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The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Tuesday, April 15, 2014

The Daily Drift

 Yes, he fucked this state royally - up the ass with no lube. And continues to do so ...!
 
Carolina Naturally is read in 197 countries around the world daily.   

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Today is - National Library Workers Day

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Today in History

1755 English lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson publishes his Dictionary of the English Language.
1784 The first balloon is flown in Ireland.
1813 U.S. troops under James Wilkinson siege the Spanish-held city of Mobile in future state of Alabama.
1858 At the Battle of Azimghur, the Mexicans defeat Spanish loyalists.
1871 'Wild Bill' Hickok becomes the marshal of Abilene, Kansas.
1861 President Lincoln mobilizes Federal army.
1865 Abraham Lincoln dies from John Wilkes Booth's assassination bullet.
1912 With her band playing on the deck, the ocean liner Titanic sinks at 2:27 a.m. in the North Atlantic.
1917 British forces defeat the Germans at the battle of Arras.
1919 British troops kill 400 Indians at Amritsar, India.
1923 Insulin becomes generally available for people suffering with diabetics.
1923 The first sound films shown to a paying audience are exhibited at the Rialto Theater in New York City.
1940 French and British troops land at Narvik, Norway.
1945 President Franklin D. Roosevelt is buried on the grounds of his Hyde Park home.
1948 Arab forces are defeated in battle with Israeli forces.
1952 President Harry Truman signs the official Japanese peace treaty.
1955 Ray Kroc starts the McDonald's chain of fast food restaurants.
1959 Cuban leader Fidel Castro begins a U.S. goodwill tour.
1960 The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizes at Shaw University.
1971 North Vietnamese troops ambush a company of Delta Raiders from the 101st Airborne Division near Fire Support Base Bastogne in Vietnam. The American troops were on a rescue mission.
1986 U.S. warplanes attack Libya.

Non Sequitur

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Did you know ...

That on average, 22 veterans commit suicide each day
That teacher's strikes are spreading across the land
The the Koch brothers are about to become even more famous
About how deficit hawks are pitting millennials against seniors to attack social security
That Wal-mart admits its profits come from food stamps
About sexual harrassment from uber
What procrastinators should know about tax time
That an extreme anti-gay group will host an evening with Erick Erickson
You can watch the united states grow before your very eyes
Why liberals are more intelligent than wingnuts
Atheists pass out humanist literature after christians hand out bibles in school
Why the government should provide public access to the internet
About the marijuana effect on elections
How to write good
You can watch cyber-attacks in real-time
About lying to the food pantry
That the stock market is rigged
About Amazon's dirty secret
Just how difficult is it to make ends meet with a low-wage job?
About the multi-tenacled Koch-topus
That the IRS labels large televangelist group qualified as a cult
What #cancelcolbert tells us about double standards
That California truckers get $2.2 million in wage theft case
But there's still plenty of wage theft in silicon valley
And thanks to the anti-vaxxers, mumps is spreading in Ohio
Are you worried about heartbleed?  Here's a list of the passwords you should change right now
That private equity is an infection that's destroying the world
That the repugican cabal wants to stop the study of climate change
That climate change is destroying monarch butterfly
That a 5 year-old discovers flaw in x-box security

Walmart Finally Admits What Liberals Have Been Saying for Years

... Demand is What Creates Jobs

Walmart-Empty-Shelves 
It’s no secret that I once worked for Sam’s Club, which is of course owned by Walmart.  And while the company does pay its Sam’s employees better than the typical Walmart employee, they still didn’t mind screwing over employees any chance that they got.
Towards the end of my tenure with Sam’s they were aggressively cutting hours.  They were taking it to such extreme measures that we literally didn’t have people working on the floor to help customers out, we would have two cashiers and were lucky to have someone working in carts.  They were limiting how many hours per week people were allowed to be scheduled and they were doing this to not only cut pay but reduce the amount of benefits they had to pay out to part-time employees.
Full-time employees weren’t spared either.  In fact, I helped make the schedule some weeks and I was often told to keep every full-time employee between 32-34 hours.  I was routinely told to keep part-time employees between 20-24, but even then if they felt we could cut hours – we did.  Some people were only being scheduled 4-8 hours per week.
Walmart has realized that by cutting hours in their stores, rendering them incapable to keep up with demand, they’re losing billions of dollars.  This has prompted them to announce that they will be adding hours to address complaints the company has received from customers, with the primary complaint being shelves that weren’t stocked.
In other words, demand is forcing them to create jobs or add hours to existing employees.
By the company agreeing at their annual meeting that they need to add hours to address the issue of empty shelves, they’re essentially admitting that demand is the driving force behind job creation.  In fact, you could take it a step further and say that this is basically them admitting that trickle-down economics has nothing to do with job creation.
They wouldn’t be creating these jobs (or adding hours) unless demand dictated that they needed to.  Only when their revenue took a hit did these greedy executives admit that they needed to reverse course on their massive labor cuts.  If they hadn’t lost around $3 billion in revenue they would probably be pushing for deeper cuts to their labor force – not expanding it.
Job creation is almost entirely driven by demand.  And by Walmart deciding to add hours back to their labor force after losing billions due to their massive wage cuts – that’s exactly what they’re admitting.

The Feds Have Their Chris Christie Smoking Gun as David Wildstein Spills The Beans

Christ Christie's (r-NJ) prosecutor just got David "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" Wildstein to start spilling the beans …
Trans Hudson Tunnel 
New Jersey Port Authority expert Scott Raab of Esquire revealed Monday in an exclusive that Chris Christie’s (r-NJ) prosecutor just got David Wildstein to start spilling the beans.
Bad news for Chris Christie — and very good news for the citizens of New Jersey: Esquire has learned from sources close to the investigation that David Wildstein, the former Port Authority operative who helped plan and execute the Great Fort Lee Clusterfk, is now cooperating with Paul Fishman, the federal prosecutor investigating the soon-to-be-ex-governor and his minions for criminal conduct. Fishman has also increased the number of investigators at work on the case, and has begun presenting evidence and witnesses to a grand jury in Newark.
Wildstein had previously refused to testify, taking refuge under the 5th Amendment.
Raab notes that lawyers for both star witnesses (Bridget Kelly and David Wildstein) “said their clients would cooperate with investigators in exchange for immunity from prosecution.”
David Wildstein is the person who responded to the email, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” with “Got it” and he is also the person who in January of this year accused the repugican of knowing about Bridgegate, a charge Christie vehemently denies.
The New York Times explained in January that Wildstein said the order to close the bridge was a Christie junta’s order and said he had evidence that tied Christie to the closure:
In a letter released by his lawyer, the official, David Wildstein, a high school friend of Mr. Christie’s who was appointed with the governor’s blessing at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the bridge, described the order to close the lanes as “the Christie junta’s order” and said “evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference” three weeks ago.
In other words, smoking gun Wildstein is going to testify.
This is super bad news for Christie, because not only is this a federal investigation, but it is, as of April 4th, a criminal probe, after the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey convened a grand jury to investigate the George Washington Bridge scandal.
It’s looking like Chris Christie exonerating himself with lawyers he hired is not working out as well as he had planned. The revenge of those tossed under the Christie bus continues.

Court sides with MoveOn over Jindal

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal addresses the Nebraska Republican Convention in Grand Island, Neb., Saturday, July 14, 2012.
repugican Bobby Jindal
by Steve Benen
Bobby Jindal’s (r) junta in Louisiana picked an unusual fight recently, taking MoveOn.org to federal court, accusing the progressive activist group of violating trademark rules when it put up billboards criticizing Jindal’s opposition to Medicaid expansion.
So far, that hasn’t turned out well for the Republican governor: a federal judge ruled that the Baton Rouge-area billboard is legally permissible.
In his original court filings, [Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne] said the national liberal organization improperly mimicked his office’s trade and tourism branding in its satirical billboard posted just outside of the state capital. But U.S. District Court Judge Shelly Dick disagreed Monday, siding with MoveOn.org in stating the group’s free speech rights trumped the state’s case.
“The State has failed to demonstrate a compelling reason to curtail MoveOn.org’s political speech in favor of protecting of the State’s service mark,” Dick said in her ruling. She added “irreparable injury” would not be caused to Louisiana’s tourism campaign if the ad remained in place.
For those who haven’t been following this dispute, Louisiana is one of several red states that refuse to adopt Medicaid expansion, despite the fact that the policy would bring coverage to nearly a quarter of a million low-income residents. It led MoveOn.org to put up a billboard that reads, “LOU!SIANA Pick your passion! But hope you don’t love your health. Gov. Jindal’s denying Medicaid to 242,000 people.”
The Jindal junta wasn’t pleased – “Louisiana: Pick Your Passion” is the slogan tied to the state’s tourism campaign, and it doesn’t want the phrasing appropriated by a progressive group targeting the governor. MoveOn.org responded that its political speech is intended as satire and is therefore covered by the First Amendment.
Yesterday, a federal court agreed, offering the governor a reminder about what free speech is.
And by all appearances, he needed the refresher.
For me, the thing about this controversy that’s always seemed interesting isn’t trademark law, about which I know very little, but Jindal’s reversal about the importance of championing free speech.
As we’ve discussed before, it was just December when Phil Robertson, one of the stars of a reality-television show called “Duck Dynasty,” made a series of offensive comments during an interview. A&E, the network that airs the reality show, decided to suspend him over his bigoted remarks.
Jindal immediately leapt to Robertson’s defense. For a private business to suspend an employee, the governor said, was an affront to the “First Amendment.” As a constitutional matter, this was gibberish, but the far-right governor dug in anyway, positioning himself as a free-speech absolutist – Americans must be able to communicate whatever message they please, without exception or consequence.
“The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with,” Jindal said. “This is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views.”
Except it’s MoveOn.org mocking Jindal’s position on Medicaid, at which point it’s a less-free country and there are limits on those expressing their views? When a television network suspends an employee, it’s an outrageous First Amendment violation, but when a state government tries to restrict political speech on a billboard, that’s fine?
The irony, of course, is that the Jindal junta’s lawsuit brought vastly more attention to the billboard than it ever would have received if the governor and his team had ignored it. Jindal’s goal was to have fewer people see MoveOn.org’s message, but he achieved the opposite.

Founding Father 'enthusiast' Allen West's book filled with fake Founding Father quotes

by Tom Boggioni

A review of former congressman and Founding Father enthusiast Allen West's new book has turned up a wide assortment of fake quotes attributed to Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and other famous historical figures.
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According to the Palm Beach Post, West's "Guardian of the Republic," which outlines his political philosophy and his "warrior code," includes many quotes that have been described by historians as erroneous.
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"Thomas Jefferson said it first: 'A government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it away,'" West wrote.
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According to researchers at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in Charlottesville, Virginia, while that quote has appeared on coffee cups and t-shirts, it doesn't appear in any of Jefferson's writings. So many fake quotations have been attributed to the drafter of the Declaration of Independence, that the foundation felt compelled to create a "Spurious Quotations" list.
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Three other fake Jefferson quotes in West's book appear on the foundation's list.

White, wingnut terrorist busted...and nary a peep

The FBI arrested Robert James Talbot Jr., 38, of Katy, Texas. Talbot was the self-styled head of the American Insurgent Movement, which openly plotted to massacre Moslems at mosques and kill them with automatic weapons, sought to rob armored cars, and recruited followers to sow more mayhem. Talbot is a violent christian fundamentalist who advertised his intention to murder people wholesale.
Kudos to the FBI for arresting this fellow, but as Death and Taxes point out, where the hell was the national panic that attends every arrest of a jihadi terrorist, no matter how cracked and improbable his plan happened to be? Nowhere to be seen.
Now, if this was a recognition by the press that lone kooks are not an existential threat to the world -- even if they are capable of committing horrible, isolated crimes -- I'd be standing up and cheering. But if Talbot had been a brown-skinned wingnut muslim who'd been arrested after planning to attack christian cults in America with bombs and machine-guns, I suspect there would have been screaming front-page headlines and round-the-clock intensive CNN coverage for days, not to mention grim, determined reporting on Faux News.

Daylight Saving Time Foiled a Terrorist Bomb Plot

You may not like Daylight Saving Time, but now you can't say that it's completely useless. In fact, it could've been what foiled a terrorist plot.The Daily Mirror reported that police thought that an Irish bomber probably blew himself up because he forgot to set his clock forward an hour while planting a bomb."This certainly was a high-grade explosive used in this bomb," said the paper's anonymous source. "It wasn't garbage stuff. It would appear the bomber got his timings wrong. It could be a case where he didn't put his watch forward on Sunday [at 1 am] and the timer went off too soon."
The car was destroyed in the blast, but the perpetrator escaped with serious injuries. The local police are seeking information from the public to apprehend the bumbling bomber.
***
All wingnut plans, schemes and plots ultimately fail and, yes,  the terrorists are the wingnuts of their countries just as the wingnuts are the terrorists of this country.

Wingnut Food Companies

These food chains are owned by lunatic fringe wingnuts who've funded wingnut super-PACs

Right-wing food companies
For all the Oreo Cookies out there – companies that support gay rights, if only because doing so is good for business – there are plenty of food companies that have not come around on progressive social issues. In fact, a number of food companies are owned by lunatic fringe wingnuts who’ve spent significant money opposing gay rights, abortion rights, and other important causes and funding attack ads against left-leaning politicians.
The companies in question include many popular chain restaurants that you may eat at occasionally, or even all the time. It’s wise to know where your dining dollars are going.
To that end, here are five food chains that are helmed by owners who support right-wing politics.
1. Chick-fil-A
It won’t be news to many readers that Chick-fil-A’s owner is deeply entrenched in conservative politics and social issues. The chain has been in the news many a time for its owner’s anti-gay attitudes, in particular.
The latest Chick-fil-A hubbub has been especially high-profile. Chain president Dan Cathy, who is the son of Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy, said in a recent interview with the baptist press that “as an organization we can operate on biblical principles.” Asked about the company’s support of the “traditional family,” Cathy answered, “Well, guilty as charged….We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit….We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.”
Though Chick-fil-A’s attitudes were no secret, this was a bold statement. Unsurprisingly, a strong backlash led by gay rights supporters has ensued. (Meanwhile, the anti-gay side has been vocal in its support of the company.)
In response to the controversy, the company didn’t apologize, but it did spotlight its employee nondiscrimination policy and said that from now on it will “leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”
2. Carl’s Jr.
Carl’s Jr. founder Carl Karcher, who died in 2008, had been a supporter of anti-abortion causes for decades. In particular, Karcher was fond of funding the anti-choice group Operation Rescue. He also had a mean anti-gay streak as well. From the AP story that followed his death:
He was reviled by abortion rights activists for his contributions to anti-abortion groups and his oft-repeated story about talking a Carl’s Jr. employee out of an abortion. Gay rights groups dubbed his hamburgers “bigot burgers” after Karcher supported a 1978 proposition that would have allowed school boards to fire teachers who were gay or advocated homosexuality.
3. Domino’s Pizza
Like Karcher, Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan is an unapologetic supporter of anti-choice groups, including Operation Rescue, Right to Life, Priests for Life, and the Committee to End State-Funded Abortion in Michigan. (Domino’s itself has noted that it does not, as a company, support “either side of the reproductive rights issue.”)
Monaghan is a delusional catholic who also founded Ave Maria University. It’s said that he was inspired by a visit to the Vatican in the 1980s to found the Ave Maria List, an anti-choice PAC.
4. White Castle
White Castle joins Carl’s Jr. on the list of beloved burger joints with wingnut ties. According to a recent ThinkProgress report about companies that have helped bankroll wingnut attack ads, White Castle has given $25,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC, a group linked to House Speaker John Boehner that is supporting wingnut candidates in the November election.
5. Waffle House
Waffle House (or Awful House as I used to call it growing up) is also mentioned in the ThinkProgress report. The breakfast joint has given $100,000 this election cycle to the Karl Rove super PAC American Crossroads. Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy reported on the donation:
This is surprising because one doesn’t normally associate Big Waffle with big scary super-PACs, but also not that surprising: CEO Jim Rogers Jr. is a longtime supporter of repugican causes, and the company’s political action committee has given exclusively to repugicans (in considerably more modest quantities). His ties to Romney date back to 2006, when he joined the finance team of Romney’s political action committee, Commonwealth PAC.
So there you have it. The next time you go out to eat at one of the above restaurants, know that your burger and waffle dollars might eventually end up funding anti-gay, anti-choice or other wingnut causes.

Ziggy

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The repugican Mississippi Governor Signs Unconstitutional Law That Voids The 14th Amendment

Another repugican-controlled state passed and the repugican governor signed into law, a religious edict voiding the 14th and 1st Amendment … 

ConstitutionBurnedAlthough the majority of Americans errantly believe the United States Constitution is the unchallenged law of the land, a substantial number of christian fundamentalists still adhere to, and are enforcing, their insane delusion that their almighty god directed the Founding Fathers to create a christian nation and wrote a set of laws they would call “The Constitution of the United States.” In the christian version of god’s constitution, equal rights are an abomination on par with biblical god’s abhorrence of homosexuality, and religious freedom is christian’s biblical right to subjugate the population under a christian theocracy. Over the past five years, Americans have learned that, along with repugicans and teabaggers, the religio-wingnuts hate the U.S. Constitution as much as they despise America’s African American President, gays, women, and Americans rejecting the christian bible as law of the land, and the proof is another repugican-controlled state passing and the repugican governor signing into law, a religious edict voiding the 14th and 1st Amendment to make the christian bible the law of the land in Mississippi.
While Americans deluded that the religio-wingnut anti-gay movement is in its death throes celebrated the country’s entrance into the 21st Century as an all-inclusive nation, Mississippi repugicans passed an anti-gay “religious freedom” law. Religio-wingnut agitators celebrated Mississippi’s biblical law as empowering businesses to reject the Constitution and enforce biblical law discriminating against same-sex couples in the name of christianity, and shortly after Phil Bryant signed the scriptural edict into law, head of the (un)Family Research Center, Tony Perkins, issued a statement saying as much. The leading prospect to head a supreme christian cabal to rule theocratic America said, “Whether it’s someone like Pastor Telsa DeBerry who was hindered by the Holly Springs city government from building a new cult in the downtown area, or a wedding vendor, whose orthodox christian delusion will not allow her to affirm same-sex marriage,” the religious edict will “prevent government from discriminating against religious exercise.”
Religious exercise in fundamentalist christians’ diseased minds is freedom to dominate the population and void the Constitution most Americans errantly believed granted all Americans equality under the law. Perkins also elucidated the religio-wingnuts' belief that religious freedom  means much more than freedom of worship and includes freedom to dominate the entire nation. He wrote that, “Those who understand the importance and cherish the historic understanding of religious freedom are grateful for leaders who respond to fact and not fictitious claims of those who are trying to quarantine faith within the walls of our churches or homes.” This idea that religious freedom means rejecting the Constitution, federal, and state laws by enforcing biblical edicts on the people was devised in early 2009 shortly after the newly elected African American President began serving his first term in office.
In 2009, over two hundred christian wingnuts joined to issue a statement, the “Manhattan Declaration,” expressing their rejection of democracy and their ire at being unable to rule by theocracy. The statement read, “Freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those whom would use the instrument of coercion (the U.S. Constitution) to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions. We see it in the use of anti-discrimination statutes (14th Amendment) to force religious institutions, businesses, and service providers of various sorts to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral.” This theocratic confederation panted to transform America into a harsh christian theocracy feared that adherents to, and defenders of, the United States Constitution were “the vanguard of those who would trample upon the freedom of others to express their religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife.” The christians were angry their effort to subjugate the population to their bastardized christianity was not aided by a repugican evangelical government that, with assistance from wingnuts on the Supreme Court, would rewrite the 1st Amendment to transform “exercise of religion” into a means of imposing christianity on the people with the full force of the government. That dangerous proposition will be the law of the land when Supreme Court wingnuts rule in favor of Hobby Lobby and deliver religious freedom to dominate the nation to the religio-wingnuts; a goal they have lusted after for thirty years. If any American thinks such an event will never happen in America, they only need to look at the preponderance of repugican-controlled states attempting “free exercise of religion” edicts to ignore federal, state, and Constitutional laws guaranteeing equal rights to all Americans; a condition that will soon be nothing but a fond memory of a freedom-loving democracy transformed into a christian theocracy in a little over five years.
What should terrify Americans comfortable living under the current Constitution is that among those signing the “Manhattan Declaration” demanding “exercise of religion” and “rights of conscience” freedom to subject all Americans to biblical edicts is not the National Organization for (no)Marriage (NOM), (anti)Family (non)Research Council (FRC), United States cabal of catholic bishops (USCCB), or leaders of christian universities, colleges, and publications, but the head of the religious legal group who represented Hobby Lobby before the Supreme Court. If Americans believe the Hobby Lobby case is about whether or not a secular corporation worships, prays, and proselytizes ignoramuses into its delusion can legally refuse to follow federal laws, they just need to look at the Manhattan Declaration’s primary impetus that is their rejection of “instruments of coercion” such as “anti-discrimination statutes to force religious institutions, businesses, and service providers of various sorts to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral.” Gays, single mothers, women in the workforce, cohabitating couples, atheists, Buddhists, Heathens, non-christians, and muslims will all be “judged to be deeply immoral” and subjected to whatever action evangelicals “exercising religion” deem fits their delusion’s biblical moral judgment with constitutional protection according to the Supreme Court.
If Mississippi repugicans had waited for christian wingnuts on the Supreme Court to set a major legal precedent in Hobby Lobby, they could have saved themselves time and energy of passing a biblical “exercise of religion” edict to justify violating the U.S. Constitution and federal anti-discrimination statutes the High Court will invalidate for Hobby Lobby evangelicals. Hobby Lobby’s legal team, like Arizona, Kansas, and now Mississippi’s  ”license to discriminate” under cover of “free exercise of religion” law all cited the “rights of conscience” as justification to impose christianity under their biblical version of “religious freedom.” Using religious freedom and rights of conscience to dominate America is a five year crusade that would have never been so close to fruition if not for repugicans and their Koch brother funding machine or voters who sat out the 2010 midterm elections to protest the African American President for failing to grant their every wish and whim. Soon, the entire nation will pay for their pouts and petulance.
The real tragedy is that despite the certain gnashing of teeth and wailing by Americans comfortable the anti-gay religio-wingnut movement is waning will soon find themselves at the mercy of every person “exercising religion” and ignoring the invalid Constitution, federal, and state laws “they judge to be deeply immoral.” Like the failed Arizona discrimination legislation that allowed any person or organization free reign to violate any law they claim violates their “free exercise of religion” and “rights of conscience,” the impending ruling for Hobby Lobby will subject every American to the will of christian fundamentalists and no foolish petition, outcry from legislators, or protests in the streets will change what the religio-wingnuts have yearned for since repugican man-god ronnie raygun opened government to the moral majority; a Supreme Court ruling that all religio-wingnut biblical edicts are Constitutional.

Hobby Lobby invests in contraceptive, abortion drug manufacturers

It's peculiar how a group of individuals who are so devoted to their religious delusions that they demand the very laws of the nation be rewritten to accommodate them can be so lax about those same religious delusions if ignoring them will net them a little dough.
    Documents filed with the Department of Labor and dated December 2012-three months after the company's owners filed their lawsuit-show that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions. Hobby Lobby makes large matching contributions to this company-sponsored 401(k).
    Several of the mutual funds in Hobby Lobby's retirement plan have holdings in companies that manufacture the specific drugs and devices that the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, is fighting to keep out of Hobby Lobby's health care policies: the emergency contraceptive pills Plan B and Ella, and copper and hormonal intrauterine devices.

John Boehner Claims That He Is Killing Obamacare By Giving Obama Everything He Wants

boehner-face A desperate and cornered John Boehner is now claiming that he is trying to destroy the ACA by giving President Obama what he wants.
In a bit of high absurdity, Speaker Boehner’s office tried to claim that they are destroying Obamacare:
ObamaCare continues to increase costs, limit options for families and seniors, and undermine small businesses’ efforts to hire more workers. In short, it remains a disaster for families and small businesses. That’s why repugicans remain committed to repealing the law and replacing with better, patient-centered solutions focused on lowering health care costs. House repugicans have passed measures to repeal the full law, as well as other measures to repeal parts of the law (many with Democratic support), in order to protect the American people from the law’s harmful consequences. President Obama has signed into law a number of House repugican cabal measures to repeal, dismantle, or defund specific portions of the law.
On Monday, April 1, 2014, the president did so again, signing the Protecting Access to Medicare Act, legislation that repeals from ObamaCare a harmful provision designed to prop up the law at the expense of families and small employers.
In fact, the exact opposite is true, Boehner and the House repugican leadership have been covertly inserting ACA fixes that the president and Democrats want into bills for months.
The statement from Boehner’s office makes no sense, because Senate Democrats would never pass a bill that repeals, dismantles, or defunds the ACA. The White House would never allow the president to sign a piece of legislation that harmed his signature accomplishment.
After word got out about Boehner giving Obama and the Democrats a fix that they wanted by expanding coverage choices for businesses, the Speaker decided to flat out lie.
Speaker Boehner isn’t harming the ACA. These fixes are helping to improve the law, and deal with unintended consequences.
Boehner’s office is arguing that they are destroying the law by giving President Obama what he wants by helping the ACA to perform better. This argument makes absolutely no sense, but Boehner isn’t going for logic.
House repugicans are trying to keep the uneducated and uninformed masses (Faux News viewers) in the dark. They need to keep up the illusion that they are trying to repeal Obamacare so that their voters show up to vote in November.
House repugicans have spent the last couple of months passing fixes that Obama and the Democrats want. These are what the president has been signing.
John Boehner isn’t destroying Obamacare. He is strengthening it while desperately hoping that repugican voters are too dumb to catch on to how they are being played.

Paul Ryan Accidentally Reveals The Truth About The repugican cabal's Obamacare Replacement

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (r-WI) admitted on Friday that repugicans would not be able to preserve the most popular elements of Obamacare if they repeal the law as a whole. Ryan's comments come as House repugicans plan to unveil a replacement bill that will reportedly allow young adults to remain on their parents' health care plans and provide some level of protection for individuals with pre-existing conditions.
"If you look at these kinds of reforms, where they've been tried before - say the state of Kentucky, for example - you basically make it impossible to underwrite insurance," Ryan told Bloomberg's Al Hunt when asked if repugicans would maintain the pre-existing conditions regulations, dependent coverage extension, and other rate requirements. "You dramatically crank up the cost. And you make it hard for people to get affordable health care," Ryan insisted. 

Justices for sale!

Justices for sale! Buy yours here!


Poverty:Ye Auld New America

Working for someone else, fingers to the bone with no expectation of decent wages or a foothold on the ladder, is back in vogue here in America. Even your big deal congresspersons will tell you that. There are no greater patriots than the country's laborers, and the very, very finest--the finest patriots of all--are those who have no use for unions. The best patriot/workers understand that in America it's All for One and None for All..
And this, too: If God wanted you to be healthy, wealthy and wise, he would have given you better parents. It's a practice near to sin to get the taxpayers to take care of you and yours. The taxpayers have a hard enough time taking care of the rich.
The rich have earned our blind, gushing loyalty (How, you ask? By being rich, you ninny).
[...]
PovertyChild coal mine workers, 1900s
I bring this up because Nate Silver says there's a 60% chance the repugicans will take the senate. Nate seems to know what he's talking about but he doesn't say why the repugicans deserve to take the Senate. That's for the rest of us to chew over. So I'm chewing:
How many workers see something in the repugicans that tells them life will be better when the repugican cabal/tea party takes over Congress? What is it they see?
How many women see something in the repugican cabal that the rest of us don't? Enough to take them over the top? What is it they see?
When the repugicans win will they finally get busy and deliver on sustainable jobs? Affordable, ethical health care? Bridges? Roads? Pollution? Kids? Or will a comfortable win tell them all they need to know about the sterling virtues of capitalism and the ready acceptance of an oligarchy?
Paul Krugman:
America's nascent oligarchy may not yet be fully formed - but one of our two main political parties already seems committed to defending the oligarchy's interests.
Despite the frantic efforts of some repugicans to pretend otherwise, most people realize that today's repugican cabal favors the interests of the rich over those of ordinary families. I suspect, however, that fewer people realize the extent to which the cabal favors returns on wealth over wages and salaries. And the dominance of income from capital, which can be inherited, over wages - the dominance of wealth over work - is what patrimonial capitalism is all about.
.
In Bernie Sanders' report, "Poverty is a Death Sentence", he warns:
"If people don't have access to health care, if they don't have access to education, if they don't have access to jobs and affordable housing then we end up paying not only in terms of human suffering and the shortening of life expectancy but in actual dollars."
These are not revelations new to the 21st century. Krugman and Sanders are both echoing what President Roosevelt said in his 1944 State of the Union speech, in the midst of the Second World War, when he proposed a second Bill of Rights:
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.

‘Hardcore History’ host: Justice Roberts told America to accept plutocracy or revolt

by Eric W. Dolan

 “Common Sense” and “Hardcore History” host Dan Carlin blasted Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday for his “breathtaking” decision in the McCutcheon v. FEC case, warning it was pushing Americans towards radical action.
The court  struck down the aggregate limit on federal campaign contributions that had been in place since 1974. Political donors had been limited to giving a total of $123,200 to candidates, national party committees and political action committees during the federal two-year election cycle.
But Carlin was far more concerned that Chief Justice John Roberts seemed to believe the very idea of campaign finance reform was wrong. Roberts wrote in his ruling that the government had no legitimate reason to regulate money in politics, besides outlawing a very specific and narrow type of corruption.
“No matter how desirable it may seem, it is not an acceptable governmental objective to ‘level the playing field,’ or to ‘level electoral opportunities,’ or to ‘equaliz[e] the financial resources of candidates,’” the chief justice wrote.
The government can only enact laws to prevent quid pro quo corruption — in which a candidate accepts money from a donor in return for voting in favor or against a specific piece of legislation — the court said.
“This is where the decision is so breathtaking, you can see where this is going to go,” Carlin said on his “Common Sense” podcast. “If this is the rationale that the court is operating under, and don’t kid yourself, because Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with the majority on the court but went even farther and basically said, why are we having any of these limits at all? If this is indefensible, all the other stuff is indefensible too. If this is the rationale, and the chief justice says it is — you shouldn’t even try to do this — well, then all this limiting money is wrong. So we’ve opened up the door to this without ever explaining how people who don’t have money are supposed to get a response from government.”

With One Comment, Newt Gingrich Confirms the Real Goals of the repugican cabal

by Allen Clifton

In politics there's not a lot that liberals and wingnuts can agree on.  It's a problem that only seems to be getting worse as the repugican cabal slips further and further to their lunatic fringe base.  Even in the 90?s, as repugicans spent most of their energy trying to get Bill Clinton kicked out of office, Democrats and repugicans still proved that they could work together to at least get something done.
But there's one issue that I believe should bring both sides together, because it's the one issue that's behind almost all corruption in politics and our government - money.
Unfortunately the Supreme Court doesn't understand that basic level of logic, as they recently made it even easier for money to corrupt politics by allowing citizens to donate to an unlimited number of candidates (though the amount an individual can donate to each candidate is still capped).
Well, if people like Newt Gingrich have their way, donation limits might be done away with as well.  Not only that, but Gingrich also believes that doing away with all forms of campaign finance law (basically allowing people to donate as much money as they want to whomever they want) would even the playing field between the wealthy and middle class.
"And you would overnight equalize the middle class and the rich," Gingrich stated.
If you need a minute to compose yourself after busting out into uncontrollable laughter mixed with disgust, I wouldn't blame you.
To honestly believe that allowing citizens to donate an unlimited amount of money to any politician they want would "equalize" the playing field between the rich and the middle class is ridiculous.

And I Quote

Democratic Support Among Young People Reaches a Record High

obama-young 
As more senior citizens are becoming repugicans, Gallup found that younger voters are supporting Democrats in record numbers.
Here are a few of the choice findings from Gallup:
From 1993 to 2003, 47% of 18- to 29-year-olds, on average, identified as Democrats or said they were independents but leaned to the Democratic Party, while 42% were repugicans or repugican leaners. That time span included two years in which young adults tilted repugican, 1994 and 1995, when repugicans won control of Congress. Since 2006, the average gap in favor of the Democratic Party among young adults has been 18 percentage points, 54% to 36%.

This Democratic movement among the young has come at a time when senior citizens have become more repugican

Recent decades have brought significant shifts in Americans’ political allegiances, in the short term and the long term. While young adults have generally been more likely to align themselves with the Democratic Party than the repugican cabal, they are now much more solidly Democratic than prior generations of young adults.
Gallup suggests that the hardening support for Democrats among young people is at least partially based on the fact that the country is more racially and ethnically diverse. Democrats have embraced the changing face of the country, while repugicans have become even whiter.
It has long been believed that, as people age, they get more conservative, but over the past 20 years, young people have been aging and staying with the Democratic Party. This shift helps explain how Democrats have won the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections.
Young people turn out in higher numbers in presidential years. This a problem that Democrats are working day and night to solve before the 2014 election. The key to sustained success for Democrats is activating a portion of these young supporters. If younger voters get into the habit of voting in midterm elections, the repugican cabal will be in huge trouble.
As grandma goes tea partying, the country’s future is supporting Democrats more than ever. This is why if repugicans can’t rock the vote, they are going to do all that they can to suppress it.

Voter Suppression

Voter suppression is an age-old strategy of manipulating eligibility requirements and limiting access to polls in an effort to shape the electorate.

Rick Scott’s Voter Purge Was Illegal

by Josh Israel
Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL)
Rick Scott’s (r-FL) 2012 voter purge was so error-riddled that 30 repugican local elections officials refused to carry it out and his hand-picked Secretary of State had to apologize for it. A federal appeals court issued a ruling repeating what the U.S. Department of Justice said at the time: because the effort came close to the 2012 elections, it was illegal under federal law.
To prevent major changes to the voting lists that could disenfranchise citizens by accidentally removing them close to Election Day, Congress included a provision in the 1993 National Voter Registration Act to prevent any purges during that time. The law, commonly know as the “Motor Voter Act” for its provisions allowing people to register to vote when they get their driver’s license, spelled out:
A State shall complete, not later than 90 days prior to the date of a primary or general election for Federal office, any program the purpose of which is to systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters.
But despite this clear language, Scott and the Florida Department of State launched a statewide purge just 55 days before the November 2012 elections. Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall, a repugican who spoke out against the purge attempt, told ThinkProgress at the time that while she and other elections officials were working to ensure a smooth election, the state’s push to purge voters “just doesn’t help us whatsoever.” Still, Scott’s Secretary of State Ken Detzner told McFall and other supervisors that the names of thousands of non-citizen registered voters would be sent to them “no later than October 15″ and that “Eligibility records maintenance is an ongoingrequirement of federal and state law and is not subjectto the 90-day moratorium preceding a federal election(in contrast to address list maintenance which is).” Even this pared-down list of “sure-fire” non-citizens included some U.S. citizens fully eligible to vote.
Though Florida voters were unable to get a federal court to issue an order preventing the purge at the time, a three-judge panel for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2 to 1, to overturn lower court ruling and found the 2012 purge attempt illegal. Writing for the majority, Judge Beverly B. Martin wrote that the “plain meaning” of the 1993 law covered situations like this one:
For programs that systematically remove voters, however, Congress decided to be more cautious. At most times during the election cycle, the benefits of systematic programs outweigh the costs because eligible voters who are incorrectly removed have enough time to rectify any errors. In the final days before an election, however, the calculus changes. Eligible voters removed days or weeks before Election Day will likely not be able to correct the State’s errors in time to vote. This is why the 90 Day Provision strikes a careful balance: It permits systematic removal programs at any time except for the 90 days before an election because that is when the risk of disfranchising eligible voters is the greatest.
In 2013, Detzner apologized for the error-riddled 2012 purge attempts, saying “It could have been better. It should have been better.” Still, he vowed to mount a new and improved purge — his “passion” and “moral duty.”
Last week, Detzner abandoned that effort, due to continued questions about the accuracy of the data available to him. Though he vowed to resume his efforts in 2015, Scott is up for re-election this November and, should he lose, his replacement would likely be able to appoint a new Secretary of State before any new purge.

Daily Comic Relief

http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/PQifXTGaN9neWjs3yp2hzA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTE5NDtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz02MDA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ucomics.com/dp140414.gif

Former CIA director Hayden: Feinstein just too 'emotional' to objectively deal with torture

Tough guy Michael Hayden, former CIA director and torture booster, thinks that the whole problem between Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and the CIA is that she's just too "emotional" to be able to produce a fair report..
    Speaking on "Faux News Sunday" about a Senate Intelligence Committee report which criticizes the CIA program as excessive and ineffective at fighting terrorism, Hayden said Feinstein "wanted a report so scathing that it would ensure that an un-American brutal program of detention interrogation would never again be considered or permitted."

    "That motivation for the report may show deep emotional feeling on the part of the senator, but I don't think it leads you to an objective report," Hayden said.

    Hayden claimed a lack of knowledge about the report itself, but admitted that key information in the hunt for Osama bin Laden from a detainee who was later tortured by the CIA was actually attained before he was ever turned over to the CIA.
So he hasn't read the report, doesn't know what's in it, but does know that there's no way it could be objective because Feinstein has lady parts, so it must be overwrought.

And, by the way, having the goal of preventing torture from ever being policy again is a bad thing. She's just such a girl.

Knuckle Dragging wingnuts Freak Out Over Hillary Clinton’s Pic with Pussy Riot Going Viral

clinton pussy riot 
Hillary Clinton         @HillaryClinton 
Great to meet the strong & brave young women from #PussyRiot, who refuse to let their voices be silenced in #Russia.

Former Secretary of State, Senator, and First Lady Hillary Clinton posted a picture of herself with Pussy Riot members Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova while at the Women in the World Summit in New York. It went viral, with 9,343 retweets and 11,037 favorites, as pointed out by CNN (several days ago).
Naturally, the dimmest of the lunatic fringe is already freaking out because of the P word and Clinton. As we are in early hours of the articles about her viral post, you best buckle your seat belts.
HillaryClinton wrote: “Great to meet the strong & brave young women from #PussyRiot, who refuse to let their voices be silenced in #Russia.”
So here’s a prelude of what 2016 will bring us from the lunatic fringe. Ben Howe, Contributing Editor at Red State, is already hee-hawing it up locker room style:
Ben Howe @BenHowe Follow
The jokes write themselves --> Hillary Clinton poses with Pussy Riot members http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/07/hillary-clinton-poses-with-pussy-riot-members/ 

Hillary Clinton poses with Pussy Riot members

(CNN) -- A photo of Hillary Clinton and members of the Russian pop band Pussy Riot has gone viral, with more than 9,000 retweets on Twitter and over 10,000 "favorites.
Kevin Liptak @kevinliptakcnn

Because, oh my god, titter, hee-haw, snort, what is funnier than women being sentenced to two years for a song slamming the lunatic fringe’s hero, Putin? Am I right? And then being detained again in Sochi this year. SO FUNNY that Hillary Clinton would care about the freedom of women and girls around the globe.
P word! The jokes, I tell ya’, they are so funny. They write themselves. Also, sometimes people walk into walls because they are too stupid to avoid them.
Scary as this is, Michelle Malkin’s Twitchy had to lay into Ben Howe last year for posting what they viewed as a “sexist” image of Sarah Palin, in which she was photoshopped with Santa.
Howe, knuckles dragging on the ground, cluelessly defended himself/mansplained to the ladies on the right until finally he realized that it was a fake, but still, he announced it wasn’t sexist. Good to know that Ben Howe is the expert on all things sexist and isn’t afraid to tell the ladies what they are allowed to be offended by.
Would jokes about Pussy Riot and Hillary Clinton that “write themselves” be sexist by his standards? I kid. We all know the answer to that one and I don’t think Michelle Malkin’s Twitchy will find this quite as offensive as the image with Sarah Palin and Santa. But in case anyone missed it, it’s not the sexism that’s so offensive. It’s the juvenile stupidity. Not even a faint outline of wit.
I can’t wait for more of this stupidity regarding Ms. Clinton and 2016, especially coming from the folks who insisted that Sarah Palin being asked what she read was sexist. They got outraged when people were concerned that Sarah Palin didn’t understand that the Queen didn’t run England and they wouldn’t be deciding invasions over tea together, but they also don’t think Hillary Clinton is “qualified”, because her husband cheated on her.
… And defining Hillary Clinton by her husband is so not sexist. Never mind her career as a Senator, First Lady, and Secretary of State, which is sort of like quitting your one job midway through only with real responsibilities.
And that is the point here. Instead of discussing Ms. Clinton’s political values, her record, or her policies, we are going to get another crap fest of right wing stupidity, topped off with really ignorant, churlish locker room sniggers about her sex.
Yes, she’s a woman. Get over it, children, before she makes mincemeat out of you.

Neutered repugicans Destroy Their Chances With Women With One Vile Poster

The political trolls at Breitbart released an image today of Nancy Pelosi being dominated by a muscle bound man as she submits with her tongue hanging out to…
FCD41B68C36F43ECA99E798DF4095FF8 
The genius trolls at Breitbart know how to win the war on women. See below, via Ana Maria Cox’s tweet.
I gotta say, the image in full is even more disgusting than you can see on Twitter. In the full image, a scantily clad Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is being dominated by a muscle bound man (Governor Jerry Brown, I’m told — didn’t recognize him in Arnold’s body) as she submits in with her tongue hanging out to catch his hostile offerings.
breitbart pelosi
This image is the closest thing to a cry for help I can imagine. It’s screaming a Freudian fear of women, and subsequent need to dominate and humiliate them lest they demonstrate the power between their “teeth” by castrating the male. Yes. It’s a castration anxiety (fear of emasculation) image, by the perpetually fearful. No big surprise here.
Because what it actually means is that they find women so powerful, they’re terrified of them. It leads the anxious to avoid being dominated or made insignificant by the feared female. Castration anxiety usually strikes in a child’s “phallic phase”, between the ages of 3-5. The fact that the folks at Breitbart are still trapped at this stage should not surprise anyone.
This is what happens when people can’t defend their cabal’s policies with words based on ideas. This is a good clue that you’re dealing with juvenile, single cell organisms so driven by their own fear that they can’t think.
Women and men with breasts and women with tongues (symbolic of — fill in the blank)… It’s all too much for a wingnut.
But in truth, it’s poor Speaker John Boehner (r-OH) who is dominated by the tea party, whereas former Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a leader in every way. She continues to rescue Boehner from his own crazies for the sake of the country. Yes, she’s a powerful woman, and no, turning her into a dominated sex slave in their fevered imagination doesn’t make it so. It only reveals something about the mentality at Breitbart, but then, we already knew this.
After their failed attempt to mansplain away women’s desire for equal pay, this is how wingnuts plan to convince females that there is no repugican cabal policy war on women. Apparently the folks at Breitbart think this is helping the repugican cause. LOL 4eva.
Image: I tried to pick the least offensive picture for the main image to share with this post. So sorry, but this is what conservatives deem appropriate for a political website.

The House Science Committee: a parliament of Creationists, Climate Deniers (and dunces)

Writing in Scientific American, Ashutosh Jogalekar bemoans the famously terrible state of the House Committee on Science, a farcical body stuffed with climate deniers and young Earth creationists. At a recent hearing, committee member Randy Weber (r–TX) implied that science couldn't really make claims about things that happened tens of thousands or millions of years ago, because it couldn't directly observe them. It's a terrifying position for a legislator who sits in a position of power over national science policy to hold. Jogalekar claims the committee is turning into a national embarrassment, but as Chris Baker points out, any notion of the committee changing over time is an Evolutionist lie from Satan, because the committee are exactly as god created them at the beginning of time, 6,321 years ago.
The farce continued with another repugican member trotting out the tired old examples of global cooling and dinosaurs:
“I remember in the ’70s, that [cooling] was the threat, the fear,” Posey recalled. Then he pivoted. “I’ve read that during the period of the dinosaurs, that the Earth’s temperature was 30° warmer. Does that seem fathomable to you?”
From the described exchange it seems that the members have zero interest in knowing the truth or understanding how science works. Sadly this rancor, ignorance and lack of respect for science and scientists is business as usual for repugican members of the House committee. After all, the subcommittee responsible for climate change is, quite appropriately enough, led by a climate change denier (this literally sounds like something out of Orwell). 17 out of 22 members of the larger committee either deny that climate change is happening or question that human activities are responsible for it; the chairman of the committee himself is skeptical about global warming. And of course, let’s not forget committee member Paul Broun who thinks evolution is a “lie from the pit of hell”.
No wonder that scientists like me find it refreshing when we hear about billionaires appreciating and funding basic research. Pretty much all politicians in this country seem to have lost respect not just for the findings of science but for the basic nature of the scientific method, but let’s be clear: one party disproportionately more than the other is holding science back. It’s a little surreal to see people like Weber, Broun and Smith on the science committee but such is the age we live in. Nonetheless, the prevarications, ignorance and feet-dragging in that party reflect poorly on the entire political establishment. When none other than the House Committee on Science is stacked with people who literally live in the Middle Ages in their ignorance of science, hearing a kind word about science coming from any direction is a breath of fresh air.