GOP: Special Session for Gay Marriage Not Healthcare Buzz for 7-22--15

Campaign Finance Reform Is Good for Businesses | Commentary

David Fox's brother revealed as donor behind Super PAC

Really, it’s time to shut down the GOP: A deeply unserious party, hijacked by lunatics and Fox News, is driving us all into a ditch

GOP legislators still fretting about gay marriage opinion

Many Republican state legislators want to do something about the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage but cannot agree on what that might be. The Tennessean’s Dave Boucher has rounded up some of the commentary, starting with Rep. Rick Womick, R-Rockvale.
Womick, who initially called for impeachment of Gov. Bill Haslam for failing to act against the ruling, this week Attorney General Herbert Slatery to ignore the Supreme Court and ask for new hearing.
The deadline to petition the court for a rehearing was Tuesday. Slatery isn’t going to do that, and he’s still going to comply with the court’s decision, said Slatery spokesman Harlow Sumerford.
“Despite our disappointment with the Supreme Court decision, our office did not file a petition to rehear. To do so would create a false sense of hope,” Sumerford said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
… Although other lawmakers aren’t publicly joining Womick’s charge for impeachment, several other House Republicans agree that Haslam should call a special session. GOP Reps. Andy Holt, Sheila Butt and others are planning legislation to “protect” pastors from being forced to officiate same-sex marriages, although there’s nothing in state or federal law that requires clergy to officiate any wedding. LINK

David Fox's brother revealed as donor behind Super PAC

George Fox, a wealthy hedge fund operator from Connecticut and older brother of Nashville mayoral candidate David Fox, has revealed he is the major financial donor behind a mysterious Super PAC that has suddenly bankrolled a wave of advertising to boost Fox's candidacy.
That revelation, made in a statement sent Tuesday from Citizen Super PAC to The Tennessean, comes after the conservative, Austin, Texas-based PAC has paid at least $127,191 to air pro-Fox television commercials, $18,490 for pro-Fox radio advertising and more money for mail ads. The most recent of these, a mail piece targeting opponent Linda Eskind Rebrovick, turned negative, prompting David Fox last week to apologize.
The mayoral candidate has maintained he didn't know who was behind the advertising, and continues to claim no previous knowledge. David Fox also denies any past or current coordination with the Super PAC, which would be a violation of campaign finance law. LINK

Campaign Finance Reform Is Good for Businesses | Commentary

There are members of Congress who believe money doesn’t influence their votes — which to me, sounds like Stockholm syndrome. Our politicians have become so enamored with their campaign cash, they have stopped understanding how the money has taken them hostage. They no longer see the reality of their situation.
Special interests spend money in elections to influence policy that in turn influences the size of their bottom line.
The federal government spent more than $460 billion on private sector contracts in 2013. But a recent Public Citizen report found only 27 percent of top contractors disclose any of their political spending.
Recently, a federal appeals court upheld a 75-year-old ban on federal contractors directly giving to federal candidates or political parties.
A few weeks ago, the House Appropriations Committee approved a provision that would protect federal contractors from government action. The provision would prevent the executive branch from increasing transparency in political spending and allow contracted businesses to keep circumventing the ban by giving contributions to dark money groups that don’t have to say where their money comes from.
The idea that freedom of speech means freedom of secret political spending is totally opposed to the philosophy of the founding fathers who agreed to pledge “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” when they followed John Hancock and signed their names. LINK
Republicans are finally noticing that Donald Trump is a political liability. In the wake of Trump’s attack on John McCain, GOP candidates found the courage to condemn his revolting shtick — a little late, of course, but good for them. The problem, though, is that they don’t quite understand that Trump isn’t an anomaly; he’s the latest product of a party that long ago abandoned any pretense of seriousness.

Really, it’s time to shut down the GOP: A deeply unserious party, hijacked by lunatics and Fox News, is driving us all into a ditch

Trump, quite literally, is an actor; he’s delivering the lines his audience (the Republican base) wants to hear. But he’s not the first of his kind. He’s doing what many Republicans have done in recent years: pretend to run for president in order to promote his personal brand. Trump is playing a role previously filled by people like Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann, both of whom, at one point, were front-runners in the race for the Republican nomination. And of course there’s Sarah Palin, the failed reality-TV star and once half-lucid part-time governor of Alaska who Republicans thought capable of running the country.
Everyone (well, almost everyone) acknowledges that Trump is a bloviating clown totally unfit for public office, but is he really that much different than Herman Cain or Sarah Palin? None of these people have any business running for president or vice president or any other office. Bachmann, admittedly, was at least an experienced member of Congress, but her campaign was thoroughly unserious. Like so many of her fellow Republicans, Bachmann became a Pez dispenser of fatuous Fox News talking points – and that’s the problem. LINK





Crockett Policy Institute
http://www.crockettpolicy.org/