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"No Longer Quivering" - How The Duggars Promote Misogynistic Family Values

August 20, 2015, 8:55 pm
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Ya got your Jesus. 
Ya got your flag. 
Ya got your pious lapel pin.

Must be one of us...
... 'til it's time to sacrifice the next "virgin."

Josh Duggar, Christian Idol & Statutory Rapist Subscribed To Ashley Madison's Spouse Swap Site

Here are 5 misogynistic , Christian ‘family values’ taught to hypocrite Josh Duggar


Vyckie Garrison, AlterNet

20 AUG 2015 AT 12:12 ET 
Vyckie Garrison was once a minor celebrity in the Quiverfull Movement, made famous by TV’s Duggar family. As a devout, Bible-believing Christian and the mother of seven homeschooled children, Garrison spent 16 years, with her husband, publishing a newspaper for families on a similar path. Today, via a website called No Longer Quivering, she publishes resources for women leaving the movement.
Surprise, surprise: Josh Duggar had a couple paid Ashley Madison accounts during the same years he worked as executive director of FRC Action, the political arm of Family Research Council’s “traditional family values” organization.
Hypocritical? Absolutely … but also, considering Josh’s family upbringing, not exactly startling.
Quiverfull parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have raised their mega-brood of 19 children in strict accordance with the religious right’s “traditional family” model for marriage and family: they raised their daughters to be submissive “help meets” and their sons to be biblical patriarchs.
According to the purveyors of “biblical family values,” God created men for the express purpose of taking dominion over all of creation beginning in their own homes since any man who aspires to a position of power in church or government must first “rule his own house well” having his wife and children in submission “with all reverence.” (1 Timothy 3:4)
From his infancy, Michelle employed the “blanket training” method to condition Josh to be instantly, joyously obedient.  In other words, before he could walk or talk, Josh Duggar learned to reflexively and unquestioningly obey both his earthly parents as well as his Heavenly Father via the fundamentalist interpretation of the bible.
Jim Bob and Michelle homeschooled Josh in order to control what the boy learned and from whom. He was isolated from mainstream society, sheltered from popular culture, and had limited access to secular resources regarding life, relationships, and sex education.
Here’s the short list of misogynistic “family values” which are regularly taught to fundamentalist Christian homeschool boys:
Strict gender roles: While “virtuous daughters” are raised to be “Ladies Against Feminism,” learning to cook, sew, babysit and dream about their wedding day, sons are taught to be “Men of God,” leading, conquering, dominating!
Hierarchy and authority: The Duggars refer to this principle as “Jurisdictions” … it’s the idea that by God’s perfect design, a chain of command exists in the spiritual realm in which children submit to their parents, wives submit to their husbands, husbands submit to God. It is only when the whole family is in right relationship with God and each other that they can be assured of the Lord’s protection from the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Sexual purity: According to the Duggars, female bodies are a source of irresistible temptation to boys and men. The onus for maintaining sexual purity lies primarily with the girls. When the Duggar family is out in public, the older daughters must scout ahead for immodestly dressed women and shout, “Nike!” as a warning for the boys to look at their shoes to avoid the lustful desires which they cannot help feeling at the sight of exposed female flesh.
Courtship: Josh and Anna were united as a couple via father-led courtship in which God told Josh that Anna was the girl he would marry someday, Josh told Jim Bob that he was sure Anna was the one for him, and Anna’s dad surprised her by saying that he believed Josh was the one for her!
Spiritual warfare: Christian fundamentalists frame dysfunction, abuse, and psychopathology in terms of sin, repentance, forgiveness, and grace … oh, and DEMONS. Jim Bob and Michelle harbor a grave mistrust of pretty much every respected, evidence-based approach to behavioral issues: secular psychology is “spiritually dangerous,” modern medicine, therapy, and pharmaceuticals are equated with “witchcraft,” and abusive, criminal behavior is often attributed to “a heart issue,” or even demonic influence or possession.

Is it any wonder that boys raised within this paradigm grow up with a strong sense of entitlement toward women? Should we be shocked when a “traditional family values” leader like Josh, who used his family’s wholesome image and notoriety to proclaim, “Marriage is between one man and one woman for life,” turns out to be actively seeking an extra-marital affair via the adulterers’ dating site, Ashley Madison?

Not only is the discovery of Josh Duggar’s latest scandal not surprising, given that he was raised to believe that in God’s economy men are extremely important and women not so much, his desire to cheat on his pregnant wife was predictable … and compared to molesting his little sisters, the news is a little ho hum.
All of this is to explain, but not excuse, Josh’s reprehensible behavior. As a boy, he was clearly deviant and in need of serious professional help. As a man, Josh is responsible for his actions. My job here is to expose the ways in which Christian fundamentalist “family values” work to turn disturbed young boys into sick-as-fuck men like Josh Duggar.
When delusional men believe they must answer to God alone, they are accountable only to their own twisted imaginations … that is, until these patriarchs butt up against reality … a reality in which hackers leak an infidelity website’s supposedly secure, private data for all the world to see.
Here is the one part about this whole mess that I really do appreciate: the ongoing Josh Duggar molestation and adultery revelations have put the fundamentalist Christian spiritual abuse survivors and recovery movement on America’s collective radar. Suddenly it seems the whole world is hearing about “Quiverfull” and learning just how oppressive home life can be for those who embrace “Biblical Family Values” and adopt the requisite lifestyle.
When all the media hype dies down, will the children in Quiverfull families be any less vulnerable? Will there be any new protections and/or resources in place? While I am more than happy to “exploit” the latest Duggar family scandal to get the word outabout the dangers of Quiverfull, it does bug me that our attention span is way too short when it comes to genuinely important issues. Let’s try not to be so distracted by Josh’s not-shocking cheater news to miss the real story: Christian fundamentalist families like the Duggars need help.
Here are some ideas for practical ways to influence and rescue women and children. For more information regarding spiritual abuse, check out the survivor stories at No Longer Quivering. Go here, for practical help and resources available to victims of abuse.
Recommended reading: Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement by Kathryn Joyce.

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Which Presidential Candidate Leads Among Evangelicals? Right Now, It's Donald Trump

August 20, 2015, 9:11 pm
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Dumbfounding.

I would expect to learn more about religion from Wormwood than The Donald.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwtape_Letters

Which presidential candidate leads among evangelicals? Right now, it’s Donald Trump.

Sarah Pulliam Bailey

NASHVILLE — Businessman Donald Trump has surged in the polls in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, and evangelicals, an important base for the Republican Party, appear to favor him as well.
Ahead of Thursday night’s debate in Cleveland, the first debate of the GOP primary, Trump appears to be tapping into Republican voters’ deep fears over the economy. And Republican-leaning white evangelicals, who hold sway in early primary states like Iowa and South Carolina, seem to closely mirror other Republicans.
According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted July 16-19, 20 percent of Republican-leaning voters who are white evangelicals support Donald Trump, compared to 24 percent of GOP voters overall and 25 percent of other white Christians (non-evangelicals and Catholics) who support him.
Trump saw his campaign take off after broadly denouncing Mexicans who cross the border illegally, calling them rapists and drug dealers. He also drew attention for saying Sen. John McCain is not a war hero. In the same Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, where he made those comments, Trump was questioned about whether he asks God for forgiveness.
“I am not sure I have. I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don’t think so,” he said. “If I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t.”
Trump said he participates in Holy Communion.
“When I drink my little wine — which is about the only wine I drink — and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed,” he said, according to CNN. “I think in terms of ‘let’s go on and let’s make it right.’ ”
At a gathering of Southern Baptists this week, Russell Moore, president of the policy arm for the Southern Baptist Convention, warned that it might be too early to take the pulse of evangelical voters.
“I haven’t talked to a pastor yet who is supporting Donald Trump,” said Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, in an interview with The Washington Post. “I think what’s happening right now is that we’re in the reality TV phase of the presidential campaign where people are looking to send a message rather than hand over the nuclear codes to a person.”
Trump could be reminiscent of Ross Perot, a businessman who ran as an independent presidential candidate in 1992.
“Trump is more flamboyant, but they both tap into that sense of anger a lot of voters had and have,” said John Green, a political science and religion expert at the University of Akron. “Donald Trump’s surge comes partly because Donald Trump is very skilled at getting attention.”
Evangelical voters appear split between other candidates who are trying to catch up to Trump. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee depends on evangelicals for support, but he does not lead among evangelicals as he has in the past. Huckabee (12 percent) is closely competing for evangelical support with former Florida governor Jeb Bush (11 percent) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (14 percent).
Bush made his appeal to 13,000 evangelicals Tuesday in Nashville in an interview with Moore, drawing attention for suggesting that “women’s health issues” could be overfunded. His calls to federally defund Planned Parenthood were cheered by the crowd.
A significant number of Republicans have expressed concerns that Bush is too liberal. Of those surveyed, 33 percent of white evangelical Republican voters expressed concern. By comparison, 15 percent of evangelicals say Trump is too liberal, while 15 percent of evangelicals say the same of Rubio.
Rubio could be more popular among some evangelical leaders than he is among voters. In a survey among 100 evangelical leaders conducted by World magazine asking which of the top four Republican contenders they would vote for, 39 percent of respondents named Rubio as either their first or second choice. Bush came in second as the first or second option for 32 percent of respondents while Walker was third at 28 percent.
However, in the Post-ABC poll, Rubio’s support was slightly lower among white evangelicals – 4 percent versus 11 percent among white Catholic and mainline Protestant Republicans. In the opening Iowa contest, where evangelical Christians made up a majority of caucus-goers in 2012, an NBC-Marist poll last month found Rubio stands at 4 percent among both white evangelical Christians and all potential caucus-goers.
Evangelical Christian Republicans largely have a positive image of Rubio, according to a McClatchy-Marist poll conducted in late July that found 55 percent reporting favorable impressions of him versus 14 percent unfavorable, with a sizable 31 percent saying they were unsure.
Rubio faces different kinds of questions than Bush, Moore said. Despite his strong opposition to abortion, Bush is viewed by some of the right for his relatively moderate views on immigration and Common Core education and for not speaking openly about his opposition to same-sex marriage. Rubio, on the other hand, is seen as a newer, relatively unknown candidate.
“I suppose there are some skeptical that he has the experience to be president,” Moore said. ” ‘Is he a Republican Barack Obama?’ That’s the question he’s facing.”
Evangelicals will look for a candidate who seems to represent them on issues like religious liberty and abortion, but they will also look for someone who can eventually win, said Thomas Kidd, a history professor at Baylor University.
“You can’t overstate how badly evangelicals want a reliable Republican in office – and not a Democrat– to nominate the next justices of the Supreme Court,” Kidd said.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who was fueled by evangelicals in Iowa and in 10 states in 2012, is polling with just 2 percent of evangelical support. An Iowa NBC News/Marist poll released last week found Santorum with 0 percent support among white evangelical Christians.

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How Many Bakeries Will Refuse To Make A Cake For Josh Duggar?

August 20, 2015, 9:51 pm
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Mike Huckabee and Josh Duggar, admitted child molester-adulterer-fornicator

"The Thinking Housewife" And The Normalization Of America's Only Divorced President


Josh Duggar, Christian Idol & Statutory Rapist Subscribed To Ashley Madison's Spouse Swap Site

"No Longer Quivering" - How The Duggars Promote Misogynistic Family Values

Twitter hilariously mocks Josh Duggar: ‘How many bakeries will refuse him a cake?’

On Thursday afternoon, erstwhile reality TV star and fired anti-gay shill Josh Duggar posted another agonized confession to the family’s Facebook page, this time for having an account with the hookup site for married people looking to cheat, Ashley Madison.
In the post, Duggar confessed to having an “addiction” to pornography and to having cheated on his wife, Anna, the mother of his three children.
Users of the social medium Twitter quickly pounced on the confession, which came only 90 days after his last statement begging for fans’ forgiveness. Previously he confessed to molesting his sisters and another girl when he was a teen.

See tweets at http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/twitter-hilariously-mocks-josh-duggar-how-many-bakeries-will-refuse-him-a-cake/


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Male Ranger Says Female Students Did More Than Pass: "They Beat Me"

August 21, 2015, 6:38 am
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New female Rangers did more than pass: 'They beat me,' male student says (+video)

Capt. Kristen Griest and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, the first female soldiers ever to earn a Ranger tab, on Thursday discussed their experience at the notoriously tough school. Their male Ranger buddies spoke about how skepticism turned to admiration.

FORT BENNING, GA. — They introduced themselves as Rangers, and America heard from two women who have made military history, as the first female soldiers ever to earn a Ranger tab.
Capt. Kristen Griest and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, both West Point graduates, finished Ranger School earlier this week. On Thursday, they fielded a barrage of questions as they sat on a media panel to discuss their experience at the notoriously tough school.  
“It’s probably going to be one of the highlights of my life,” said Lieutenant Haver.
Recommended: What do you know about US women in war? A quiz.
Captain Griest said that the moment was a years-long dream. Since she was a young cadet at West Point, she had trained, along with peers and mentors, for the possibility that one day there might be just such an opening for women.

Beside them on the panel, their male Ranger buddies spoke repeatedly about initial skepticism that turned to deep admiration – and the ways in which the women more than shouldered the load for the team, again and again.
One male Ranger student recalled a 12-mile ruck march, in which the women, with 50-pound packs, finished well ahead of many of the males. 
The rest of the males nodded in knowing agreement. “They beat me,” one student on the panel piped up.
They acknowledged, too, some initial doubts about whether women could make it physically, whether they could pull their weight.
“I was pretty skeptical,” said 2nd Lt. Michael Janowski, who was Haver’s Ranger “battle buddy” in the course’s mountains and the swamps. 
He knew she was tough from their time together at West Point. “I went to school with Shaye and I knew she was a physical stud,” he said. But even so, “I was skeptical of whether she could handle it.”
That was, he said, until they got to the mountains and had to do a long march. Lieutenant Janowski was the gunner for a 320 grenade launcher in that mission. “I had a lot of weight on me, and I was struggling,” he said. 
“So I stopped and asked at the halfway point, ‘Hey, can anyone help take some of this weight?’ ”
His fellow Ranger students responded with “a lot of deer-in-the-headlights looks,” he said. “A lot of people were like, ‘I can’t take any more weight.’ ”
Except, he said, for one person. “Shaye was the only one who volunteered to take that weight. She took the weight off me, she carried it for the last half of that ruck.”
That act “literally saved me,” he said, looking at her on the panel beside him. “I probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now if it wasn’t for Shaye.”
From that point on, “No more skepticism,” he said.
Haver said that the women arrived at the school with their own version of skepticism.
“I think that we ourselves came to Ranger School skeptical, with our guards up,” said Haver, who is an Apache helicopter pilot. Not “with a chip on our shoulders,” but braced for “the haters, the naysayers.”
Being a good teammate was their No. 1 priority, to prove that “we could be trusted like everyone else, whether it was on a patrol or to carry something heavy,” she added. “Every single time we accomplished something, it gave us that extra foothold in being part of a team.”
When she and Griest get their Ranger tabs Friday, “I can say without a doubt that the team that I’m graduating with tomorrow accepts me completely as a Ranger, and I couldn’t be more proud and humbled by the experience.” 
Griest’s battle buddy shared his own story about skepticism.
“I was I guess ignorant and assumed that because they were women it would be harder for them,” 2nd Lt. Zachary Hagner said.
But then he saw the two women in action. “Once I got to know [Griest], I was in no way skeptical anymore. She completely changed my mind, along with Ranger Haver.”
He recalled his own dark-of-night experience, when he had been shouldering the load of a SAW machine gun for three days. 
At that point, “I was like, OK, well, I need somebody to take this for me.”
He went to “every single person just in a line – no order.” Nine men “were like, ‘I’m too broken, I’m too tired,’ ” he said. “She, just as broken and tired, took it from me with almost excitement. I thought she was crazy for that,” he added, to laughter. “But she’s just motivated. That’s how she is.”
Upon hearing the effusive comments of her Ranger buddies, Griest joked, “It’s really a relief to hear that.”
She had long dreamed of coming to Ranger School, since she was a West Point cadet and a mentor invited her to be part of his infantry training program if she could meet the physical standards.
At the time she couldn’t, but she continued to train. “I tried to do as much as I could,” she said. “And then some,” to get in shape. Still, by the time she could enter Ranger School, she had doubts. “Coming to Ranger School, my big concern was that I might not be able to carry as much weight, or meet the same standard.”
But she did, and what kept her going through her darkest hours was a drive not to disappoint anyone – her Ranger buddies who had placed trust in her, and the female soldiers who will one day follow in her footsteps, should Army leadership agree to open the school to any woman who can meet its standards. 
“I was thinking of future generations of women – that I would like them to have that opportunity, so I had that pressure on myself,” said Griest, who is an Airborne-qualified military police officer (MP).
Now that they have done it, she said, perhaps this means their performance will stand as a strong statement, as the US military decides by the end of the year whether to open all combat jobs to women.
“That we can handle things physically and mentally on the same level as men, and that we can deal with the same stresses,” she said. “I do hope with our performance in Ranger School that we’ll help to inform that decision.”

Video: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2015/0820/New-female-Rangers-did-more-than-pass-They-beat-me-male-student-says-video


Women say proud to conquer Army Ranger school
Reuters

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GIven That Iran Won The Iraq War, The New Nuke Deal Is Not Bad; Probably The Best We Can Get

August 21, 2015, 6:53 am
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"Iran Won The Iraq War: How The Cakewalk Permanently Changed U.S. Politics"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/05/iran-won-iraq-war-how-cakewalk-has.html

(CNN) President Barack Obama is continuing his August outreach on the Iran nuclear deal ahead of a scheduled September vote in Washington, penning an op-ed that ran in newspapers across the country plugging the deal.
Invoking the leadership of former President John F. Kennedy during the Cold War, Obama's op-ed stressed his argument that walking away from the deal would amount to risking war.
"Here's my bottom line: If we are committed to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the choice we ultimately face is between a diplomatic solution and what would likely become another war in the Middle East in the near future," Obama wrote.
The piece ran in approximately 30 newspapers around the country -- but the link circulated by the White House sent readers to The Star-Ledger in New Jersey. That is the home state of Sen. Robert Menendez, a high-ranking Democrat who this week came out with a fiery critique of the president's deal.
Menendez became the second Democrat in the Senate to say he would vote against the deal -- but Obama picked up three Senate Democrats' support on Thursday, bringing the total to 23. He'll need 34 Senate Democrats to sustain a presidential veto on any congressional disapproval of the deal, assuming all Republicans vote against him.
RELATED: Iran deal whip list
    The president has been on vacation in Martha's Vineyard for most of the month, with members of Congress in their home districts for recess. But that has not slowed the lobbying on the deal, with lawmakers making their positions clear and the president continuing his outreach ahead of September.
    Also Thursday, Obama sent a letter to Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, defending the deal and urging him to support it.
    Meanwhile, a report that Iranians would have a role in inspections of a sensitive Iran military facility on Thursday also fueled the flames of critics of the deal.
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    Cremation: The Side Of Death We Don't See

    August 21, 2015, 6:55 am
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    Only 39% Of Wisconsonites Approve Scott Walker And Only 25% Would Vote For Him

    August 21, 2015, 7:05 am
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    In this July 14, 2015 file photo, Republican presidential candidate Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, speaks during a campaign event in Las Vegas. (Photo by John Locher/AP)
    In this July 14, 2015 file photo, Republican presidential candidate Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker,
    speaks during a campaign event in Las Vegas.

    Walker struggles to win over his own constituents


    By 
    Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s Republican presidential campaign isn’t quite where it wanted to be at this point in the process. The far-right governor entered the race as a top-tier contender, a credible choice for the GOP nomination, and a clear favorite to win the Iowa caucuses.
    But as August nears its end, Walker’s standing isn’t nearly as strong as many expected and his once-dominant position in Iowa has slipped, thanks largely to a certain New York real-estate developer.
    Walker could really use some good news. Yesterday, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, he received the opposite.
    Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker still leads the GOP presidential primary field in his home state, but his job approval level has dipped and he trails Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton in a head-to-head matchup here, a new poll from the Marquette University Law School shows.
    So far, Walker’s presidential run is proving no gift to his standing at home.
    The Marquette poll, generally considered the best source for Wisconsin surveys, is a bit of a disaster for Walker. It shows, for example, the governor’s approval rating dipping to 39% less than a year after his successful re-election campaign. He leads the GOP’s 2016 field, but only 25% of Wisconsin Republicans – a group that should arguably represent Walker’s ardent base – choose their own governor as their preferred presidential candidate.
    All of which leads us to the gut-punch: in a head-to-head match-up against Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, Scott Walker trails by double digits – 52% to 42% – in his own state. A PPP pollreleased in the spring showed Walker trailing Clinton in Wisconsin by nine points, suggesting things aren’t getting any better for the governor among the voters who know him best.
    As if that weren’t quite enough, the Marquette poll shows Jeb Bush more competitive against Clinton – again, in Wisconsin – than Walker (Bush only trails by five).
    It creates an awkward dynamic for Walker and his national campaign. If a GOP voter asks, “Why should I vote you if you’re losing in your own state?” there’s no easy answer to the question.
    To be sure, the Wisconsin governor isn’t the only Republican candidate struggling in his home state. Chris Christie is woefully unpopular in New Jersey; Rick Perry has little support in Texas; and in Louisiana, Bobby Jindal is by some measure the least liked governor in the United States.
    But with all due respect to Christie, Perry, and Jindal, Scott Walker is widely seen as a far more competitive candidate for national office. Christie, Perry, and Jindal are longshots; Walker is a plausible nominee.
    Which makes his poor standing in Wisconsin that much more problematic. After five years of Walker’s leadership, the state’s voters don’t seem to think he deserves a promotion.
    It’s not a good sign. In 1992, Arkansans were enthusiastic about Bill Clinton’s candidacy; in 2000, Texans eagerly rallied behind George W. Bush’s White House bid; and in 2008, voters in Illinois were enthralled by Barack Obama’s national campaign. When candidates are rejected by their own constituents, they tend not to do especially well.
    Just ask Mitt Romney and Al Gore.


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    Obama Gravitas

    August 21, 2015, 7:13 am
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    Time Cover Story: "The Donald Has Landed. Deal With It"

    August 21, 2015, 7:18 am
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    New Study Identifies 9 Risk Factors for Alzheimer’s Disease

    August 21, 2015, 7:21 am
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    Many Good Reasons To Refrain From War Toppled By Many Bad Reasons To "Kill The Bastards"

    August 21, 2015, 9:58 am
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    MacArthur's Film Clip
    1951

    "Perpetual Warfare And Bipartisan Opposition To Obama's Iran Deal"
    (Note "Why We Fight" and Ike's description of America's "Military-Industrial Complex.")

    Dear E,


    Thanks again!

    Your "quotation for today" calls to mind a fellow who may be the most interesting "study" in American military history, Marine Commandant, Major General Smedley Butler who, in his day, was the most decorated Marine ever.

    Major General Smedley Butler: Do Wars Really Defend America’s Freedom?


    I'm also reminded: 

    "Jimmy Carter's Advice On How NOT To Go To War." 

    And finally:

    Hans Blix' Fruitless Search For WMD And Bush/Cheney's Rush To War In Iraq

    Cheney's Lucid 1994 Rationale For NOT Invading Iraq. Conservatives "Must" See This

    Pax tecum

    Alan

    Hobgobbledygook?



    On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 9:14 AM, EK wrote:


    If you must meddle in human relationships, try to be a peacemaker. 


    You will find that you don’t have much competition.


    Have a Great Day and a Wonderful Weekend! Pray …

    E. K.

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    Donald Trump Invoked As Justification For Beating Homeless Man In Boston

    August 21, 2015, 11:37 am
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    Donald Trump (Associated Press)
    Alan:Purveyors of intolerance and hatred do not understand (or at least do not acknowledge) the role they play -- and the responsibility they have -- for inflaming violent passions.

    Boston brothers allegedly urinated on, beat a Mexican homeless man, told police ‘Trump was right’

    AP

    The brothers, Scott Leader (left) and Steve Leader, were being held without bail on charges including assault and indecent exposure. They pleaded not guilty.
    Suffolk County District Attorney's OfficeThe brothers, Scott Leader (left) and Steve Leader, were being held without bail on charges including assault and indecent exposure. They pleaded not guilty.
    BOSTON — The Mexican government condemned an attack on a sleeping homeless man that police said was committed by two brothers, one of whom said that Donald Trump was right about deporting “all these illegals.”
    The brothers urinated on the 58-year-old man, punched him and beat him with a metal pole while he slept near a Boston train station, police said.
    Daniel Hernandez Joseph, the consul general of Mexico in Boston, confirmed the victim was a Mexican citizen. He said his government would “take the necessary measures to defend the
    rights and interests of Mexicans,” The Boston Globe reported.
    The brothers, Scott Leader and Steve Leader, were being held without bail on charges including assault and indecent exposure. They pleaded not guilty.
    Witnesses flagged down a state trooper at about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday after they saw the attack and then saw the Leaders walk away laughing, prosecutors said. The victim was treated for a broken nose, serious bruises and other injuries.
    Scott Leader told troopers after his arrest, “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported,” according to a state police report filed in court.
    Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, has inflamed Latinos by describing Mexican immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists” and saying he would build a wall between the United States and Mexico to crack down on illegal immigration. He recently said he would deport the millions of people already in the United States illegally, sort them into groups of “good ones” and “bad ones” and then allow those deemed good to re-enter the country.
    Asked about the homeless man’s beating before a New Hampshire town hall on Wednesday night, he said he hadn’t heard about it.
    “I think that would be a shame,” he said.
    Attorneys who appeared with the brothers for their arraignment couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
    Mexican officials said they would follow the investigation “very closely” to ensure that those responsible are held accountable.
    Court records show Scott Leader served a year in prison for a hate crime against a Moroccan coffee shop worker after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the Globe said.

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    Trump condemns Boston attack in his name

    Donald Trump on Friday condemned an attack on a homeless man by perpetrators who reportedly said the businessman was “right” about illegal immigration as they administered the beating.
    “Boston incident is terrible,” Trump tweeted. “We need energy and passion, but we must treat each other with respect. I would never condone violence.”

    See tweet at http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/08/21/trump-condemns-boston-attack-in-his-name/
    The tweet came a day after the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination said he had not heard about the incident and added that people who follow his campaign “are very passionate.”
    Authorities have accused two men of urinating on and beating up a homeless man on Tuesday; during the attack, police said, one of the assailants “stated Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported.”
    ***
    Donald Trump Changes Tone On Boston Attack
    by Eliza Collins
    8/21/15

    Donald Trump just changed his tone on the attack of a Boston Hispanic man done by two of his supporters.

    “Boston incident is terrible. We need energy and passion, but we must treat each other with respect. I would never condone violence,” he tweeted Friday.When asked about the incident at a town hall Wednesday, Trump said he didn’t know anything about it but said it would “be a shame.”

    “I will say, the people that are following me are very passionate,” Trump continued. “They love this country, they want this country to be great again.”

    Trump’s immigration plan, released Sunday, calls for a wall across the 1,900-mile U.S. border with Mexico and the deportation of the estimated 11 million immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally. Trump also called for revoking so-called birthrightcitizenship, the 14th Amendment provision that grants citizenship to children born to undocumented immigrants in the United States.

    The proposals have roiled the GOP field, with even Jeb Bush, who has presented himself as a moderate on immigration, vowing to crack down on parents of “anchor babies” who abuse the system.







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    Martin O'Malley Signs Petition To Have Jon Stewart Moderate 2016 Debate

    August 21, 2015, 11:45 am
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    by KIPP JONES21 Aug 2015

    MARTIN O’MALLEY SIGNS PETITION TO HAVE JON STEWART MODERATE 2016 DEBATE

    An online petition to have former Daily Show host Jon Stewart moderate a 2016 debate has been endorsed by nearly 200,000 people, including at least one Democratic presidential candidate.

    The petition, posted to Change.org, requests that Stewart be allowed to moderate one of the upcoming 2016 presidential debates, and has received more than 160,000 signatures, of its target of 200,000 signatures.
    “Over the last 16 years, Jon Stewart has played an influential and iconic role in covering US politics and media. We believe he should continue that tradition as a moderator at one of the 2016 Presidential Debates,” says the petition.
    Written to the Commission on Presidential Debates, the letter adds that Stewart is “qualified” to moderate a presidential debate, citing his interviews with world leaders, and members of congress. The letter also adds that Stewart’s satirical and Left-leaning coverage is “trusted” by a majority of Americans:
    “Another important attribute of a moderator is trust. Many in the US believe Jon Stewart shares their worldview and values. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll reported that 52.1% of respondents agree that Mr. Stewart “generally shares [their] view of the world” on “some or most issues”. Choosing Jon Stewart would be a popular choice among voters.”
    Former Maryland Governor and Democratic presidential hopeful Martin O’Malley signed the petition on Thursday.
    Stewart signed off after 16 years hosting The Daily Show on August 6. He has not yet responded to the petition.

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    "Oscar Wilde," By G.K. Chesterton

    August 21, 2015, 12:29 pm
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    Oscar Wilde
    by G.K. Chesterton
    Originally published in the Daily News, 1909.
    Later collected in A Handful of Authors.
    Excerpt: "Like a many-coloured humming top, he was at once a bewilderment and a balance. He was so fond of being many-sided that among his sides he even admitted the right side. He loved so much to multiply his souls that he had among them one soul at least that was saved. He desired all beautiful things - even God."
    The time has certainly come when this extraordinary man, Oscar Wilde, may be considered merely as a man of letters. He sometimes pretended that art was more important than morality, but that was mere play-acting. Morality or immorality was more important than art to him and everyone else. But the very cloud of tragedy that rested on his career makes it easier to treat him as a mere artist now. His was a complete life, in that awful sense in which your life and mine are incomplete; since we have not yet paid for our sins. In that sense one might call it a perfect life, as one speaks of a perfect equation; it cancels out. On the one hand we have the healthy horror of the evil; on the other the healthy horror of the punishment. We have it all the more because both sin and punishment were highly civilized; that is, nameless and secret. Some have said that Wilde was sacrificed; let it be enough for us to insist on the literal meaning of the word. Any ox that is really sacrificed is made sacred.
    But the very fact that monstrous wrong and monstrous revenge cancel each other, actually does leave this individual artist in that very airy detachment which he professed to desire. We can really consider him solely as a man of letters.
    About Oscar Wilde, as about other wits, Disraeli or Bernard Shaw, men wage a war of words, some calling him a great artist and others a mere charlatan. But this controversy misses the really extraordinary thing about Wilde: the thing that appears rather in the plays than the poems. He was a great artist. He also was really a charlatan. I mean by a charlatan one sufficiently dignified to despise the tricks that he employs. A vulgar demagogue is not a charlatan; he is as coarse as his crowd. He may be lying in every word, but he is sincere in his style. Style (as Wilde might have said) is only another name for spirit. Again, a man like Mr. Bernard Shaw is not a charlatan. I can understand people thinking his remarks hurried or shallow or senselessly perverse, or blasphemous, or merely narrow. But I cannot understand anyone failing to feel that Mr. Shaw is being as suggestive as he can, is giving his brightest and boldest speculations to the rabble, is offering something which he honestly thinks valuable. Now Wilde often uttered remarks which he must have known to be literally valueless. Shaw may be high or low, but he never talks down to the audience. Wilde did talk down, sometimes very far down.
    Wilde and his school professed to stand as solitary artistic souls apart from the public. They professed to scorn the middle class, and declared that the artist must not work for the bourgeois. The truth is that no artist so really great ever worked so much for the bourgeois as Oscar Wilde. No man, so capable of thinking about truth and beauty, ever thought so constantly about his own effect on the middle classes. He studied them with exquisite attention, and knew exactly how to shock and how to please them. Mr. Shaw often gets above them in seraphic indignation, and often below them in sterile and materialistic explanations. He disgusts them with new truths or he bores them with old truths; but they are always living truths to Bernard Shaw. Wilde knew how to say the precise thing which, whether true or false, is irresistible. As, for example, "I can resist everything but temptation."
    But he sometimes sank lower. One might go through his swift and sparkling plays with a red and blue pencil marking two kinds of epigrams; the real epigram which he wrote to please his own wild intellect, and the sham epigram which he wrote to thrill the very tamest part of our tame civilization. This is what I mean by saying that he was strictly a charlatan - among other things. He descended below himself to be on top of others. He became purposely stupider than Oscar Wilde that he might seem cleverer than the nearest curate. He lowered himself to superiority; he stooped to conquer.
    One might easily take examples of the phrase meant to lightly touch the truth and the phrase meant only to bluff the bourgeoisie. For instance, in "A Woman of No Importance," he makes his chief philosopher say that all thought is immoral, being essentially destructive; "Nothing survives being thought of." That is nonsense, but nonsense of the nobler sort; there is an idea in it. It is, like most professedly modern ideas, a death-dealing idea not a life-giving one; but it is an idea. There is truly a sense in which all definition is deletion. Turn a few pages of the same play and you will find somebody asking, "What is an immoral woman ?" The philosopher answers, "The kind of woman a man never gets tired of." Now that is not nonsense, but rather rubbish. It is without value of any sort or kind. It is not symbolically true; it is not fantastically true; it is not true at all.
    Anyone with the mildest knowledge of the world knows that nobody can be such a consuming bore as a certain kind of immoral woman. That vice never tires men, might be a tenable and entertaining lie; that the individual instrument of vice never tires them is not, even as a lie, tenable enough to be entertaining. Here the great wit was playing the cheap dandy to the incredibly innocent; as much as if he had put on paper cuffs and collars. He is simply shocking a tame curate; and he must be rather a specially tame curate even to be shocked. This irritating duplication of real brilliancy with snobbish bluff runs through all his three comedies. "Life is much too important to be taken seriously"; that is the true humorist. "A well-tied tie is the first serious step in life"; that is the charlatan. "Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable"; that is said by a fine philosopher. "Nothing is so fatal to a personality as the keeping of promises, unless it be telling the truth"; that is said by a tired quack. "A man can be happy with any woman so long as he does not love her"; that is wild truth. "Good intentions are invariably ungrammatical"; that is tame trash.
    But while he had a strain of humbug in him, which there is not in the demagogues of wit like Bernard Shaw, he had, in his own strange way, a much deeper and more spiritual nature than they. Queerly enough, it was the very multitude of his falsities that prevented him from being entirely false. Like a many-coloured humming top, he was at once a bewilderment and a balance. He was so fond of being many-sided that among his sides he even admitted the right side. He loved so much to multiply his souls that he had among them one soul at least that was saved. He desired all beautiful things - even God.
    His frightful fallacy was that he would not see that there is reason in everything, even in religion and morality. Universality is a contradiction in terms. You cannot be everything if you are anything. If you wish to be white all over, you must austerely resist the temptation to have green spots or yellow stripes. If you wish to be good all over, you must resist the spots of sin or the stripes of servitude. It may be great fun to be many-sided; but however many sides one has there cannot be one of them which is complete and rounded innocence. A polygon can have an infinite number of sides; but no one of its sides can be a circle.

    Pax on both houses: The Catholic Church Learns To Love ...

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    Pax on both houses: Oscar Wilde's Lesson For Jesus Of ...


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    "The Thinking Housewife" Sticks Her Finger In "The Natural Order's" Leaking Dike

    August 22, 2015, 12:02 pm
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    Dear Fred,

    Here is a news item you won't read on The Thinking Housewife's blog.
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/08/male-ranger-says-female-students-did.html

    Given "The Right's" passion for employing anecdotal "exceptions to rules" to "prove" New Rules, it is surprisingly that the natural "abnormalities" of life -- homosexuality; or strong women with no interest in parenting (many nuns among them); or the existence of numerous pacifist sects among anabaptist Christians -- are not celebrated with an honored place in The Natural Order. 

    The GOP And Obamacare: Governing By Anecdote
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-gop-and-obamacare-governing-by.html


    Once The Natural Order is defined as encompassing "exceptions" -- exceptions that were formerly considered "disorderly deviations" from The Natural Order -- much of the medieval moral edifice collapses, at least in the minds of Christian conservatives, among the most brittle, shatter-prone people on earth.

    If human behavior is ever defined as intrinsically "exceptional" in any of its manifestations, then "aberrant" (aka "exceptional") behavior is no longer "willfully perverse" but subject to "deviant" rules embedded in creation. 

    N.B. "Deviant" derives from two Latin words meaning "away from the way." The Latin roots also appear in the Spanish verb "desviarse" meaning "to take a detour." The road less traveled... http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=deviant

    This deviance/deviation is The Essential Fear that absolutist Christians confront. And not just fear but existential terror. If The Natural Order is not absolutely "orderly" (at least as conservative Christians conceive order) then what?!?

    Pertinent to this discussion is the central scientific concept of "standard deviation from the norm," an epistemological category based on the commonplace "finding" that most deviation is not "diabolical" but "standard."

    Laura's correspondent, Don Vincenzo, argues the decisive importance of a relatively new regulation that exempts military "candidates" from the erstwhile obligation to wear "army boots" while doing "training runs," a purported accommodation of women's relative inability in this regard. http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/2015/08/my-mother-was-an-army-ranger/#more-84543

    Notably, the Army's two new female Rangers were given no slack. 

    Military.com informs us that "The training is physically grueling, with soldiers required to pass a fitness test that includes 49 push-ups within 2 minutes, 59 sit-ups, a 5 mile run within 40 minutes and six chin-ups. Additionally, would-be Rangers must be able to remove their gear in water and then swim 15 meters in their uniform and boots."

    The conservative argument on behalf of "The Natural Order" is compelled to extrapolate "generalities" into "universalities" (at least implicitly) whereas The Universe itself incorporates many "exceptions to rules" as an intrinsic part of The Natural Order.

    "John, The Apostle Jesus Loved Rests His Head On Yeshua's Breast At The Last Supper"

    Gregory Bateson threw down the gauntlet: "Natural History is the antidote for piety." (Louis Bunuel's film classic, Viridiana, comes to mind. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/viridiana/)
    Although The Bell Curve defines a remarkable range of statistical normality, any scientific perspective deriving from The Bell Curve necessarily includes "normal" outliers.

    As part of its ongoing revelation, Science teaches us that exceptions are intrinsic to The Way.

    This normality of "abnormality" resides at the heart of the matter.

    Those who refuse to immerse themselves in the scientific findings tend to be heartless.

    To maintain their heartlessness (while feeling "good about it") they deny science to avoid the findings themselves.

    Conservatives cannot change because they cannot change.

    If this seems tautological, so be it: American conservatives are caught in a tautological loop.

    Any recognition that they are not absolutely right will demonstrate their a priori wrongness.

    Demonstrably wrong, the only meaning that has ever informed their lives disappears.

    Better to persist in pigheadedness than to lose one's foundational "meaning."

    For once meaning goes -- or so they fear -- all "trustworthy" sense of identity goes with it and there is nothing more terrifying than the loss of identity.

    In the end, many people (probably most) will fight-to-the-death over "values" because without values --- even if their values are ill-informed (perhaps especially when their values are ill-informed) --- there is no hope of meaning. 


    Devout Christian, Blaise Pascal

    Absolutists are not absolutists because absolutism is right.

    They are absolutists because their psycho-spiritual structure -- conditioned by absolutism -- requires it. 

    The scenario plays out like this...


    "I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said "Stop! Don't do it!""Why shouldn't I?" he said. "Well, there's so much to live for!""Like what?""Well... are you religious?" He said yes. I said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?""Christian.""Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant ? "Protestant.""Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?""Baptist""Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?""Baptist Church of God!""Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?""Reformed Baptist Church of God!""Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off.  
    Emo Philips

    Yeshua Excoriates Fellow Pharisees: "The Woe Passages"

    "The Danger Of Science Denial"
    TED Talk by Michael Specter
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/03/ted-talk-danger-of-science-denial.html


    The American Party: Know Nothing Nativism And Opposition To Catholic Immigration
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-american-party-no-nothing-nativism.html
    Like the Pharisees, the Know Nothings are always with us.

    A courageous woman named Vyckie Garrison blogs at "No Longer Quivering" where she documents her own (and others') escape and subsequent healing from "spiritual abuse." http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/


    Pax tecum

    Alan




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    Donald Trump Political Rally Photo

    August 22, 2015, 1:11 pm
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    Young Handcuffed 'Thug' Saves Arresting Officers Life

    August 22, 2015, 1:14 pm
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    "Bad Black People." Why Bill O'Reilly Is Wrong Even When He's Right"

    Something tells me that Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh will not pick up on this story. All the opportunities for them to tell their audience that any young black 'thug' with a record of 'burglary' is a monster who obviously needs shot for the protection of society will be missed... and that's a damn shame. As well as being quite on purpose of course:  
    A HANDCUFFED teenager is being hailed as a hero after he helped save the life of a police officer who was processing him.  
    Last September, Jamal Rutledge — a juvenile defendant — was arrested on charges of criminal mischief and burglary, according to NBC Miami.
    But as officer Franklin Foulks was booking Rutledge, the cop collapsed holding his chest in distress.Rutledge immediately began to kick the security fence and yell for help, the Fort Lauderdale Police Department said.
    A nearby officer heard Rutledge’s cries and radioed for help. A rescue team arrived shortly after and transported Foulks to hospital.
    The FLPD said attending medical staff noted quick action by Rutledge and other cops saved Foulks’ life.
    Rutledge and three other officers involved will be honored publicly next week.
    Of course a lot of people will say 'what else would he have done? theres a man dying in front of him'.
    And to that I say... well he could have tackled the officers sister as she came running in concern for her brother and lock her in a police car feet away from her dying sibling all while refusing to administer aid...  
    Or he could have ignored any signs of distress emanating the officer... perhaps pleas of 'I can't breathe'?
    Blamed the officers condition on his diet and left it at that?
    Regardless.... three cheers for Jamal Rutledge.
    Other links incase the above does not work:

    Alan: Blacks are arrested - and prosecuted - at least twice as often as whites for the "contraband" crimes that most often put Americans behind bars. 

    If white people were incarcerated as often as blacks for the crimes both commit with the same regularity, and if blacks were incarcerated for the crimes they commit as often as whites are for those same crimes, the "black prison time" figure of 32% (above) would be cut in half and the "white prison time" figure of 6% would double.

    The situation is further complicated because it is much harder for released blacks to find work than it is for released whites, making persistent black unemployment a source of recidivism.

    Are there any circumstances under which you would hire Jamal ahead of James?

    Blacks Arrested For Contraband Twice As Often Though Much Less Likely To Have Contraband

    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/04/blacks-2x-as-likely-to-be-arrested-for.html

    The Future Of Race In America: TED Talk By Michelle Alexander, Author Of "The New Jim Crow"

    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-future-of-race-in-america-ted-talk.html



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    Jeb Bush's "Scarlet Letter" Law Was Even Worse Than It Sounds

    August 22, 2015, 1:20 pm
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    Jeb Bush: Performing for the loons.

    The Hard, Central Truth Of Contemporary Conservatism

    The hard, central "fact" of contemporary "conservatism" is its insistence on a socio-economic threshold above which people deserve government assistance, and below which people deserve to die. 

    The sooner the better. 

    Unless conservatives are showing n'er-do-wells The Door of Doom, they just don't "feel right." 

    To allay this chthonic anxiety, they resort to Human Sacrifice,  hoping that spilled blood will placate "the angry gods," including the one they've made of themselves. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/harvard-study-45000-americans-die.html 

    Having poked their eyes out, they fail to see  that self-generated wrath creates "the gods" who hold them thrall.

    Almost "to a man," contemporary "conservatives" have apotheosized themselves and now -- sitting on God's usurped throne -- are rabid to pass Final Judgment. 

    Self-proclaimed Christians, eager to thrust "the undeserving" through The Gates of Hell, are the very people most likely to cross its threshold. 

    Remarkably, none of them are tempted to believe this. 

    JUN 10, 2015

    Jeb Bush is a compassionless conservative: His “Scarlet Letter” law was even worse than it sounds

    Jeb declined to veto a 2001 law that required women to provide explicit details about their personal and sex lives

    In Jeb Bush’s 1995 book, “Profiles in Character,” the likely Republican presidential contender wrote that Americans have dropped the ball on public humiliation and called for a return to a time when “public condemnation” was used to deter people from “irresponsible conduct.”
    Public condemnation — and in the criminal justice system, sentencing intended to humiliate — never actually went anywhere, so Bush wasn’t really calling for a return to humiliation — he just wanted more of it. Here’s the excerpt on single parenting, which Huffington Post political reporter Laura Bassett unearthed on Tuesday:
    One of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations is that there is no longer a stigma attached to this behavior, no reason to feel shame. Many of these young women and young men look around and see their friends engaged in the same irresponsible conduct. Their parents and neighbors have become ineffective at attaching some sense of ridicule to this behavior. There was a time when neighbors and communities would frown on out of wedlock births and when public condemnation was enough of a stimulus for one to be careful.
    Bush points to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” as a reference for how this kind of thing might work, writing: “Infamous shotgun weddings and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘Scarlet Letter’ are reminders that public condemnation of irresponsible sexual behavior has strong historical roots.”
    Bush wasn’t just riffing, he was setting up policy prescriptions for his future tenure as governor. As Bassett points out, Bush waived his veto power after the state legislature passed a 2001 law requiring single women who wanted to put a child up for adoption to publish their sexual histories in a newspaper. The ads included women’s names, ages, physical descriptions including her hair, weight and eye color. Women were also required to provide details about their sexual encounters — including names of sexual partners, dates and locations.
    From the bill:
    The notice… must contain a physical description, including, but not limited to age, race, hair and eye color, and approximate height and weight of the minor’s mother and of any person the mother reasonably believes may be the father; the minor’s date of birth; and any date and city, including the county and state in which the city is located, in which conception may have occurred.
    Women were required to pay for the ads, which ran once a week for the duration of a month. The law included no exceptions for victims of rape or minors. Bush expressed reservations about publishing these details, but declined to veto the law while it wound its way through the courts for two years.
    Florida adoption lawyer Charlotte Dancui challenged the law in the Palm Beach County Circuit Court, representing six plaintiffs, including a 14-year-old girl and a rape victim. Dancui told the New York Times that in addition the women and girls she was representing in the lawsuit, others had come forward feeling terrorized by the law.
    ”I had a woman come to me who had a child 10 years ago while in college and now her husband of five years wants to adopt her child and in order to do that she had to put her name, her daughter’s name and all the men she slept with in college in her college newspaper,” she said.
    But the law wasn’t just being criticized by women’s rights groups and the left — many conservatives opposed the law, arguing that violating women’s privacy and subjecting them to public shame for choosing adoption would incentivize abortion and decrease adoption rates.
    In 2003, after the law was declared unconstitutional, Bush signed a repeal. As the Times reported after the original law was overturned, the repeal replaced the provision to humiliate women with a new provision allowing men to electively enter into a confidential parental registry. Bush’s was apparently satisfied with the change, according to a spokesperson for his office:
    This was an important bill to sign and it has been two years in coming. It not only streamlines the adoption process by outlining specific steps for the unwed biological father but it also balances and protects the privacy rights of the mother and child.
    But opponents of the bill were unimpressed that Bush acted only after the courts struck down the law. ”Only a male-dominated legislature could possibly pass a law that facilitates adoptions by requiring public humiliation of women,” Howard Simon, executive director of ACLU of Florida, told the Times.
    ”You’ve got to have a real narrow vision to congratulate the governor for signing a repeal of a statute that, as a result of a lawsuit we were involved in, the courts struck down as unconstitutional,” he continued. ”The legislature shouldn’t have passed it in the first place.”
    One of the women involved in the lawsuit against the law told the Times that she welcomed the repeal and was relieved that other women wouldn’t have to be subjected to that kind of humiliation. ”They don’t have to put their names in the paper in this barbaric gesture,” she said. ”They don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
    Add this to the list of Bush’s credentials as a compassionate conservative.
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    Biden, Warren Huddle Amid 2016 Speculation

    August 22, 2015, 4:05 pm
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    Elizabeth Warren: Illustrated Quotations

    Vice President Biden huddled Saturday with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the rising liberal star who has declined to endorse a candidate for the 2016 presidential race, an impromptu meeting that came as speculation mounted over Biden's own potential candidacy, according to a report.
    Biden, who has begun to explore a possible presidential campaign in recent weeks, made the trip Saturday from his personal home in Wilmington, Del., to his official residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington to meet Warren, who has become an icon to liberal activists who view financial institutions as wielding too much clout in the corridors of power. CNN first reported the meeting Saturday afternoon, after which an administration official declined to comment about the meeting but acknowledged that Biden made an unplanned trip to the capital.
    "The Vice President traveled last minute to Washington, DC for a private meeting and will be returning to Delaware," the official wrote in an e-mail.
    Advisers to Warren did not respond to requests for comment after the first-term senator was spotted by media catching a flight Saturday afternoon at Ronald Reagan National Airport.
    The meeting only intensified speculation surrounding Biden's own interest in the race as questions continue to surround Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic front-runner for the nomination, who has faced scrutiny over her use of a private e-mail account while serving as President Obama's secretary of state and whether that exposed classified information.
    Earlier this year, campaign-watchers focused on Warren and whether she would challenge Clinton, prompting a vibrant "Draft Warren" movement that fizzled after she repeatedly declined to enter the race. Instead, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), the independent with socialist leanings, has emerged as Clinton's only strong challenger so far, leaving a vacuum for some liberal activists who respect Sanders but question whether the 73-year-old's rumpled style could translate into a national victory.
    In recent weeks, the "Draft Biden" super PAC has become the fulcrum of a different challenge to Clinton, with several polls showing Biden a more trustworthy figure than the former senator and first lady.
    Biden's son, Beau, died in late May after a nearly two-year battle with cancer, which consumed the vice president's personal and professional life for months. Only in recent weeks has he begun to resume a normal schedule, and with it, he has heard from supporters urging him to consider what would be a third run for the presidency, following previous efforts in 1988 and 2008.
    Biden's advisers have said that a decision will be made by the end of September.
    Despite many entreaties, Warren has declined to make an official endorsement in the 2016 race.
    However, Biden is not a natural ally for Warren. As a Harvard Law professor, Warren's specialty is bankruptcy law, and more than a decade ago — long before she became famous — Warren expressed her disappointment with Clinton for supporting a bankruptcy bill in 2001 that was supported by the credit card industry.
    That version of the bankruptcy legislation died, but in 2005, a different version won approval from the Republican-controlled Congress and was signed into law by President George W. Bush. Among the 19 Senate Democrats who voted for the legislation: Biden, who as a senator from Delaware, where a good chunk of the credit card industry was based, had long supported the legislation Warren opposed. Clinton, a senator at the time, missed that vote because her husband, ex-president Bill Clinton, was recovering from heart surgery, but she had publicly said she would joined the other 25 Senate Democrats who opposed the legislation.

    Paul Kane covers Congress and politics for the Washington Post.

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    Israeli Military Doesn't See Iran As Significant Threat

    August 22, 2015, 6:39 pm
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    "No, Mr. Netanyahu, that's not a hole in the ground."


    Is Iran deal a threat to Israel? 

    New signs military is at odds with Netanyahu.

    An overview of Israel's strategic doctrine authored by its military chief of staff, and the first ever made public, barely mentions Iran or its nuclear program.

    By , Correspondent / August 17, 2015
    TEL AVIV, ISRAEL
    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s denunciation of the Iran nuclear deal as a “historic mistake” enjoys broad public support and has been echoed by opposition leaders.
    But many Israeli security chiefs have adopted a more nuanced approach to the agreement – the latest indication of a divergence between some in Israel’s defense establishment and the prime minister.
    Mr. Netanyahu portrays Iran's nuclear program as an existential threat to Israel and is lobbying US lawmakers to block the deal. But after the agreement was announced in Switzerland last month, some former military officers endorsed it, saying it postponed the nuclear threat for another decade.
    How much do you know about Israel? Take the quiz
    Now, in a fresh sign of a debate, the Israel Defense Forces has made public a 33-page overview of its strategic doctrine that raised eyebrows in Israel last week for barely mentioning Iran or its nuclear program.
    Entitled simply, “IDF Strategy,” and authored by the chief of staff, Lt. Gen Gadi Eisenkot, the paper is a dry, dispassionate assessment of changing threats, military goals, and guiding principles for warfare. It marks the first time the army has ever released such a report to the public.
    “It's not a secret that some high-ranking people in the Israeli security establishment, including the IDF, view this deal more favorably than the prime minister,’’ says Amir Tibon, diplomatic correspondent for “Walla!,” an Israeli news website.  “On the one hand, they think that the deal does indeed push Iran away from the bomb, which is a good thing. On the other hand, they share Netanyahu’s concern about Iran using sanctions relief money to increase its support for terror proxies across the region.’’
    Netanyahu argues that Iran’s nuclear program is the top destabilizing factor in the Middle East, on par with Nazi Germany’s march to war in the late 1930’s. By contrast, the IDF document mentions Iran by name only once. Missing from a section providing an overview of threats to Israel is the word “nuclear” or any other reference to Iran’s atomic program, notes Mr. Tibon.
    Writing in the liberal Haaretz newspaper, veteran defense commentator Amir Oren said that the IDF paper reflects a view that the threat of a nuclear Iran “has gone on vacation until 2025.’’
    Asked to comment on the strategy document, a senior Israeli military official cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the army’s positions on the Iran deal. However, other Israeli defense analysts say the omissions weren’t a coincidence.

    Different set of calculations

    “I tend to think it’s on purpose. The military is an organization that looks at things as is, and I think that their assessment is that at least in the short term the IDF will not deal directly with the Iranian nuclear program,” says Ehud Eiran, an assistant professor of political science at Haifa University and a military expert.
    It’s not the first difference of opinion aired over Iran between elected leaders and security officials. Several years ago, when Israeli leaders were hinting at the possibility of a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Mossad chief Meir Dagan came out against plans for a strike.
    Mr. Eiran points to a "structural difference" between the two camps. "Militaries are concerned with immediate threats, and politicians interpret reality drawing on a broader sets of facts, values and stories; they have a wider set of calculations, like getting reelected.”
    Indeed, opposition Labor party leader Isaac Herzog has come out against the agreement since it was announced in early July.
    Haaretz reported Monday that the IDF Intelligence Branch predicted that the nuclear deal would leave Iran short of a nuclear weapon for the coming years and restrain terrorist attacks against Israel.

    Cooperation with US is urged

    “We have a group, we don’t know how big, of existing members of the IDF that think the deal is acceptable,’’ says Meir Javadanfar, an Iran expert at Israel’s Interdisciplinary Center. “The other trend is that there are former members of the IDF who think that the deal isn’t perfect but that the prime minister should focus on relations with America.”
    Amos Yadlin, a former military intelligence chief, has criticized the deal as flawed and expressed concern that it will strengthen Iran’s position in the Middle East. Still, he has called on Israel’s government to tighten cooperation with the US in overseeing implementation.
    In July, a former general who heads Israel’s space agency and serves as a top government adviser on technology and research, went so far as to endorse President Barack Obama’s position on the deal.
    "This agreement, if properly implemented, will put off the nuclear threat for a very long time,” Yitzak Ben Yisrael said in an interview with Walla! News. Mr. Ben Yisrael added the agreement provides “full and satisfactory” monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program.

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