Midday open thread

• A great take on Michele Bachmann signing onto the latest lunatic Republican pledge:
  

  I saw this headline about Bachmann signing some pledge calling for the ban of pornography. I thought, "Well, she just lost half her base." Then I read the complete pledge and found that it is full of far more disturbing amazing language than just the porn reference. [...]

  This pledge (PDF) is titled, "THE MARRIAGE VOW: A Declaration of Dependence Upon MARRIAGE and FAMiLY." See, they did the thing with the "i" again. These are extraordinarily annoying people.  To their partial credit, their pledge opens by acknowledging that one cannot claim to defend marriage without focusing on the high divorce rate, broken families, infidelity and other challenges (besides THE GAYS) "threatening" traditional marriage. Not everything they write is batshit crazy, just most of it. To their discredit, the first bullet point is:

  Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA?s first African-American President.

  
  Let me be clear. The opinions and analysis of this all-white, moralistic, American Taliban have no purchase in the land of black folk. It's not like the Official Committee Of Black Folk (I'm a rotating co-chair for the Northeast Directorate) sits around wondering what THE FAMiLY LEADER thinks about our family situation, but still, to invoke slavery in "defense" of marriage exposes a complete lack of historical understanding and common sense, much less sensitivity.

  Who in the world thinks bringing up slavery to defend family is a good idea?
  

• Common Cause has submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), seeking information on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his extra-judicial activities.
• Anti-choicers in Wisconsin want to make sure no one can get a legal medical procedure:

  On behalf of Pro-Life Wisconsin, the Alliance Defense Fund filed a formal request on Tuesday, July 5, with the Wisconsin Attorney General?s office to confirm the illegality of and enforce the law against the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics (UWHC) Authority?s payment of physician-residents for abortion training at Planned Parenthood in Madison. The recently-signed state budget specifically applies current law restrictions on abortion funding to the UWHC Authority.

  ?Our University of Wisconsin public entities should not be ground zero for training abortionists,? said Virginia Zignego, communications director of Pro-Life Wisconsin and a UW-Madison graduate. ?Residents need to be instructed how to save, preserve and respect life, not how to kill preborn children at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, the state's number-one abortion provider.?

• Tim Pawlenty, who didn't have the guts to confront Mitt Romney when they were face-to-face, says he's tougher than you might think:

   Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty attempted to prove how tough he is Thursday by boasting about his fighting past.

  "The loudest guy or woman in a bar usually isn't the toughest," Pawlenty said Thursday at a town hall, according to audio posted by Radio Iowa. "I'm an old hockey player and I've probably been in more fights than all these candidates combined."

  Fine. Climb into a ring against your competitors and prove it. If not for your macho image, for our enjoyment.
• Let's pray that Rick Perry and the AFA don't screw this up:

  Gov. Rick Perry?s affiliation with the American Family Association for his prayer event next month has already drawn protest plans from several faith-based and grassroots organizations on religious and sexual freedom grounds, but under federal tax law, AFA must also tread lightly around Perry?s possible presidential aspirations.

  As a religious nonprofit with a record of backing events featuring prominent conservative candidates, AFA is prohibited from directly or indirectly supporting or opposing any candidate for public office, and is barred from any type of political fundraising.

  At an AFA event like ?The Response? on August 6, candidates can only speak in their non-candidate capacity, and cannot make any reference to a possible election or reelection effort. At least two previous IRS investigations concerning political intervention have targeted either AFA or an organization linked to its individual partners.

  All eyes are on Perry?s next move in his possible GOP presidential bid, and the Wall Street Journal has speculated his announcement may take place around the same time as the prayer event, but the rally is legally prohibited from being a venue for election talk.

• What a shock: the Heritage Foundation is full of crap again:
  

  New research showing evidence of racial/ethnic disparities in education funding stands in contrast to the conclusions of a recent Heritage Foundation report, ?The Myth of Racial Disparities in Public School Financing? by Jason Richwine. ?To the extent that funding differences exist at all, they tend to slightly favor lower-performing groups, especially blacks,? Richwine claimed. His pronouncement was quickly taken up by conservatives like Richard Spencer of Alternative Right, who wrote, ?Richwine is helping policy analysts take a step closer to racial reality? (whatever that means).

  Inexplicably, Richwine failed to pay attention to the correct observation in another Heritage publication, ?Schools serving low-income students are often poorly funded,? as put in 2000 by Samuel Casey Carter in ?No Excuses: Lessons from 21 High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools.? Indeed, disparities are obvious when per pupil expenditures for each group are expressed as a percentage of per pupil expenditures for white students, by state.

• You can't make this stuff up:

  Julie Bass of Oak Park wanted to save some cash on fresh vegetables, so she started a garden this spring. But now, Oak Park officials are dragging her to court over it.

  The reason? Fox 2 reports Bass planted her garden in the front yard. Code compliance officials decided the garden was not an acceptable use for the front yard. So the city warned her. Then they ticketed her. And now they have charged her with a misdemeanor.

  City officials say the front yard isn?t ?suitable? for a garden.

  ?Suitable? Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski says is this:

  ?If you look at the definition of what suitable is in Webster?s dictionary, it will say common. So, if you look around and you look in any other community, what?s common to a front yard is a nice, grass yard with beautiful trees and bushes and flowers.?
  

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/eTiaKu9ello/-Midday-open-thread

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