Probe Of Deal To Build Queens ‘Racino’ Ensnares Gov. Paterson And … Jay-Z? Authorities are investigating the winning bid of a politically connected group of investors — including a prominent rapper and a former congressman — to transform a Queens horse track into a “racino” amid suspicions that the contract, doled out by Gov. David Paterson, was awarded improperly.
It Turns Out The Irish Are The “New Irish†With millions of Irish immigrants in the U.S. – and tens of thousands undocumented – the Irish are stepping up and engaging seriously in the immigration reform debate.
With millions of Irish immigrants in the U.S. – and tens of thousands undocumented – the Irish are stepping up and engaging seriously in the immigration reform debate.
Gregg: Not ?A Lot Of People? Would ?Really Care? If Democrats Use Reconciliation To Finish Health Care For weeks now, Republicans have been grousing that, if Democrats use the budget reconciliation process to finish health care reform with a simple majority, it “would be unprecedented in scope.” “It would really be the end of the Senate as a protector of minority rights,” declared Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). It would “harm the future […]
For weeks now, Republicans have been grousing that, if Democrats use the budget reconciliation process to finish health care reform with a simple majority, it “would be unprecedented in scope.” “It would really be the end of the Senate as a protector of minority rights,” declared Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). It would “harm the future of our country,” said Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). “They will lose their majority in Congress in November” if they use reconciliation, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) predicted.
On Fox News last week, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-AZ) declared that using reconciliation “to pass the most significant piece of public policy” of his lifetime would be “a railroading of the system”:
GREGG: We’re talking now about changing the entire way that health care is delivered in this country. We’re talking about taking the federal government and growing it from 20 percent of the economy to 25, 26 percent of the economy. We’re talking about changing the way that you and your doctor interact and you and your hospital — and your hospital treats you. These are huge public policy issues which really are way outside the reconciliation concept because they need debate. They need discussion. And they need to be subject to amendments on the floor of the Senate in order to do them correctly, or at least to have a proper airing of them and a fair treatment of them.
Watch it:
But this past week, the GOP has begun trying to downplay reconciliation in an effort to “scare House Democrats against voting for the health care plan, arguing that there’s no guarantee that the Senate approves a reconciliation package.” On CNBC, Gregg mused that “once they pass the great big bill, I wouldn’t be surprised if the White House didn’t care if reconciliation passed. I mean, why would they?” In an interview on Fred Thompson’s radio show, he even suggested that reconciliation was “almost irrelevant”
GREGG: But that’s what the game plan here is. Is to pass that bill, the big bill, and what they’re doing is they’re using this other bill, reconciliation, to basically buy off votes in the House from the more liberal members of the House who want to make this bill even bigger and more intrusive. And when they get those votes and they pass the big bill, that will go down to the president and it will be signed. And this side bill, which is called the reconciliation bill, will really become almost irrelevant. I mean, as a very practical matter, there isn’t really going to be a lot of people who really care whether it passes or not because they will have already gotten their massive bill through and it will be law.
Later in the interview, Gregg further contradicted his previous claims that reconciliation would be used as “an entire rewrite of the health care system of America.” “Even if they did something else, it would be at the margins. I mean it’s not going to dramatically impact what is this huge bill that will then be law,” said Gregg. Listen here:
Transcript:
THOMPSON: Let’s get right down to it. This reconciliation issue. It seems to me like there’s of course a lot of talk for a while there of reconciliation being so important and it’s obviously a cram down, it’s never been used in this way before. But now you’re having talk that well, it’s not all that important. The real issue is whether or not the House is going to pass the Senate bill, the one that the Senate has already passed. Which is bad news enough for those who are concerned about what the president’s trying to do. But that after they pass that bill, then they’ll try to do reconciliation, which will just be kind of odds and ends, so, reconciliation as such is not that important. Which one is it?
GREGG: Well, you’re absolutely right Fred. We don’t want to take our eye off the big enchillada so to say, which is this massive bill that passed the Senate, 2.5 trillion dollars of new government, a massive expansion of government into the health care area. Probably cause a lot of people to lose the health insurance they have today. If they like it, even if they do like it, it will raise the cost of small business a lot. And it will add two major new entitlements or expand one and add one to the federal register. So, we’ll end up with a lot of new bills going to our kids in the way of deficits and debt. It’s really a bad piece of fiscal policy. It’s a bad piece of health care policy. People were outraged about it when it passed the Senate and I think they should still be outraged about it. But that’s what the game plan here is. Is to pass that bill, the big bill, and what they’re doing is they’re using this other bill, reconciliation, to basically buy off votes in the House from the more liberal members of the House who want to make this bill even bigger and more intrusive. And when they get those votes and they pass the big bill, that will go down to the president and it will be signed. And this side bill, which is called the reconciliation bill, will really become almost irrelevant. I mean, as a very practical matter, there isn’t really going to be a lot of people who really care whether it passes or not because they will have already gotten their massive bill through and it will be law. The side bill is…
THOMPSON: The only…
GREGG: is coming back to the Senate to be voted on, but, and…
THOMPSON: People who will care, of course, will be those Democrats in the House that wanted through reconciliation to get some additional things done or taken out or what not. But for the American people it doesn’t matter whether or not those guys are disappointed, whether or not the Senate Democrat welch on their deal with their House brethern to do those things in reconciliation. I mean the Senate Democrats can just tell them to go fly a kite. We’ve got the major piece of legislation passed, so, you know, we indicated we might make you happy, but we decided not too and that would be the end of that, right?
GREGG: You’re absolutely right and that’s a perfect description of it. I mean, once you get this big bill through, this incredibly large piece of legislation, the biggest piece of legislation I’ve ever seen. Most intrusive 2,700 pages of new bureaucracy and news spending and new programs of government decisions on how you live your life. Once that’s through there isn’t going to be a whole lot of incentive for senators at least, on the other side of the aisle, my colleagues on the Democratic side to do anything else because they’ll have their bill. But even if they did something else, it would be at the margins. I mean it’s not going to dramatically impact what is this huge bill that will then be law. And remember once it becomes law, once the House of Representatives passes this thing, it’s going to be very hard to change it because even though we’ll do everything we can to repeal it and we’ll spend a lot of time talking about it and every Democrat who voted for it’s going to have to explain that for the next six months up to the election, we’re going to need two-thirds majorities to repeal it because that what it takes to override a presidential veto.
Democratic activists channel anger into Arkansas Senate race Democratic activists flooding money into a primary challenge against Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) say the race isn’t simply about defeating the incumbent. It is also about rebuking a Democratic-controlled Congress that they say isn’t pursuing an aggressive, populist agenda.
As Iraq votes, U.S. content to keep its distance As Obama administration officials tried in recent weeks to anticipate what could go wrong in Sunday’s elections in Iraq, they realized with some relief that they are largely powerless to control what happens.
2010 Democrats Not as Corrupt as 2006 Republicans Joan Walsh, Salon I predicted Wednesday that Republicans and the mainstream media would soon have a new but typically simplistic partisan line: that recent scandals involving Democratic Reps. Eric Massa and Charlie Rangel and New York Gov. David Paterson would make 2010 what 2006 was for Republicans — the year voters punished the party for its corruption. Throw in oldies but goodies like former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, both Democrats, and I foresaw an avalanche of 2006-2010 comparisons. And I was right. Before I attack that false equivalence, let me make clear:…
Why Obama Will Ultimately Win With HC Ellen Ratner, FOX News » » » » » October 30, 2009 » February 25, 2010 » February 25, 2010 »Updated March 05, 2010By Ellen Ratner – FOXNews.com The Democrats may lose seats in the mid-term elections but in the end getting access to health care and eliminating the games played by the health insurance industry will make many reticent Americans…
‘3, 6, 9, 12, Budgets Cuts Can Go to Hell’ In retaliation against California’s tuition hikes and education budget cuts, students from across the state kicked off a “Day of Action and Strike in Defense of Public Education” on Thursday with assemblies, walkouts and teach-ins. The action was part of a national protest.—JCL Los Angeles Times: Students against cuts in education funding kicked off a national day of protests Thursday with generally peaceful rallies, walkouts and teach-ins at universities and high schools. A large crowd had gathered at UCLA’s Bruin Plaza where hundreds of students, faculty and staff members chanted, “Who’s got the power? We’ve got the power!” as others walked out of classes for the protest. The protest was just one of hundreds all over the state, and nation, for the Day of Action and Strike in Defense of Public Education. More than 200 protesters blocked two main campus entrances at UC Santa Cruz and reportedly smashed a car windshield with a metal pipe, officials said. At UC Berkeley, nearly 150 protesters – chanting “Money for jobs and education, not for war and incarceration” – blocked the main pedestrian entrance to campus and also sought to stop people from walking into the university by hanging “danger” tape across paths. Read more
In retaliation against California’s tuition hikes and education budget cuts, students from across the state kicked off a “Day of Action and Strike in Defense of Public Education” on Thursday with assemblies, walkouts and teach-ins. The action was part of a national protest.—JCL
Los Angeles Times:
Students against cuts in education funding kicked off a national day of protests Thursday with generally peaceful rallies, walkouts and teach-ins at universities and high schools.
A large crowd had gathered at UCLA’s Bruin Plaza where hundreds of students, faculty and staff members chanted, “Who’s got the power? We’ve got the power!” as others walked out of classes for the protest.
The protest was just one of hundreds all over the state, and nation, for the Day of Action and Strike in Defense of Public Education.
More than 200 protesters blocked two main campus entrances at UC Santa Cruz and reportedly smashed a car windshield with a metal pipe, officials said. At UC Berkeley, nearly 150 protesters – chanting “Money for jobs and education, not for war and incarceration” – blocked the main pedestrian entrance to campus and also sought to stop people from walking into the university by hanging “danger” tape across paths.
Krugman: ‘Bipartisanship Is Now a Foolish Dream’ Someone might want to call President Barack Obama’s attention to the main message of Paul Krugman’s latest Op-Ed column in The New York Times: This whole bipartisanship idea isn’t going to catch on in Congress. Krugman takes the recent example of Sen. Jim Bunning’s bill-blockading gymnastics, along with the responses from a couple of Bunning’s peers, to illustrate his somewhat depressing point. —KA Paul Krugman in The New York Times: Take the question of helping the unemployed in the middle of a deep slump. What Democrats believe is what textbook economics says: that when the economy is deeply depressed, extending unemployment benefits not only helps those in need, it also reduces unemployment. That’s because the economy’s problem right now is lack of sufficient demand, and cash-strapped unemployed workers are likely to spend their benefits. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says that aid to the unemployed is one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus, as measured by jobs created per dollar of outlay. But that’s not how Republicans see it. Here’s what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say when defending Mr. Bunning’s position (although not joining his blockade): unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.” Read more
Someone might want to call President Barack Obama’s attention to the main message of Paul Krugman’s latest Op-Ed column in The New York Times: This whole bipartisanship idea isn’t going to catch on in Congress. Krugman takes the recent example of Sen. Jim Bunning’s bill-blockading gymnastics, along with the responses from a couple of Bunning’s peers, to illustrate his somewhat depressing point.? —KA
Paul Krugman in The New York Times:
Take the question of helping the unemployed in the middle of a deep slump. What Democrats believe is what textbook economics says: that when the economy is deeply depressed, extending unemployment benefits not only helps those in need, it also reduces unemployment. That’s because the economy’s problem right now is lack of sufficient demand, and cash-strapped unemployed workers are likely to spend their benefits. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says that aid to the unemployed is one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus, as measured by jobs created per dollar of outlay.
But that’s not how Republicans see it. Here’s what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say when defending Mr. Bunning’s position (although not joining his blockade): unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.”
In his forthcoming book, Fox News’ Karl Rove writes that during his infamous July 2003 conversation with the late Robert Novak, Rove “agreed with Novak’s assessment” that Joe Wilson was “pompous, self-centered, egotistical, and ‘an asshole.’ “
In Courage and Consequence – which Media Matters for America obtained in advance of its March 9 release date — Rove writes that shortly after agreeing with Novak that Wilson was “an asshole,” Rove confirmed that he had “heard” that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. Days later, Novak published a syndicated column outing Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative.
From Page 328 of Karl Rove’s Courage and Consequence:
But Novak had turned our conversation to Joe Wilson’s op-ed after discussing Townsend. He’d met Wilson in the green room at Meet the Press the previous Sunday morning and said he found Wilson pompous, self-centered, egotistical, and “an asshole.” Having watched Wilson on Meet the Press, I agreed with Novak’s assessment.
Gun-Rights Extremists Praise Operation Exodus Sheriff: ‘This Will Save Lives!!!’ The Louisiana sheriff who plans to arm volunteers with a .50 caliber machine gun and other weapons, to maintain security in the event of a terrorist attack or man-made disaster, is being hailed as a hero by survivalists and other gun-rights enthusiasts.
Students protest budget cuts Photos of the students at Sather Gate on the University of California Berkeley campus have become an comon news media icon of Thursday’s protests.
Bye bye, Cuckoo Marty Peretz I’ve long known that Marty Peretz, owner of The New Republic, was a bit nuts. But now he has raised the paranoid mutterings of a crazy old man to a new level. This is worth a read. Peretz’s subject is…
Keep Your Religion Away From Our Health Reform So now 12 Democratic House members are saying they won’t vote for the Senate bill because of the abortion issue. Unbelievable, especially because the Senate compromise opposed by the “Anti-Health Care 12″ does not force anyone to subsidize abortion. But…
Forgetting The Bush Record, Perino Criticizes Obama Administration For ‘Creating’ Their Own News Last night on Fox News, former Bush White House press secretary Dana Perino criticized President Obama because he hasn’t held a “primetime” press conference since last July. “I don’t think that there’s any way…I would have gotten away with that with the White House press corps,” she complained. Host Greta Van Susteren noted that last […]
Last night on Fox News, former Bush White House press secretary Dana Perino criticized President Obama because he hasn’t held a “primetime” press conference since last July. “I don’t think that there’s any way…I would have gotten away with that with the White House press corps,” she complained.
Host Greta Van Susteren noted that last year, Obama actually conducted more one-on-one interviews that Bush or President Clinton had combined in the same time frame. But seeming to look for another line of attack, Perino pointed to a video the White House put out yesterday on the Travel Promotion Act and suggested that it indicated the administration is “repressive”:
PERINO: But there was an incident today where the President signed the Travel Promotion Act — not a huge bill by any stretch of the imagination. But usually, that is something that the White House press corps would get to cover. They didn’t today. And then later on in the day, the White House decided through its own media — they have a robust new media shop and they’re creating their own news and they’re posting it, and all the networks said that they’re not going to show it. But creating your own news is something that happens in repressive regimes. And a democracy is — it is critical to have a good, strong free press in a democracy.
Watch it:
Transparently posting news videos on the White House website is one thing; secretly producing “fake news” videos promoting an agenda and distributing them for local news broadcasts is quite another, which is exactly what the Bush administration did:
Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government’s role in their production.
In fact, the Government Accountability Office found that the Bush administration practice amounted to illegal “covert propaganda” — a ruling the Bush White House subsequently disregarded. The Bush team also famously paid conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to promote No Child Left Behind “on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.” The propaganda also spread abroad as well. The Bush Pentagon got caught planting positive coverage in Iraqi newspapers during the height of the insurgency.
Summing up “the heart of the Bush presidency,” journalist Ron Suskind reported that a senior Bush official once criticized him for living in “the reality-based community” after Suskind had written a piece critical of the administration. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” the official said. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”
By Perino’s standard, it seems the Bush administration constitutes a “repressive regime.”
Mitt Romney Refuses To Say If The Foundation Of The Massachusetts Health System Is Constitutional In recent days, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) has tried to simultaneously tear down President Obama’s proposals to reform healthcare, while defending his own legacy of reforming healthcare in Massachusetts. Romney’s health plan includes an expansion of Medicaid using $385 million in annual Federal money, as well as an individual mandate and a sliding scale […]
In recent days, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) has tried to simultaneously tear down President Obama’s proposals to reform healthcare, while defending his own legacy of reforming healthcare in Massachusetts. Romney’s health plan includes an expansion of Medicaid using $385 million in annual Federal money, as well as an individual mandate and a sliding scale of subsidies. Today, 98% of Bay State residents have quality, highly regulated coverage. Defending his plan last night, Romney told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren that the only way the Massachusetts “system can work” is by having an individual mandate.
Fighting to kill health reform, the right-wing has attacked the individual mandate as unconstitutional. Along with a cadre of Republican Congressmen, Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC), John Ensign (R-NV), and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) have said that the individual mandate violates the constitution. Similarly, as a ThinkProgress investigation has found, insurance company lobbyists have orchestrated an effort to use state legislatures to pass resolutions condemning the individual mandate as unconstitutional. An individual mandate is absolutely necessary for health reform to work. Simply put, the right has hoped to kill health reform by undermining the individual mandate.
Today at the Press Club, Romney again tore into Obama’s efforts on health reform. After the speech, ThinkProgress caught up with Romney to ask him about the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Romney refused to answer if the individual mandate, which underpins his own Massachusetts system, is even constitutional:
TP: What do you think about the current effort to declare the individual mandate as unconstitutional?
ROMNEY: You know I’ve got a long discussion that I could give you on that, but I’m in too harp hay of a hurry right now but I think we have that on the site.
TP: Do you think it’s constitutional though, I mean just as a quick answer.
ROMNEY: I think I’ve answered that the best way I can right now which is it’s a big topic and I’m happy to discuss it at length but I just can’t do it in the hall going to the elevator.
TP: Well I mean it is constitutional though, right?
Watch it:
On Romney’s website, there is no mention of the individual mandate. During the 2008 Republican primary, Romney famously crept to the far right, flip flopping on many core issues to appease the right-wing base. With Romney refusing to state if the core foundation of his own health plan is even constitutional, Romney is again pandering to far right conservatives.
Last year, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), a close ally of Romney, said the Senate health reform bill “mirrors” the Massachusetts system Brown and Romney helped enact. And as Igor Volsky details, the current version of reform Congress is preparing to enact still resembles the Massachusetts plan, except that Obama’s reform proposals do far more to control costs. However, Romney is making a political calculation by attacking health reform. With Romney refusing to state if the core foundation of his own health plan is even constitutional, Romney is again pandering to far right conservatives.
RNC’s finance director behind controversial fundraising pitch In the three days since the leak of a confidential and crude Republican fundraising pitch, the party’s leaders have scrambled to distance themselves from the 72-page PowerPoint depiction of President Obama as a socialist Joker — and from the man behind it. Michael S. Steele, the Republican National Committee chairman, declared the pitch inappropriate and said it was the work of a “staffer.”
Massa resigns; Democrats’ ethical lapses could threaten hold on power Congressional Democrats reclaimed control of Congress in 2006 by pledging to “drain the swamp” after Republican ethics scandals rocked Capitol Hill. Now, a series of controversies involving Democratic members has robbed the party of its claim to hold the higher moral ground — and could threaten its hold on power in this fall’s elections.
One Giant Government Leap Backwards Larry Kudlow, RealClearMarkets Rather than a post-partisan olive branch to congressional Republicans and the American public, President Obama's latest health-care speech was a declaration of war. He's more than willing to use a 51-vote reconciliation majority to jam through a roughly $2 trillion health-care plan that amounts to a government takeover of nearly one-fifth of the economy. He's prepared to stick Uncle Sam right in the middle of the age-old relationship between patients and doctors, and doctors and hospitals, all while subjugating the private health-care insurance system to the status of a…
Dems Mired in Swamp They Vowed to Drain Kellman & Margasak, AP A rash of ethics lapses has given Democrats an election-year headache: how to convince skeptical voters that they're any cleaner than Republicans they accused of fostering a “culture of corruption” in 2006.From the conduct of governors in Illinois and New York to back-room deals over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, Democrats are drawing their own criticism when it comes to the ethics of public officials.The party that pledged to “drain the swamp” if given control of Congress finds itself sinking in the muck nine months from Election Day, when every…
Liz Cheney, “mockingbirds are tasty” I thought we were out of low-points in American journalism, but as always there’s more rungs on the ladder to descend.
Before the United States was ever born, one principle was clear to John Adams, when as a lawyer, he defended British soldiers in the wake of the Boston Massacre (and I’m reminded in comments — ironically, it’s the 240th Anniversary of that event):
“The part I took in defense of captain Preston and the soldiers, procured me anxiety, and obloquy enough. It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country.”
The daily right-wing slant of FoxNews and it’s hourly diatribes are, of course, bad enough, and the determination of every news medium to allow right-wing bullshit to be taken seriously rather than laughed at is depressing. But CNN’s Situation Room had all the intellectual acumen of ‘The Situation’ himself yesterday. It’s one thing for Blitzer to be bland and dumb — because he is — it’s another thing to add kerosene to the fires of undermining the best things about our system of government.
Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak (D) threatened Thursday to block health care reform (again) because it might allow federal money to subsidize abortion. Which has Democratic leaders cooking up Rube Goldberg-like schemes to supposedly assure that any abortions would be funded only out of the premium dollars people paid themselves for coverage in new insurance exchanges, not via any federal subsidy. But this entire debate is ridiculous, because the feds already subsidize abortions massively, via the giant tax subsidy for employer-provided care. Today the feds devote at least $250 billion a year to subsidizing employer-based coverage, a subsidy that skews incentives horribly (but which big business and big labor wouldn’t let the politicians touch this year). A Guttmacher Institute study says that 87 percent of typical employer plans cover abortion, and a Kaiser study found that 46 percent of covered workers had abortion coverage.
Science Diet: It’s in the Genes Low carb or low fat? Diet trends have led to diet debate. Luckily, some actual scientists are weighing in. The preliminary results of a small study suggest that some of us just process food differently, and picking the right diet based on a gene test could shed two to three times more weight. BBC: The researchers divided the group into three genotypes which they described as low carbohydrate diet responsive, low fat diet responsive and a balanced diet responsive genotype. They found that those on a diet which matched their genotype lost 2-3 times more weight over 12 months compared with those on the “wrong” diet. Read more
Low carb or low fat? Diet trends have led to diet debate. Luckily, some actual scientists are weighing in. The preliminary results of a small study suggest that some of us just process food differently, and picking the right diet based on a gene test could shed two to three times more weight.
BBC:
The researchers divided the group into three genotypes which they described as low carbohydrate diet responsive, low fat diet responsive and a balanced diet responsive genotype.
They found that those on a diet which matched their genotype lost 2-3 times more weight over 12 months compared with those on the “wrong” diet.
Tilikum, According to the Book of Exodus Last month’s trainer tragedy at SeaWorld has taken on biblical proportions. According to an evangelical pastor evidently given to consulting the Old Testament in reference to theme park disasters, the book of Exodus suggests that Tilikum, the orca responsible for killing handler Dawn Brancheau, should have been dealt with in the manner of a murderous ox. —KA “The Seeker” in The Chicago Tribune: Rev. Bryan Fischer, an evangelical pastor and director of issue analysis for the American Family Association, a non-profit committed to defending the sanctity of human life, argues that Exodus 21:28 clearly states: “When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable.” And according to Exodus 21:29, if your ox kills again, “the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.” Fischer said he isn’t arguing that the whale or SeaWorld’s owners be stoned to death. Rather, the principles of the Scripture should apply in this case, he said. Read more
Last month’s trainer tragedy at SeaWorld has taken on biblical proportions. According to an evangelical pastor evidently given to consulting the Old Testament in reference to theme park disasters, the book of Exodus suggests that Tilikum, the orca responsible for killing handler Dawn Brancheau, should have been dealt with in the manner of a murderous ox.? —KA
“The Seeker” in The Chicago Tribune:
Rev. Bryan Fischer, an evangelical pastor and director of issue analysis for the American Family Association, a non-profit committed to defending the sanctity of human life, argues that Exodus 21:28 clearly states: “When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable.”
And according to Exodus 21:29, if your ox kills again, “the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.”
Fischer said he isn’t arguing that the whale or SeaWorld’s owners be stoned to death. Rather, the principles of the Scripture should apply in this case, he said.
