Seth D. Michaels: “It’s not just that these Republican legislators are willing to side with a corporation against a union; it’s that when it comes to being pro-business or anti-union, they’ll choose anti-union. So much for the idea that Republicans just want to stay out of a business’ way.”
Amanda Marcotte on how Wendy Davis’ backing of a 20-week abortion ban is good politics in Texas, but totally crap policy. Sarah Erdreich takes a closer look at what Wendy Davis said.
I want to share with you a pretty amazing development on the union activism front. We’re used to right-to-work states resisting labor friendly legislation in their states. And major corporations usually resist unionization, at least within the bounds of the what the labor laws allow – and then often beyond them. But here in Tennessee we’ve got a case where the the corporation, Volkswagen, is not resisting unionization and perhaps actually mildly promoting it. In response, the state’s politicians are coming in threatening to pull a series of tax incentives if Volkswagen doesn’t change its tune and get on the anti-union bandwagon.
Seth Michaels explain what’s at stake and why the Tennessee GOP political establishment is so adamant.
An old time Texas sportscaster, Dale Hansen, who looks to be in his mid-60s, slams anonymous NFL execs for questioning whether the league wants openly gay Missouri defensive end Michael Sam. What gives it special poignance is that Hansen is open about the fact that he himself is not without some lingering discomfort about homosexuality …
He went on to slam NFL executives for saying Sam’s prospects would be hurt in the draft because he came out as gay, while being perfectly fine with drafting players who “lie to police trying to cover up a murder” and “beat a woman and drag her down a flight of stairs.”
“I’m not always comfortable when a man tells me he’s gay. I don’t understand his world,” Hansen admitted. “But I do understand that he’s part of mine.”
Check out the video here.
A GOP lawmaker in Colorado says it was “maybe a good thing” Aurora movie theater shooter James Holmes had a 100-round magazine.
WaPo columnist Jennifer Rubin is already envisioning who might be in the cabinet of President Chris Christie.
Daniel Strauss reports on some mysterious message testing that suggest tea party challenger and neo-Confederate event attendee Chris McDaniel is trying to paint Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran, who has a zero percent rating from NARAL, as too liberal on abortion and Obamacare. He also snagged this great tidbit: “the caller was not too familiar with Mississippi politics because of how he repeatedly mispronounced former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s (R) name.”
Yesterday’s federal court ruling in Kentucky really does show us that not only are bans on same sex marriage on the way out. It’s probably coming much sooner than we think, as TPM Reader JW explains …
On the Kentucky same sex marriage ruling, this truly is the sign that the game is over and it’s just the death throes now. It’s not just because this is a GHWB appointee, but more due to the brevity and clarity of the ruling. While other judges have written long opinions, jumping through various hoops to feel confident in their ruling, Judge Heyburn wastes little time and words getting to his. Opposing legal arguments are quickly disposed of. His ruling has a three part core of (i) Equal Protection under the 14th Amendment, (ii) Loving vs Virginia, and (iii) Justice Kennedy.
Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee in the latest excerpt from their book The Second Machine Age: “In short, median income has increased very little since 1979, and it has actually fallen since 1999. But that’s not because growth of overall income or productivity in America has stagnated.”
Be sure to join them both for a live chat (sub. req.) Friday at noon.