Day: September 25, 2015

Molly Ball addresses the current debate about whether Pope Francis is liberal. “What makes Francis different is really a matter of which Catholic beliefs he has elevated to the level of communal concerns—public policy—and which he has framed as individual choices. To Francis, sharing wealth and fixing global warming are matters that governments should address, while not committing homosexual acts or having abortions are individual choices he endorses. (As he famously put it: ‘Who am I to judge?’) This is quite different from the American Catholic church, which has poured its political energy into laws banning gay marriage and restricting abortion.” “Francis is not an American politician, but his perspective on the state’s role in these issues lines up pretty well with that of most American Democrats.” “Francis aligns more with Democrats than Republicans on other issues: He favors immigration reform, played a major role in the Obama administration’s détente with Cuba, and supports the Iran nuclear deal. No wonder the president and other American liberals are trying to claim him—and conservatives see him as a threat.”

I wondered if this would happen after the Papal Visit. He will resign at the end of October. The delayed resignation tells me he plans to pass a clean budget with Democrats in the House and the Democrats and 8 Republican Senators who defected on the Planned Parenthood vote there on Wednesday, and fuck the consequences, since he is resigning.

I suppose a silver lining in this plan is that Maine will learn that its welfare recipients are whites who live next door, and not the Cadillac driving browns they imagine them to be.

The mayor of Lewiston, Maine, has called on the the state legislature to create a public online registry with the names and addresses of those on welfare in the state, as well as how long those individuals have been receiving benefits. In a Thursday column in the Twin City Times, Mayor Robert Macdonald wrote that "the public has a right to know how its money is being spent." He said that he would submit a bill to the legislature that would create the registry.

If history is a trusted guide, a Republican will win the White House in 2016. Here is the operative tea leaf - the deficit. Between 2009 and 2013, President Barack…