Over the weekend, I wrote a couple posts and engaged with various folks on Twitter about the emerging Ebola Truth Movement, the mix of various voices, mainly on the right, either questioning what we know about Ebola, suggesting that public health officials are hiding the truth or simply saying they won’t be patsies for the virology elite.
But is the far-right Paul clan (Ron and Rand) also Ebola Truther? Seems they might be.
Not surprisingly, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal have put us on notice that total opposition to gay marriage and support for a constitutional amendment to ban it will be key to the 2016 GOP primary campaign.
CNN is the Ebola of journalism pic.twitter.com/TxLEsas2Ey
— Logan Smith (@LoganJames) October 6, 2014
I graduated from college going on twenty-five years ago and one of my college friends was Gil Steinlauf. We went to college together, then lost touch, then reconnected some years ago through Facebook or perhaps just an email. We exchanged a few notes. No more. But I’ve watched from a distance as he became an increasingly prominent rabbi, both in Washington, DC where he’s the senior rabbi at the Adas Israel congregation and also nationally.
Then today I saw a post from Gil on my Facebook feed about “personal news” he’d just shared with his congregation, about gratitude for support, compassion. My gut tightened. Clearly something weighty, serious. My first thought was an illness. Happily, no.
The news was that Gil and his wife have decided to divorce because Gil has come to the realization that he is gay.
After Supreme Court decision, Colbert welcomes new ‘government-mandated life partner.” Watch.
The Supreme Court declined to take the appeal of an Ohio public school science teacher fired for promoting creationism.
GOP operatives talk to TPM about the curious case of Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), suddenly the GOP’s most endangered incumbent, but left hanging out to dry by everyone from the NRSC (even though fellow Kansas senator Jerry Moran chairs the committee dedicated to electing Republicans to the Senate) to the Koch brothers network (even though they hail from Wichita).
Yesterday afternoon Ted Cruz (R-TX) exploded with a sputtering, outraged response to the Supreme Court’s non-decision decision to allow marriage equality to go into effect in eleven more states (5 states immediately effected; 6 more effectively legalized). This came after the epic press release from the National Organization for Marriage, an historic primal scream in which the group pulled out every adjective their minds could muster in response to seeing their group’s raison d’etre slip out of the universe – “furious word salad“, as our gifted headline writers put it.
For most of us this was a decision all about dignity. But for the opponents of marriage equality it really did amount to the final indignity.
For a variety of pretty good reasons, we’ve never really known the extent of the threat Barack Obama has faced as the nation’s first black president. But one of the silver linings to the Secret Service scandal of recent days may be that some of the people in a position to know are providing more details than we’ve previously had about how serious that threat has been and how it’s changed over time.
From Juliet Eilperin’s piece today in the Post, this stands out:
With the election now a mere four weeks away, starting today we’re going to be reviewing the most noteworthy and important polls from the last 24 hours. It won’t be encyclopedic. For that, check out PollTracker. Here I’ll be looking at the key soundings that give us new insight or evidence into November’s outcome – especially the battle for the Senate, though we’ll be looking at all races. If once a day isn’t enough, remember, download PollTracker Mobile, the only mobile app that notifies you on your iPhone or Android device every time a new poll is released in a race you’re following.