted the alleged over-hyping. Soon, however, both Congressional Republicans and the media found one impact of the sequester that represented an all-out crisis: the cancellation of White House tours.

(The Secret Service is subject to sequester cuts — $84 MILLION worth — and suspending the tours will save $74,000 a week. This will allow them to avoid furloughing additional workers.)

One-quarter of Americans say that they’ve already been negatively affected by the painful sequester cuts; those making less than $50,000 were twice as likely to have been impacted as those making more than $100,000. The worst impacts of the cuts are still to come and will only get worse over time, yet cable news has hardly covered the impact on some of the most vulnerable among us. Instead there has been absolutely breathless coverage of the apparent national crisis caused by the cancellation of White House tours.

The Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein hits the nail on the head in his piece lamenting the “gross obsession with White House tours.” You should read the whole thing, but here’s the key paragraph:

There’s bargaining power for Republicans in upholding the convenient fiction that we can make these cuts and no one will really hurt, because government spending is just wasteful and unnecessary. But the effort here isn’t to make sure no one hurts. It’s to make sure no one with the political capital to do something about it hurts. As such, the minor inconveniences of the politically powerful have become a national crisis, even as some of the politically powerless are losing not just a White House tour, but the very roof over their heads.

The Beltway media should follow the lead of local media outlets covering the impact of the sequester. Instead of hyperventilating about White House tours, local outlets have been covering cuts to things like Head Start, medical research, public housing, schools, and the military (including active duty soldiers).