Scalia says abortion, gay rights are easy cases

The justice said the Constitution makes abortion decisions "absolutely easy"

By Mark Sherman, Associated Press


In this March 8, 2012 file phoo, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia speaks at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File) (Credit: AP)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Antonin Scalia says his method of interpreting the Constitution makes some of the most hotly disputed issues that come before the Supreme Court among the easiest to resolve.

“The death penalty? Give me a break. It’s easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy. Nobody ever thought the Constitution prevented restrictions on abortion. Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state,” Scalia said at the American Enterprise Institute.

He contrasted his style of interpretation with that of a colleague who tries to be true to the values of the Constitution as he applies them to a changing world. This imaginary justice goes home for dinner and tells his wife what a wonderful day he had, Scalia said.

This imaginary justice, Scalia continued, announces that it turns out “‘the Constitution means exactly what I think it ought to mean.’ No kidding.”

As he has said many times before, the justice said the people should turn to their elected lawmakers, not judges, to advocate for abortion rights or an end to the death penalty. Or they should try to change the Constitution, although Scalia said the Constitution makes changing it too hard by requiring 38 states to ratify an amendment for it to take effect.

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/05/scalia_says_abortion_gay_rights_are_easy_cases/

Pro-Muslim Subway Ads to Hang Near Anti-Jihad Ads

Source: New York Times

Pro-Muslim Subway Ads to Hang Near Anti-Jihad Ads

By ASHWAQ MASOODI



Rabbis for Human Rights – North America and the group Sojourners, led by the Christian author and social-justice advocate Jim Wallis, are unveiling their campaigns on Monday. Their ads will be placed near the anti-jihad ads in the same Manhattan subway stations, leaders of both groups said and transit officials confirmed. The groups said their campaigns were coincidental.

The ad by Rabbis for Human Rights turns the language of the earlier ad, placed by a pro-Israel group, on its head. The original ad says, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.” The ad by Rabbis for Human Rights says, “In the choice between love and hate, choose love. Help stop bigotry against our Muslim neighbors.”

Rabbi Jacobs said: “Geller thinks she is speaking for the entire Jewish community. We are a group of 1,800 rabbis and we want everyone to know that we have to work in partnership with the Muslim community and do not believe in dehumanizing them.”

Sojourners’ campaigns manager, the Rev. Beau Underwood, said, “An essential tenet of Christianity is to love our neighbors.” He added: “In the face of religious extremism, the best response is to treat others like we would want to be treated. Our ad campaign has a simple message that is at the heart of our faith.”



Read more: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/pro-muslim-subway-ads-to-hang-near-anti-jihad-ads/?smid=tw-share

salon.com: Pro-tolerance subway ads to hang near anti-Islam posters

A Christian group and a Jewish group will unveil their own responses to "savages" ads

By Natasha Lennard

The original anti-Islam ad read, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” The posters from the Jewish group Rabbis for Human Rights will directly counter this message with the slogan, “In the choice between love and hate, choose love. Help stop bigotry against our Muslim neighbors.”

Rabbis for Human Rights – North America and the group Sojourners, led by the Christian author and social-justice advocate Jim Wallis, are unveiling their campaigns on Monday. Their ads will be placed near the anti-jihad ads in the same Manhattan subway stations, leaders of both groups said and transit officials confirmed.

… “We wanted to make it clear that it is in response to the anti-Islam ad,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, whose members include rabbis from all streams of Judaism.The Sojourners ad simply says, “Love your Muslim neighbors.”


http://www.salon.com/2012/10/04/pro_tolerance_subway_ads_to_hang_near_anti_islam_posters/

The Romney campaign has calculated that the GOP base is finally at the point where they will

accept a fair amount of triangulation. The base is finally recognizing the reality that they are headed toward a crushing landslide defeat and triangulating toward the center is their only hope of beating Obama. Romney simply cannot possibly win as the hardliner continually attacking even Perry, Gingrich and Santorum from the right. Everyone else has known that for a long time. The GOP base has only now just figured it out and is finally letting Romney run as a nationally electable Massachusetts moderate. It took coming to the brink of a national landslide defeat to finally wake them up. For us that means that suddenly during the last five weeks of the campaign that we have to run against a candidate representing themselves as the 2002 Massachusetts moderate instead of the hardliner who attacked Perry, Gingrich and Santorum as being too liberal. It will be a bit challenging to keep reminding the usually less than fully informed independent swing voter that the Romney they are seeing now is not the Romney who has been running for President for the last five years.

Will Mitt run on torture?

His advisers want him to bring waterboarding back. Challenging Obama on torture might be his debate surprise

By Alex Pareene


(Credit: AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File; Salon)

It seems likely that a President Mitt Romney would rescind the executive order issued by President Barack Obama outlawing torture. His own policy advisers have told him to do so, according to a memo obtained by the New York Times. (Mitt Romney’s advisers are doing everything they can to encourage the liberal debate over the morality of supporting Obama in the face of his miserable civil liberties record.)

Americans are more accepting of torture now than they were when America was doing it.

In an October 2007 Rasmussen poll, 27 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should torture prisoners captured in the fight against terrorism, while 53 percent said it should not. In my YouGov poll, 41 percent said they would be willing to use torture — a gain of 14 points — while 34 percent would not, a decline of 19 points.

It gets worse: More Americans also support specific torture techniques, including waterboarding, than did in 2005. (Bush’s favorable ratings are gradually rising, too.) It’s not a large number of Americans who have suddenly come around on torturing prisoners, but Romney’s looking for any advantage he can get, and he’s shameless. Romney has likely already decided to bring torture back once he’s in office, so the only calculation is between waiting until he’s won to announce it or trying to use it for political advantage now.

And honestly, as awful as campaign coverage of the ensuing torture “debate” would be, it would at least draw into the open what the Republican Party has so far been oddly quiet about: That the next Republican president will almost certainly bring torture back, because Bush made it GOP policy.

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/01/will_mitt_run_on_torture/

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- Remember this song from 1968 - Abraham, Martin and John by Dion. #4 Billboard Hot 100, 1968.

Teen voted to homecoming court as cruel prank faces bullies

A Michigan sophomore beamed last night as she faced the bullies who voted her to the homecoming court as a sick joke.
After initially planning to skip the celebrations, Whitney Kropp, 16, bravely walked out onto the field during Ogemaw Heights High School's homecoming football game to accept the honour, and more than 1,000 people showed up to support her.
'The kids that are bullying you, do not let them bring you down. Stand up for what you believe in and go with your heart and go with your gut,' Whitney said, shortly after the halftime celebration

Being cruelly selected to the West Branch high school's homecoming court as a joke prompted student to pick on Whitney both at school and on Facebook, her mother told NBC.
Whitney admitted she wasn't one of the popular students at Ogemaw, but didn't think her classmates could stoop so low. Yet the bullying became so relentless that she thought about taking her own life.
She told WNEM-TV: 'I had actually reached a point where I had thought about suicide for how bad this case was in. I thought I wasn't worthy at Ogemaw Heights at all.'
'I felt like I wasn’t worthy,' she added on the Today show. 'Why even be a part of this community, this world if I’m just going to be tossed around like basically a piece of trash?'

But the savage bullying was soon overpowered by a tremendous outpouring of support for the teen.
A former student, Jamie Kline set up a Facebook page 'Support Whitney Kropp,' which has shared her story of bullying with more than 100,000 since it was created.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2210429/Whitney-Kropp-Teen-voted-homecoming-court-cruel-prank-faces-bullies-sports-stunning-dress-new-hairdo-accept-honour-football-game.html#ixzz27sfVW5tN

Weird news: Iranian news agency reposts Onion article

The Fars News Agency reprinted a parody story on how rural whites prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama

By Natasha Lennard

A major Iranian news agency, the Fars News Agency, is evidently not familiar with America’s most popular parody news source. Without attribution, the news site affiliated with the Islamic Revolutions Guards Corps reprinted an Onion story, which read, “According to the results of a Gallup poll released Monday, the overwhelming majority of rural white Americans said they would rather vote for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than US President Barack Obama.”

The Onion’s made-up poll was accompanied by made-up comments, reprinted in full by the Fars News Agency, including: ”[Ahmadinejad] takes national defense seriously, and he’d never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does.”

http://www.salon.com/writer/natasha_lennard/

Intrade now at 78.1% for Obama only 22.2% for Romney

Mitt Romney: :Teachers union money should not be allowed to go to political campaigns

Mitt Romney embraced campaign finance reform on Tuesday. But rather than targeting unlimited corporate contributions or lending his support to existing campaign finance legislation, Romney instead suggested limiting teachers unions' donations to politicians.

The Republican presidential candidate came down on teachers unions for supporting political candidates during an NBC-sponsored forum on education in New York City. During the "Education Nation" event, moderator Brian Williams asked Romney about his thoughts on the teachers' strike in Chicago.

"I don’t know that I would prevent teachers from being able to strike,” Romney said, acknowledging that "allowing to teachers to strike on matters such as compensation" is within their rights.

Instead, Romney said the focus should be on removing the teachers unions' money from the political equation.

" I think we’ve got to get the money out of the teachers unions going into campaigns. It’s the wrong way for us to go. We’ve got to separate that.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/26/mitt-romney-teachers_n_1914968.html?utm_hp_ref=politics