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Entries in Republicans (13)

Friday

May102013

US Students Rank Worst In Sleep Deprivation | Heritage Foundation Does Damage Control On Immigration & Eugenics

1. US Students rank worst in Boston College’s new sleep study. (View graph larger) After reviewing testing and research data from 900,000 students in 50 countries, researchers round that America has the greatest proportion os students whose math and science scores suffer due to poor sleep. 73% of 9 and 10-year-olds and 80% of 13 and 14-year olds were affected. This is significantly higher than the international averages of 47% and 57%, respectively. Experts link the results to the use of mobile phones and computers in bedrooms late at night. via BBC

American test scores in math and science have plummeted in recent years.

2. Kate Upton covers the June issue of American Vogue, heralded as “the hottest supermodel on Earth’. Take that Sophia Neophitou. Upton’s rise has been controversial for her womanly looks and body. Looking much like a 90’s supermodel, Upton has been called fat and trashy by haute fashionistas. Influential fashion industry players like Carine Roitfeld have embraced Kate Upton. This US Vogue cover adds a super notch to Upton’s resume.

3. Terragufia’s flying car now two years from delivery. The new Transition TF-X, with a price tag of $270,000, drives like a normal car, then takes off like a plane. The new model requires no runway and is able to land on a local helipad or even a parking lot.

Massachusetts aerospace firm Terrafugia ways the TF-X can actually fly itself to a large degree and would not require the owner to be a licensed pilot. The new TF-X model is designed to be a plug-in hybrid that uses electric motors to take off and gasoline during flight. via USA Today

4. In reponse to Ariz. Sen. John Kyl’s false claims in 2011 that 90% of Planned Parenthood’s services are abortions, the organization’s most recent fact sheet inndicates that only 3% of their services are abortions. PolicyMic asks if the Republican’s ongoing harassment of Planned Parenthood won’t untimately backfire. According to Hart Research Associates 62% of voters in the presidential election disagreed with Mitt Romney’s position to defund Planned Parenthood.

More than 60 Republican lawmakers requested in February 2013 a Government Accountability Office study to satisfy them that federal funds don’t go to support abortions at Planned Parenthood, in violation of the Hyde Amendment.

5. The Heritage Foundation’s attempts to kill immigration reform may backfire. The pro-reform CATO Institute (not a typical friend to progressives) put out a recent paper calling some of Robert Rector’s past work “fatally flawed”. Sen. Marco Rubio’s chief of staff argued that a different Heritage report argued that immigrants — both skilled or non-skilled — boost the economy.

The Washington Post Wonkblog asserted that the most recent study’s co-author Jason Richwine, who is now a senior policy analyst at Heritage, argued in his Harvard dissertation that there was a long-standing difference between the IQs of white Americans and immigrants, a factor that should be a key factor in determining immigration status eligibility.

Fri, May 10, 2013 in

America,

Daily tagged

Wednesday

Mar062013

Mostly Men Write Our Serious Reading | Neuro-politics Is A Hot Topic | US Seeks A Liberal Pope

1. Journalism seems to be a man’s world. According to a new VIDA study, women continue to write a minority of articles in prestigious publications, consistent with results from other years.

The study found that the London Review of Books published 34 pieces that carried female bylines, compared to 161 pieces with male byelines. Harper’s published 17 articles written by women, compared to 76 articles written by men. The New Yorker published 160 articles with female bylines, compared to 445 articles with male bylines. The New York Review of Books published 36 stories by women and 121 stories written by men. via Huff Po

2. Neuro-politics is a hot topic, as increasing evidence indicates that genes and brain chemistry significantly influence one’s political perspective. The Democratic amygdala can be distinguished from a Republican’s in a recent brain scan study. The Republican brain is more driven by fear and reward, with Democrats having a more generous-spirited, emotional connectivity — a conclusion affirmed by linguist and cognitive scientist George Lakoff who says the “Republicans’ attachment to a rigid concept of paternalistic discipline and enforced obedience to an idealized authority” is no accident.

Writing for Salon, Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg trace neuro-politics back to Thomas Jefferson.

3. ‘Queen-bee syndrome’ alive and well, writes the Wall Street Journal. A 2011 survey of working women by the American Management Association found that 95 percent of them believed they had been undermined by another woman at some point in their careers.

The syndrome is a live and well with the rise of the alpha women, writes psychologist Peggy Drexler. With all the talk about the need for women to mentor other women, something may be rotten in Denmark when the focus is the professional sisterhood.

Madeleine Albright said famous: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” If so, is it possible there may not be enough room for all the alpha ladies.

4. As the College of Cardinals prepares to select a new pope, US Catholics are united in a strong preference for a younger man with hew ideas. 66% of Catholics polled by CBS seek a pope with more liberal teachings on issues like birth control, ordaining women and permitting priests to marry.

Time for a reality check, however. The Vatican, Iran and other religious states are resisting efforts at the UN to demand tougher global standards to prevent violence against women and children.

The Vatican seeks to eliminate language stating that religious custom can’t be used as an excuse for being violent towards women and girls.

5. American researchers have found a potential benefit of a molecule in green tea: preventing the misfolding of specific proteins in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Simultaneously, British researchers believe that natural chemicals found in green tea and red wine prevent clumps of protein to latch on to brain cells, causing them to die.

After identifying the process which allows harmful protein clumps to start brain degeneration, the researchers were able to interrupt this pathway, using the purified extracts of EGCG from green tea and resveratrol from red wine. The discovery will help the development of new drugs to treat the dreaded Alzheimer’s disease. via Science Daily

Wed, March 6, 2013 in

Daily,

Health tagged

violence against women,

women leaders

Tuesday

Jul242012

Republicans Reject Disclosure Due to Democratic 'Lies' About Facts | Personhood Fails in Montana | PA Voter ID Law

French Roast News

Anne is reading …

Mitt Romney photo by J.D. Pooley/Getty ImagesSlate Magazine discourses on a topic very important to AOC readers: facts. It’s not only a dangerous time for lack of reasoned discourse in America; it’s a tough time for facts and transparency of any kind among our politicians.

Mitt Romney says that the reason he’s not releasing his tax returns is that the Obama team will “pick over it” and “distort and lie about them”.

Last week Senate Republicans filibustered the DISCLOSE Act. “Republicans are in favor of disclosure,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) said in 2000 on NBC’s “Meet the Press”.

“I don’t like it when a large source of money is out there funding ads and is unaccountable,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said in 2010. “To the extent we can, I tend to favor disclosure,’ cited The Washington Post last week.

Today Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell refuses to consider full disclosure, calling it an “enemies list”.

“This amounts to nothing more than member and donor harassment and intimidation, and it’s all part of a broader government-led intimidation effort by this administration. There are parallel efforts at the FCC, SEC, IRS, DoJ, and the White House itself to silence its critics. The creation of a modern day Nixonian enemies list is currently in full swing and, frankly, the American people should not stand for it. As I’ve said before, no individual or group in this country should have to face harassment or intimidation, or incur crippling expenses defending themselves against their own government, simply because that government doesn’t like the message they’re advocating.”

Republicans, led by Mitt Romney, are telling all Americans that our nation should no longer have any information about campaign contributors, where they got their cash or anything about their agendas.

It’s important to note that even the ultra conservative Justice Scalia disagrees with Mitch McConnell. Slate cites his position on disclosure and transparency:

There are laws against threats and intimidation; and harsh criticism, short of unlawful action, is a price our people have traditionally been willing to pay for self-governance. Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed.

Someone needs to explain this civic virtues of transparency and information to Republicans. Is it not the foundation of a free society?

The Right To Vote

PA’s Voter ID Law Large

As the Justice Department prepares to look into the legality of Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law, lawyers for the state acting as defendants in the case, say they will offer no evidence that there is a problem with voter fraud in the state, past or future.

From the inception, voter fraud in Pennsylvania or any other state has been a miniscule number, even though its possibility as served as the ideological argument for new laws that disproportionately disenfranchise poor people and the elderly.

Huffington Post writes:

Pennsylvania GOP House Majority Leader Mike Turzai fueled the concerns of anti-voter ID activists earlier this year when he claimed that the recently enacted measure would “allow Gov. [Mitt] Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”

Estimates are that the new laws will impact more than 758,000 voters in PA, with a large number located in Philadelphia, a city that votes Democratic.

Personhood Fails in Montana

Supporters of a drive to put a personhood amendment on the ballot in Montana failed to muster up the 48,674 signatures needed to put the issue before voters in November.

“Personhood” for fertilized eggs has failed everywhere it has come to the voters — twice in Colorado by overwhelming margins and most recently in conservative Mississippi by 16 points.

In an interesting piece for the The Clarion Ledger, conservative writer, and Bible Belt believer Natalie Winningham makes the point that the fight against personhood bills is not only coming from progressive women.

The push back against personhood initiatives by conservative women represents a rebellion against the government assuming a role as morality police, with lawmakers openly wanting to participate in creating legislation that controls women’s bodies.

Many conservative women who are pro-life personally are also pro-choice, rejecting governmental control — and especially in the name of religion — over women’s beings.

One Third of US Births ‘Unintended’: CDC

In a number that has remained constant from 1982 to 2010, a new government report confirms again that 37 percent of US births are unintended. The only group that has made progress in declining the percent of unplanned pregnancies are married white women.

In 1982, white women accounted for 66% of all births. In 2006-2010 they accounted for 43%.