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The DUzy Awards

DUzy Awards: Week ending May 24, 2013

applegrove

Number Of Liberal Americans Growing, Number Of Conservatives Dropping, Says Gallup

(The New Civil Rights Movement) The number of Americans who describe themselves and their beliefs as “liberal,” either on social or economic issues is growing significantly and reaching new highs, or meeting earlier ones, based on data from a just-released poll by Gallup, a generally conservative organization. Accordingly, the number of Americans who describe themselves and their beliefs as “conservative,” either on social or economic issues is dropping.

Segami

After the CUTS HIT THEM, 68% of Republicans DISAPPROVE of Sequester

(Politicus USA) While ideology has an impact on who approves of the cuts, with conservatives approving more than liberals, once the cuts hit them personally, ideology goes out the window, with 65% of conservatives impacted by the cuts disapproving of them: “Ideology has an effect: Forty-seven percent of “very” conservative Americans approve of the cuts, as do 42 percent of those who call themselves “somewhat” conservative. It’s 36 percent among moderates and 24 percent among liberals. But again, impacts of the cuts are a bigger factor in views on the issue. Among conservatives hurt by the cuts, 65 percent disapprove of them; among those unhurt, just 34 percent disapprove.”

The numbers are similar for Tea Partiers hit by the cuts, with 66% of them disapproving: “Similarly, 66 percent of Tea Party supporters who’ve been damaged by the cuts disapprove, vs. 44 percent of those who report no personal impact.”

ProSense

Krugman: Obamacare Will Be A Debacle — For Republicans

(NYT) We won’t really know how Obamacare works until it has been in operation for a while; but we do know that essentially the same system has been running in Massachusetts since 2006, and is doing pretty well. The question, then, is whether other states that don’t have MA’s initial advantages — especially an already low uninsurance rate and an already operating system of community rating — can make this thing work. The big fear has been of sharply rising premiums as insurers are required to cover people with preexisting conditions. And the biggest test case was always going to be California.

Well, the preliminary numbers for CA are in — and they’re looking very good, with costs coming in below expectations. At this point, it looks as if this thing is indeed going to work.

Tx4obama

House Republicans Destroy the GOP by Voting to Raise Student Loan Interest Rates

(Politicus USA) By a vote of 221-198, House Republicans continued to destroy their party by passing a bill that would raise student loan rates. Nine Republicans voted against the bill, and two Democrats voted for it. House Republicans tried to disguise their plan to raise student loan interest rates as saving the student loan program by making it a part of the “free market.” What House Republicans passed is a variable rate scheme where a student’s loan rate would be reset every year, so that the loan rate the student paid as a freshman would likely increased each year until they graduated.

Brickbat

Retiring principal: ‘It is harder for us to be nice to kids’

(WaPo) When I look back over my notebooks and journals from the past 21 years there are plenty of things I regret. What I do not regret were the times we educators chose to be kind to a kid. The times when we gave a child a second–and then third and fourth chance. The times we decided to let a kid go on a field trip, ignoring some misdeed that might have excluded him from the trip so that a child who had never been further than the county line could see the world writ large. You know the drill.

Galraedia

CONFIRMED: Fox News Hack James Rosen Is A Political Operative, Not A Journalist

(Mediaite) Ever since a Monday Washington Post article revealed that the Department of Justice investigation into a national security leak included searches of Fox News reporter James Rosen‘s email and phone records, the media has been focused on fluffing up comparisons of that case with the unfolding Associated Press leak investigation. Lost amid the hype and hysteria over the searches was the actual content of the emails between Rosen and his alleged source, then-State Department contractor Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. In those emails, now confirmed to be from Rosen, the Fox News Reporter reveals his noble intentions for seeking secret information from Kim.

ucrdem

Obama calls on Congress to repeal the Bush-Cheney AUMF (military authorization)

(TPM) From today's Counterterrorism speech:

"And that is why I intend to engage Congress about the existing Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF, to determine how we can continue to fight terrorists without keeping America on a perpetual war-time footing.

"The AUMF is now nearly twelve years old. The Afghan War is coming to an end. Core al Qaeda is a shell of its former self. Groups like AQAP must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States. Unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states.

"So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further. Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands."

cynatnite

Eight Men (NO WOMEN) Consider House Bill To Restrict Women's Reproductive Rights

(HuffPo) An all-male panel of House lawmakers considered a bill on Thursday that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy across the United States, without exceptions for rape, incest or health of the mother. The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, led by the bill's sponsor, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), has no female members.

n2doc

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