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Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Saturday, August 23, 2014

The Daily Drift

Keepin'em straight ..!
 
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The Flappers of the 1920s loved them some Rudolph Valentino ... !
Today is  - Valentino Day
 
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Today in History

1244 Turks expel the crusaders under Frederick II from Jerusalem.
1305 Scottish patriot William Wallace is hanged, drawn, beheaded, and quartered in London.
1541 Jacques Cartier lands near Quebec on his third voyage to North America.
1711 A British attempt to invade Canada by sea fails.
1775 King George III of England refuses the American colonies' offer of peace and declares them in open rebellion.
1821 After 11 years of war, Spain grants Mexican independence as a constitutional monarchy.
1863 Union batteries cease their first bombardment of Fort Sumter, leaving it a mass of rubble but still unconquered by the Northern besiegers.
1900 Booker T. Washington forms the National Negro Business League in Boston, Massachusetts.
1902 Fanny Farmer, among the first to emphasize the relationship of diet to health, opens her School of Cookery in Boston.
1914 The Emperor of Japan declares war on Germany.
1926 American film star Rudolph Valentino dies, causing world-wide hysteria and a number of suicides.
1927 Immigrant laborers Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed for a robbery they did not commit. Fifty years later, in 1977, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis establishes a memorial in the victims' honor.
1939 Joseph Stalin and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop sign a non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany, freeing Hitler to invade Poland and Stalin to invade Finland.
1942 German forces begin an assault on the major Soviet industrial city of Stalingrad.
1944 German SS engineers begin placing explosive charges around the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
1950 Up to 77,000 members of the U.S. Army Organized Reserve Corps are called involuntarily to active duty to fight the Korean War.
1952 Arab League security pact linking seven Arab States in a military, political and economic alliance goes into effect.
1954 First flight of the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft.
1958 The Second Taiwan Strait crisis begins: People's Liberation Army bombards island of Quemoy during Chinese Civil War.
1961 Belgium sends troops to Rwanda-Urundi during bloody Tutsi-Hutu conflict.
1966 Lunar Orbiter 1 takes first photograph of Earth from the moon.
1975 Pathet Lao communists occupy Vientiane, Laos.
1977 Bryan Allen, piloting the Gossamer Condor, wins the Kremer prize for the first human-powered aircraft to fly a one-mile, figure-eight course.
1979 Iranian army opens offensive against Kurds.
1979 Bolshoi Ballet dancer Alexander Godunov defects in New York City.
1990 Armenia declares independence from USSR.
1990 East and West Germany announce they will unite on Oct 3.
1996 Osama bin Laden issues message entitled "A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places."
2006 Natascha Kampusch,  was abducted at the age of 10 in Austria, escapes from her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, after 8 years of captivity.
2011 Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi is overthrown after National Transitional Council forces take control of Bab al-Azizia compound during the 2011 Libyan Civil War.
2011 A 5.8 earthquake centered at Mineral, Virginia, damages the Washington Monument, forcing the landmark to close for repairs.

Non Sequitur

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Oh, the Humanity ...

The chocolate spread is taking a beating due to bad news about this year's hazelnut shortage. 

Mitch McConnell Promises a Massive Government Shutdown If repugicans Win The Senate

mcconnell-puzzledMitch McConnell is already making plans for after repugicans take over the Senate, and his top priority is to get Obama to give him what he wants or he will shutdown the government.
McConnell was upfront with Politico about his plans,
Mitch McConnell has a game plan to confront President Barack Obama with a stark choice next year: Accept bills reining in the administration’s policies, or veto them and risk a government shutdown.
In an extensive interview, the typically reserved McConnell laid out his clearest thinking yet of how he would lead the Senate if repugicans gain control of the chamber. The emerging strategy: Attach riders to spending bills that would limit Obama policies on everything from the environment to health care, consider using an arcane budget tactic to circumvent Democratic filibusters and force the president to “move to the center” if he wants to get any new legislation through Congress.
The repugicans tried to play this game with President Obama last year, and it nearly destroyed their cabal. McConnell is clinging to the idea that the president will cave, but Obama has no reason to give repugicans anything. He will be closing in on the end of his term by the time repugicans would take over the Senate in January 2015.
A prolonged government shutdown in 2015 or 2016 would be a disaster for the repugican cabal. Obama will not be blamed for a government shutdown. The repugicans will take the heat, and the damage would intense if they pursued this tactic in the middle of a presidential campaign.
A shutdown would also help likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton because it would hand her the argument for why she must be elected president, and Democrats need to take over Congress.
It takes a great deal of hubris for McConnell to be planning how he is going to shutdown Obama for the next two years, while he is the middle of a reelection campaign that he could easily lose.
McConnell is completely clueless. He continues to obsess over President Obama while ignoring the voters in Kentucky. Mitch McConnell demonstrated why repugicans should not be given control of the Senate, and why he deserves to lose his seat this November.
The easiest way to solve all of these problems is for Kentucky voters to retire Mitch McConnell.

Rick Perry’s Legal Troubles Are Symptomatic Of Other repugican Governors

The recent indictment of Texas Governor Rick Perry on two felony counts in connection with abuse of power …

rick perry texasIn the field of psychology, projection is a practice in which humans defend themselves against unpleasant accusations by denying their existence in themselves, while attributing them to others. For example, a person who is ethically challenged may constantly accuse other people of being ethically challenged regardless they are accused or not. In fact, when someone perpetually accuses someone else of something such as overstepping their authority, it is not shocking to discover the accuser is guilty of inordinate authoritarianism. The repugicans have spent no small amount of time accusing President Obama of untoward actions as head of the Executive Branch, and yet there is a plethora of repugicans serving in executive positions facing investigations for much worse than issuing executive orders; something within the purview of the Presidency.
The recent indictment of Texas Governor Rick Perry on two felony counts in connection with  abuse of power for using his veto authority to coerce a publicly elected official into leaving office is about corruption. When the veto threat and actual veto failed to work, he may have tried bribery, which is why he is facing criminal charges; not because of a veto. Perry claims he was trying to get rid of the head of the Public Integrity Unit (PIU), Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, because she had been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, but the real reason was the PIU was investigating the Cancer Research and Prevention Institute (CPRIT), a taxpayer-funded $3 billion dollar project that awarded research and investment grants to startups targeting cancer cures.
Texas newspapers had reported that much of the money ended up going to projects proposed by Perry’s campaign donors and supporters, and in fact “the entire scientific review team, including Nobel Laureate scientists, resigned because millions of dollars of taxpayer money was handed out through political favoritism.” In fact, the PUI had already indicted one CPRIT executive for awarding $11-million to a company without the proposal undergoing any type of review, and with Perry in the PUI’s crosshairs, replacing Lehmberg became paramount. When the veto threats, and veto, failed to work, Perry offered Lehmberg a “more lucrative job” and reinstate funding for PUI. That is why Perry was indicted; not because of his veto, but because he desperately wanted to replace Lehmberg with a “friendly” repugican who would halt the PUI investigation into misappropriation of funds to Perry’s donors and supporters.
Corruption in repugican executive offices (state governorships) is not unique to Rick Perry, and although it was, frankly, refreshing to see him booked into jail replete with a mugshot, he is not the first, or last, repugican governor to run afoul of the law. Although Perry is the first to be indicted and booked, there are serious investigations into two other repugican governors, a third is in the midst of a trial, and two others should be under investigation as well if they did not enjoy the protection of repugican legislatures and a cabal that stands behind ethically-challenged governors; all the while filing a lawsuit against President Obama and threatening impeachment for issuing executive orders.
If repugicans were concerned about overstepping their authority, they would demand the resignation of Wisconsin repugican Scott Walker who has been under an investigation for some time. Prosecutors say during Walker’s 2012 recall campaign, unsealed documents show he played a central role in a “criminal scheme” to illegally coordinate with outside groups and they have emails from Walker to Karl Rove explaining how the coordination between his campaign and special interest groups would work.
The situation, although different, is no less damning in New Jersey where investigators are closing in on Governor Chris Christie. Reports are that investigators already have several of Christie’s top aides “dead to rights” and are unwilling to offer deals to the governor’s aides in exchange for lesser sentences; it is not a good sign for Christie.
Former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell and his wife are in the midst of a trial for receiving gifts in exchange for political favors. According to court testimony, within six minutes of emailing a wealthy businessman about a $50,000 loan, McDonnell sent a note to a staffer asking to discuss state university studies about the man’s new tobacco-related dietary supplement. The staffer testified he was unaware of the loan negotiations between McDonnell and the chief executive of the supplement company, but he was concerned about acting on the governor’s email. It is not a good sign for McDonnell that a staffer was concerned about the “special treatment” for a private business enterprise’s benefit; not a good sign for McDonnell.
If there was any justice, Florida repugican Governor Rick Scott would be indicted for pushing a drug testing requirement for welfare recipients because he founded the company doing the drug testing and stood to profit handsomely. However, conflict of interest in the governor’s office is apparently legal in Florida; particularly since Scott transferred the company into his wife’s name to avoid any “appearance” of impropriety.
Another repugican governor that should be thoroughly investigated is Louisiana repugican Bobby Jindal. He has been transferring public school funding to private religious schools with impunity and assistance from the repugican legislature. This is despite it is unconstitutional to use taxpayer money to fund religious instruction but there is that special and unspoken statute in America that religion is sacred and untouchable; something Jindal is well-aware of.
The repugicans have spent an inordinate amount of time accusing and criticizing President Obama for all manner of imagined ethical and constitutional violations, but it is all projection of their own tendency toward corruption. The repugican cabal are avid defenders of the repugican governors being investigated, and they stood in defense of repugican war criminal the shrub’s junta when he lied to take the country to war and outed an active CIA agent. But they want to sue and impeach Democratic President Barack Obama for issuing executive orders; particularly one they wanted.
If it were just repugican Governor Rick Perry facing legal troubles, it might be an aberration. However, there appears to be a well-established pattern of repugican governors’ corruption that either financially benefits themselves or their donors and supporters. Perry should not be indicted for a veto any more than President Obama should be taken to court or impeached over issuing executive orders. However, there is a monumental difference between repugican corruption, conflict of interest, bribery, blackmail, misappropriation of funds, and violating campaign finance rules and a President issuing executive actions. But when the President is Barack Obama and a Democrat, repugicans simply defend their violations by projecting their corruption on the Black man in the White House.

Nancy Pelosi Debunks John Boehner’s 40 Jobs Bills Myth

Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) office has been putting out fact sheets on the Boehner jobs bills, and lo and behold, it's true. They aren't jobs bills …
Image Credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images
You can hear Speaker John Boehner trying to sell his special interest giveaways as “jobs bills” every Thursday during his pressers. He has marked the bills as such and so they must be, Shakespeare notwithstanding. But there is a reason he has never gotten an independent score on his “Jobs bills”, and that’s because they are not actually jobs bills.
Boehner often stands in front of a press wall which attempts to reinforce this false message by screaming “JOBS!” These things used to work, but not so much anymore since the internet.
And Democrats aren’t taking it lying down anymore. I guess this is what comes after twenty odd years of being trolled hard by Republicans in the media. So Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) office has been putting out fact sheets on the Boehner jobs bills, and lo and behold, it’s true. They aren’t jobs bills, which is sort of a duh moment because if repugicans wanted jobs they would have passed President Obama’s fully paid for American Jobs Act after making adjustments to it.
Pelosi’s office notes:
Speaker Boehner’s list of 43 so-called “jobs” bills includes:
· 33 partisan, special interest bills, which are message bills to nowhere and are not “jobs” bills; and
· 10 mostly modest bills with bipartisan support still being considered in the Senate; not significant “jobs” bills.
And here we go to the weeds. Bear with me, because this is an exhaustive list, but it needed to be said:
Below are the facts about the repugican cabal’s Faux 43:
33 Partisan, Special-Interest Bills; Message Bills to Nowhere; NOT “Jobs” Bills
* A Gift to Big Oil Act Attempt 1 (Continental Shelf Transboundary Hydrocarbon Agreements Authorization Act, H.R. 1613) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill includes a special-interest provision sought by Big Oil that waives a Wall Street Reform provision requiring public disclosure by companies of payments made to foreign governments for oil and gas resources – a provision designed to shed light on the deals between energy companies and government officials/paramilitary groups abroad.
* A Gift to Big Oil Act Attempt 2 (Lowering Gasoline Prices to Fuel An America That Works Act, H.R. 4899) – Instead of creating jobs, this special-interest bill is an omnibus energy bill that rewards Big Oil and does nothing to help consumers at the pump. It mandates the most sweeping expansion of offshore drilling in our nation’s history – making broad sections of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans open for new, unsafe drilling, threatening tourism, fishing, our coast environment, and American jobs. It also gives away our public lands to Big Oil companies – elevating energy production above hunting, fishing, recreation, grazing and conservation in managing our public lands and irresponsibly expanding drilling on these public lands.
* A Gift to Big Oil and Gas Act (Protecting States’ Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act, H.R. 2728) – Instead of creating jobs, this extreme, special-interest bill blocks all federal oversight of oil and gas drilling using hydraulic fracking on federal lands and relinquishes control to the states, no matter how weak a state’s guidance, thereby undermining the ability to ensure the safety of drinking water resources around the country.
* A Gift to the Mining Industry Act (National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act, H.R. 761) – Instead of creating jobs, this special-interest bill is a gift to the mining industry – with the bill, under the guise of promoting development of minerals critical to U.S. national security, being so broadly drafted that it would dramatically reduce or eliminate proper environmental reviews for almost all types of mines on public lands, even mines for sand and gravel, not remotely strategic.
* A Gift to the Coal Industry Act Attempt 1 (Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act, H.R. 2218) – Instead of creating jobs, this special-interest bill endangers public health by preventing effective management of coal ash, even though coal ash contains significant quantities of heavy metals like arsenic, lead and selenium, and more than 65 sites in 26 states have been found where coal ash has contaminated the groundwater.
* A Gift to the Coal Industry Act Attempt 2 (Electricity Security & Affordability Act, H.R. 3826) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill undermines our health, our economy and our environment by blocking responsible, measured efforts to reduce carbon pollution – despite the fact that carbon pollution has been shown to damage our health by causing more asthma attacks and damage our economy by causing more frequent extreme weather events, such as floods, hurricanes, and drought, and despite the fact that moving towards clean power will create tens of thousands of jobs and spark innovation.
* A Gift to the Coal Industry Act Attempt 3 (Preventing Government Waste & Protecting Coal Mining Jobs in America Act, H.R. 2824) – Instead of creating jobs, this special-interest bill gives a gift to big coal companies by replacing sensible Reagan-era protections for streams and communities in Appalachia from the impacts of mountaintop removal mining with much weaker protections – which would make the families of Appalachia pay the price through degraded water, flooding and health impacts.
* A Gift to the Timber Industry Act (Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act, H.R. 1526) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill establishes “timber production zones” in each national forest, with each forest required to meet annual timber volume targets set at half of what the forest grows each year. Meeting these targets would require logging and related road building in currently protected roadless areas. In addition, the bill includes additional provisions reversing 100 years of national forest management precedent and undermining, or in some cases eliminating, multiple-use of our national forests, thereby harming recreation, hunting, fishing, and tourism.
* Rulemaking for Special Interests Act Attempt 1 (Northern Route Approval Act, H.R. 3) – Instead of creating jobs, this extreme bill tilts rulemaking in favor of special interests – effectively exempting TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline from all federal permitting requirements, including requirements that apply to every other construction project in this country.
* Rulemaking for Special Interests Act Attempt 2 (Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, H.R. 367) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill tilts rulemaking in favor of special interests – requiring that, in order to go into effect, any significant rule must be approved by both Houses of Congress within 70 legislative days of being received, giving special interests with deep pockets – such as banks, hedge funds, major polluters – the ability to simply bottle up a rule in one House for a relatively short period of time in order to completely kill the rule.
* Rulemaking for Special Interests Act Attempt 3 (Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act, H.R. 1900) – Instead of creating jobs, this tilts rulemaking in favor of special interests – allowing the automatic approval of natural gas pipeline projects if the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or other federal agencies do not issue the required permit within rigid, unworkable timeframes.
* Rulemaking for Special Interests Act Attempt 4 (Achieving Less Excess in Regulation & Requiring Transparency Act (ALERRT) Act, H.R. 2804) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill tilts rulemaking in favor of special interests – adding 60 new analytical requirements to rulemaking to throw sand in the gears and making it much easier for big corporations – banks, hedge funds, major polluters – to evade their obligations to protect the public by giving deep-pocketed special interests with enough legal resources the option to challenge rules at many more points in the process.
* Rulemaking for Special Interests Act Attempt 5 (Unfunded Mandates Information & Technology Act, H.R. 899)- Instead of creating jobs, this bill tilts rulemaking in favor of special interests – by giving private industry an unfair advantage in the rulemaking process, politicizing independent regulatory agencies, and giving deep-pocketed regulated industries new abilities to tie up rules in litigation in the courts for years – with the bill opposed by Consumers Union and Consumer Federation of America.
* Rulemaking for Special Interests Act Attempt 6 (Responsibly and Professionally Invigorating Development (RAPID) Act, H.R. 2641) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill tilts rulemaking in favor of special interests – giving private sector businesses increased control in the project approval process, tipping the scales in favor of private entities by restricting the alternatives that can be considered, and blurring the distinct roles of private entities and agencies in agency decisions by allowing project sponsors to prepare environmental review documents.
* Rulemaking for Special Interests Act Attempt 7 (North American Energy Infrastructure Act, H.R. 3301) – Instead of creating jobs, this special-interest bill tilts rulemaking in favor of special interests – eliminating the current requirement that proposed oil and natural gas pipelines and electric transmission lines that cross the U.S. border with Mexico or Canada obtain a presidential permit, after an environmental review and determination that the project is in the national interest, and replaces it with an extremely weak, limited review process.
* GOP’s Budget to Give More Tax Breaks to Millionaires, As Well As To Destroy 3 Million Jobs (Path to Prosperity Budget, H.Con.Res. 96) – Instead of creating jobs, this House GOP budget is estimated to destroy 3 million jobs and decrease economic growth by 2.5 percent in 2016. The GOP budget guts investment in America’s highways, railways, transit systems, and ports and slashes education funding. In addition, the GOP budget raises taxes on middle class families with children by an average of at least $2,000, while giving a $200,000 tax break to millionaires.
* Exploding the Deficit By Providing Corporations $156 Billion in Permanent, Unpaid-For Tax Cuts Act (American Research and Competitiveness Act, H.R. 4438) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill is part of a GOP 14-bill package of permanent tax cuts, unpaid for, that explodes the deficit by $800 billion over 10 years. This bill alone increases the deficit by $156 billion – by making permanent the R&D tax credit, unpaid for. Democrats strongly support the R&D tax credit but believe it should not be made permanent by adding to the deficit without any revenue offsets and also believe this proposal should be considered as part of comprehensive tax reform.
* Exploding the Deficit By Providing Businesses $73 Billion in Permanent, Unpaid-For Tax Cuts Act (America’s Small Business Tax Relief Act, H.R. 4457) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill is part of a GOP 14-bill package of permanent tax cuts, unpaid for, that explodes the deficit by $800 billion over 10 years. This bill alone increases the deficit by $73 billion – by making permanent expanded “Section 179″ expensing for small businesses, unpaid for. Democrats strongly support “Section 179″ expensing but believe that it should not be made permanent by adding to the deficit without any revenue offsets and also believe that this proposal should be considered as part of comprehensive tax reform.
* Exploding the Deficit By Providing Corporations $2.2 Billion in Permanent, Unpaid-For Tax Cuts Act (S Corporation Permanent Tax Relief Act, H.R. 4453) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill is part of a GOP 14-bill package of permanent tax cuts, unpaid for, that explodes the deficit by $800 billion over 10 years. This bill alone increases the deficit by $2.2 billion – by making permanent two provisions providing tax breaks for S-corporations, unpaid for. Democrats believe that this proposal should be considered as part of comprehensive tax reform.
* Exploding the Deficit By Providing Corporations $287 Billion in Permanent, Unpaid-For Tax Cuts Act (Making Permanent Bonus Depreciation, H.R. 4718) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill is part of a GOP 14-bill package of permanent tax cuts, unpaid for, that explodes the deficit by $800 billion over 10 years. This bill alone increases the deficit by $287 billion – by making permanent bonus depreciation, unpaid for. Democrats support continuing bonus depreciation in the manner it was intended – as a temporary boost to our economy during economic downturns – but NOT as a permanent tax break.
* Exploding the Deficit By $96 Billion With Higher Education Tax Benefit Provisions That Leave Many Students Worse Off Act (Student and Family Tax Simplification Act, H.R. 3393) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill is part of a GOP 14-bill package of permanent tax cuts, unpaid for, that explodes the deficit by $800 billion over 10 years. This bill alone increases the deficit by $96 billion – by making the American Opportunity Tax Credit permanent, unpaid for. The bill also takes away tax benefits from certain students – non-traditional undergraduate students, lifetime learners, and graduate students – to pay for benefits for undergraduate students completing their degrees in four years.
* Exploding the Deficit By $90 Billion With Child Tax Credit Provisions That Leave Millions of Low-Income Working Families Behind Act ( Making Permanent Bonus Depreciation, H.R. 4718) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill is part of a GOP 14-bill package of permanent tax cuts, unpaid for, that explodes the deficit by $800 billion over 10 years. This bill alone increases the deficit by $90 billion. The bill extends the Child Tax Credit up the income scale – on a permanent basis – so more families with six-figure incomes will benefit, while letting the Child Tax Credit disappear for many low-income working families after 2017. The nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that the GOP bill will result in pushing 12 million people – including 6 million children – into or deeper into poverty.
* Putting Insurance Companies Back in Charge of Your Health Care Act (Repealing Obamacare, H.R. 45) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill puts insurance companies back in charge of Americans’ health care by repealing the Affordable Care Act. The bill would allow insurers to once again deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, charge women more than men for the same coverage, and deny young adults the opportunity to stay on their parents’ plan; increase prescription drug costs for seniors; increase the costs of preventive services for those with private insurance; increase the deficit by $109 billion over 10 years; and destroy jobs.
* Raising Taxes on More Than 20 Million Americans and on Small Businesses Act (Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act, H.R. 2009) – Instead of creating jobs, by prohibiting the Treasury Department from implementing the ACA, this bill raises taxes on more than 20 million Americans and on small businesses. First, it takes away from Americans the premium tax credits that would save them hundreds of billions of dollars, and secondly, it takes away from small businesses the small business health care tax credit that is already saving them money.
* Forcing One Million People to Lose Their Employer-Sponsored Coverage Act (Save American Workers Act, H.R. 2575) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, would force one million people to lose their employer-provided coverage, increase the federal deficit by $74 billion, and increase the number of uninsured by up to 500,000.
* Slashing Education Act (Student Success Act, H.R. 5) – Instead of creating jobs, this right-wing bill guts education funding, cutting education funding by $1 billion in 2014 alone; rolls back protections for disadvantaged students; and removes accountability provisions designed to ensure all students have access to a high-quality education – with the groups opposed to this radical bill including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, National PTA, The Education Trust, NEA, and AFT.
* Ignoring the Concerns of Law Enforcement Act (Stop Government Abuse Act, H.R. 2879) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill allows individuals to record telephone calls and in-person conversations with federal employees, including federal law enforcement agents, without their knowledge – and is opposed by the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents Association.
* Political Stunt Act (Preserving Work Requirements for Welfare Programs Act, H.R. 890) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill is a political stunt – overturning the Administration’s proposal to provide states more flexibility to move more Americans from welfare to work, based on the false claim that the proposal gutted the work requirements in TANF. Indeed, this false GOP claim received a “Pants On Fire” designation from PolitiFact.
* Waste of Time Act (The Domestic Prosperity and Global Freedom Act, H.R. 6) – Although the bill’s proponents claim that it is needed to accelerate Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) exports, this bill would not have that effect. The bill is unnecessary because the Department of Energy is already aggressively approving LNG exports. To date, DOE has approved seven export applications. The amounts already approved for export would transform the U.S. into the world’s second largest exporter of LNG, just behind Qatar. If one more application is granted, the U.S. would become the world’s largest exporter of LNG.
* Preempting State Water Rights Act (Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act, H.R. 3964) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill sets a dangerous precedent of preempting state water rights, leaving other states vulnerable to this kind of unwarranted federal interference. It repeals existing law regarding the use of water in California and unravels a key water settlement reached by the state of California, local ranchers, farmers, and other users of water from the San Joaquin River that has been decades in the making. It dismisses the best available science, repeals environmental protections, damages local tourism, hurts fishermen and farmers, and would cause job losses.
* On Behalf of Special Interests, Working to Undermine Wall Street Reforms Act (Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act, H.R. 1105) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill exempts private equity funds from the disclosure requirements that the Congress included in Wall Street Reform to allow regulators to assess systemic risks – with such disclosure necessary to make the financial market more transparent and protect investors.
* Anti-Worker Act (Working Families Flexibility Act, H.R. 1406) – Instead of creating jobs, this bill gives employers the flexibility to substitute overtime pay to their workers with comp time. Under the bill’s provisions, workers will not get paid for hours that exceed 40 hours per week. That pay will instead go into an employer-controlled pot to be paid later. Furthermore, employers could schedule excessive overtime hours and only offer overtime work to workers who agree to take comp time instead of overtime wages.
* Pro-Polluter Act (Energy Consumers Relief, H.R. 1582) – Instead of creating jobs, this extreme bill blocks the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to put in place critical public health rules to reduce pollution that harms the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the climate.
10 Generally Modest Bills with Bipartisan Support; Still Under Consideration in Senate; Not Significant “Jobs” Bills
* Central Oregon Jobs and Water Security Act (H.R. 2640) – Still Under Consideration in Senate – This is a modest, bipartisan, noncontroversial bill that passed the House under suspension of the rules by voice vote. It contains provisions designed to provide a long-term water supply for the City of Prineville, Oregon and the surrounding area and generate clean and emissions-free hydropower. It is still under consideration in the Senate.
* Veterans Economic Opportunity Act (H.R. 2481) – Still Under Consideration in Senate – This is a bipartisan, noncontroversial bill that passed the House under suspension of the rules by voice vote. It creates a Veterans Economic Opportunity Administration within the VA to administer existing vocational, education and other assistance programs for veterans. It also clarifies foreclosure and refinancing protections for veterans and extends certain homeless veterans reintegration programs. It is still under consideration in the Senate.
* Success and Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Act (H.R. 10) – Still Under Consideration in Senate – This is a modest, bipartisan bill that passed the House by a bipartisan vote of 360 to 45. This bill reauthorizes and strengthens the Charter School Program, which supports the planning, development, and initial implementation of charter schools. It is still under consideration in the Senate.
* Innovation Act (H.R. 3309) – Still Under Consideration in Senate – This is a bill that received bipartisan support, passing the House by a vote of 325 to 91. 130 Democrats voted for the bill, arguing that it was a positive step forward in promoting innovators and cracking down on abusive practices of patent “trolls.” 64 Democrats voted against the bill, arguing that it needed improvements, including better fully protecting the interests of small businesses. It is still under consideration in the Senate.
* Hire More Heroes Act (H.R. 3474) – Still Under Consideration in Senate – This is a bipartisan, noncontroversial bill that passed the House under suspension of the rules by a bipartisan vote of 406 to 1. It is designed to encourage the hiring of veterans by allowing employers that hire a veteran who has health coverage through TRICARE or the Veterans Administration to not count that veteran towards the 50-employee threshold for triggering the ACA employer responsibility requirement. It is still under consideration in the Senate.
* Cybersecurity Information Sharing and Protection Act (H.R. 624) – Still Under Consideration in Senate – This is a bill that received some bipartisan support, passing the House by a vote of 288 to 127. It encourages greater sharing of cyber threat data between the private sector and the federal government. 92 Democrats voted for the bill, arguing that it would improve the ability to successfully defend against cyber threats. 98 Democrats voted against the bill, arguing that the privacy of Americans was not being adequately protected. The bill is still under consideration in the Senate. Although a significant bill, it is not a jobs bill.
* Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act (H.R. 3086) – Still Under Consideration in Senate – This is a bipartisan bill that passed the House under suspension of the rules by voice vote. It permanently extends the Internet Freedom Act, which is set to expire on November 1 – thereby permanently banning state and local governments from taxing Internet access. Although it passed by voice vote, some Democrats expressed concerns that permanently extending the ban could limit the ability of state and local entities to review Internet policies. The bill is still under consideration in the Senate.
* Advancing Competency-Based Education Demonstration Project Act (H.R. 3136) – Still Under Consideration in Senate – This is a modest, bipartisan, noncontroversial bill that passed the House by a vote of 414 to 0. It creates some demonstration projects for competency-based higher education programs that substitute the assessment of student knowledge in place of such time-based measures as credit hours or time spent in class. The bill is still under consideration in the Senate.
* Strengthening Transparency in Higher Education Act (H.R. 4983) – Still Under Consideration in Senate – This is a modest, bipartisan, noncontroversial bill that passed the House under suspension of the rules by voice vote. It requires improvements in the Education Department’s college comparison website for students and parents, requiring more detailed information on enrollment, costs, financial aid, faculty, and graduation rates. The bill is still under consideration in the Senate.
* Empowering Students through Enhanced Financial Counseling Act (H.R. 4984) – Still Under Consideration in Senate – This is a modest, bipartisan, noncontroversial bill that passed the House by a vote of 405 to 11. It makes improvements in the financial counseling that recipients of student aid and loans receive so that students can make more informed choices of how to finance their education and always know how much they will owe. The bill is still under consideration in the Senate.
It’s easy to blow this off as partisan, but in fact, it’s true, and it’s not just Leader Pelosi’s office saying so. Parsing the bills shows that Boehner’s list is not actually a jobs bills list. Pretty much all reality-bound folks agree on this matter, save wingnut non-think tanks run or funded by special interests that stand to gain from the phony jobs bills. Deregulation, oil and fracking giveaways and trickle down, y’all! so fresh! Those jobs are a comin’ any day now!
If repugicans believe otherwise, they need to put their bills up to be scored like the Democrats did with President Obama’s paid-for jobs bill. This is a simple matter. Not doing so is an admission that the bills are not actually jobs bills, unless you consider trickle down fantasies to be a real thing.
Independent analysts found that Obama’s American Jobs Act would have created over 1 million jobs in 1 year. Heck, independent analysis showed that it could create as many as 2 million jobs in 2012. House repugicans killed that.

Thanks To John Boehner and Sarah Palin Democrats Are Crushing repugicans In Fundraising

palin-boehnerThanks to John Boehner’s lawsuit and Sarah Palin beating of the impeachment drums, Democrats had their July in history and are crushing repugicans in 2014 fundraising.
The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee reported that they had their best July in history. The DSCC has raised $103.5 million more than Senate repugicans. This is a $27 million advantage over the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The Democrats have more money and zero debt.
In a statement, DSCC Executive Director Guy Cecil said, “The Koch Brothers are spending millions on repugican candidates like Tom Cotton, Thom Tillis, Joni Ernst and others who would go to Washington so they can privatize Social Security, gut Medicare, and limit access to common forms of birth control. But with less than 80 days to go, Democratic candidates are fighting back thanks to the hard work and generosity of grassroots supports all across the country. We’re running smarter, better campaigns with better candidates and are in position to hold the majority.”
It is clear that the Democrats have the better candidates. The superior Democratic organization is why the race for the majority in the Senate is so close. Democrats are campaigning on an uneven playing field this year. The map is tilted towards the repugican cabal, but repugicans have not been able to get a firm grip on the 2014 election.
John Boehner’s lawsuit and the demand for Obama impeachment are two of the main reasons why money has been flowing in for Democrats. Boehner’s lawsuit against President Obama motivated Democrats who otherwise might have dozed off until 2016 to get involved. The repugicans' calls for impeachment are serving to remind Democrats of what is at stake in 2014. As Mike Huckabee said on a radio show in Iowa, President Obama can be impeached if repugicans have a majority in the Senate.
The repugicans woke Democrats up. It is great that so many people are donating to help keep the Senate majority, but the real test comes in November when Democrats must go to the polls and vote.

Bernie Sanders Has a Brilliant Idea: Instead of Giving Police Tanks, Let’s Create Jobs

bernie-sanders-ferguson
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has a brilliant idea. Instead of militarizing local police departments with tanks and heavy equipment, the country should take the billions of dollars and use it to create jobs.
Video:
Sen. Sanders said,
When you see the kind of force that’s being used in Ferguson it really does make it appear that the police department there is an occupying army in a hostile territory, and that is absolutely not what we want to see in the United States. I think we gotta rethink a lot this heavy equipment that police departments around the country are utilizing.

The second point is that I hope what Ferguson teaches us is that not only the violence being perpetrated against young black men, but also the economic crisis facing black youth in this country. Ed, youth unemployment in America is tragically high. It is twenty percent. African American youth unemployment is thirty-five percent. In the St. Louis area it is significantly higher than that, and if we are going to address the issue of crime in low income areas and in African-American areas, it might be a good idea that instead of putting heavy equipment into police departments in those areas, we start creating jobs for the kids there who desperately need them.
What a great idea. Instead of making defense contractors rich by spending billions of dollars on equipment that the Pentagon doesn’t even want, the money could be used for job creation programs so that young people who feel like they have no economic opportunities can work.
This formula is tried and true. It has worked for decades. Job creation is one of the keys to building safe and peaceful communities. Democrats have proven since the New Deal that government can encourage and spur job creation. The repugican fantasy that tax cuts for the rich leads to economic advancement for all has failed for the last thirty years. The way forward is to create jobs.
Sen. Sanders was correct. The country doesn’t need militarized local police forces, but young people are yearning for jobs. The militarized police response in Ferguson is strong reminder that how politicians spend taxpayer money matters, and when it is spent on weapons that trickle down into our communities, no one should be surprised at the violent outcome.

Ku Klux Klan Heading To Ferguson To Escalate Their Long-Awaited Race War

On the Klan's website, they claim to be heading to Ferguson fully armed and ready for war because, "blacks are out of control. We can't have blacks robbing…

Bryan Fischer: Sexual Deviance But Not Criminal Behavior Disqualify You From Public Office

The false god of fake christians doesn't mind if you lie, cheat and steal, but he does care who you sleep with…
Bryan-Fischer-AFA1-480x342

Bryan Fischer leap to Texas Governor Rick Perry’s defense last Friday, after Perry was indicted by a grand jury for trying to forcing out Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg.
Fischer is not concerned about Perry’s alleged criminal behavior. He is concerned that Lehmberg is a lesbian. Perry is not disqualified from public office because of his thuggishly unethical behavior, but Lehmberg is because she prefers the intimate company of women to the intimate company of men. For Fischer, this is “sexually deviant behavior.”
Watch courtesy of Right Wing Watch:
My view of public service is that somebody who is engaged in a sexually deviant behavior is not qualified to hold public office. That’s why if you get a conviction for rape, you can’t hold public office. You get a conviction for pedophilia, you can’t hold public office. You might even get run out of office on a prostitution charge because it’s sexually deviant behavior. Now lesbianism is sexually deviant behavior because it deviates from god’s plan and design for human sexuality. So I believe that this is a person who, because she’s involved in sexually deviant behavior, should be, ought to be disqualified from public service.
This is not a surprising stance. After all, being under investigation, indictment, or actually charged in a crime seems to be a prerequisite for holding public office in the repugican cabal. By comparison, and from a common sense perspective, it seems wholly immaterial who you sleep with.
But just how bad is lesbianism from a christian perspective, since Fischer wishes to pretend his own view is christian?
You don’t find it condemned in the bible, which, after all, barely wastes any breath on so-called homosexuality. It’s not a violation of the ten commandments or of any other jewish law. jesus didn’t condemn it. Neither did Paul of Tarsus. Evidently, ancient jews and christians just didn’t think it was a big deal if women hooked up with women.
According to the Mishnah, Martin Goodman tells us, “Lesbian sex, not specifically outlawed in the bible, unconnected to the prohibition of ‘wasting seed,’ and rarely mentioned, was treated as deplorable licentiousness but not as wicked on the level of male homosexuality or female prostitution” (Rome and Jerusalem, 2007:295).
Of course, that’s how jews felt about lesbianism. The jews didn’t speak for the whole ancient world any more than christians (let alone fake christians) speak for the whole world today. As Ray Laurence tells us, far from being seen as deplorable, the ancient images in the Suburban Baths in Pompeii reveal women having sex with women for all to see (Roman Passions, 2009).
Sexuality was more fluid in the Pagan world. The Romans did not share the moralistic horror of their monotheistic neighbors. For the Romans, the objection, relates Marilyn B. Skinner, was to women wasting sexual energy on each other when it should properly be directed at men (Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture, 2005:189). “A waste of a good looking woman,” is how it is often jokingly viewed today.
Men will always view it from a male perspective, of course. This is often condemned but what other perspective would a male have? The real problem here is not the male perspective but that the male perspective is the only perspective in history.
We don’t know much about how women felt about these things, and if people like Fischer have their way, it won’t matter how women feel about them today.
The point, however, is that female homoeroticism was not illegal for the jews because no seed was wasted on the exercise, or for the Romans, because, as Goodman also points out, The “Romans did have very clear notions of sexual boundaries, but these were boundaries that could be transgressed, particularly for sexual pleasure” (Goodman, 275).
A man might demean himself (in Roman eyes) by allowing himself to be penetrated, but he could still do it. Caesar was said to have so demeaned himself but his men still followed him from victory to victory. The slurs that Octavian “put out” for his uncle Caesar in order to attain first place in his will did not keep Octavian from becoming an object of veneration, Augustus, Rome’s First Citizen, ruler of the Roman world, father of his country (pater patriae), messiah, and even a god.
What are missing from ancient views of sexuality are religious hangups. Archaeologist Joan Breton Connelly writes that,
[T]he Greek pantheon acknowledged the complexities of what it means to be male and female, allowing for sexual ambiguity and plurality, that is, the ‘maleness’ in the female and the ‘femaleness’ in the male…The Greeks developed a religious system based on the human experience and so it both reflected and sustained the human condition in its fullest realization of sexuality, gender, and the life cycle (Portrait of a Priestess, 2007:30).
Brian Fischer and the other patriarchs on the so-called religio-wingnuttery wish to deny the human experience. They certainly reject the “fullest realization of sexuality, gender, and the life cycle” by their insistence it be channeled it down the narrow path assigned it for all these long centuries by angry old white men.
They seem to share a common hatred for humanity itself, evidenced every day in their pronouncements against this and that, all the while extolling the complete lack of civic virtue found in their own candidates for public office, male and female, like Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Michele Bachmann, Chris Christie, and Rick Scott, to name just a few candidates for incarceration.
The false god of fake christians doesn’t mind if you lie, cheat and steal, but he does care who you sleep with. This alone ought to tell you all you need to know about the culture of corruption that is the repugican cabal.

Scott Lively Lies About bible While Calling Gay-Friendly christians Heretics

Lively claims, " A dangerous modern heresy called "gay theology" is infiltrating the christian cult at an alarming pace." …
scott-lively Persecution of America’s gay minority was routine in the 1950s and 60s. The FBI used to keep lists of “homosexuals.” You could lose your job for being gay. You could lose your job for being suspected of being gay. The U.S. State Department considered gays to be a security risk, not only because they were susceptible to blackmail but because, as Under Secretary of State James E. Webb put it, “It is generally believed that those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons.”
As Wikipedia relates, “Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s. Those that did were often bars, although bar owners and managers were rarely gay.” One of these bars was the Stonewall Bar in New York City. The police raided these bars all the time. They raided the Stonewall, which lead to the Stonewall riots and the birth of Gay Pride Day.
Scott Lively, author of the anti-gay fantasy The Pink Swastika, wrote the other day at Matt Barber’s hate site, BarbWire,
On June 28, 1969 the homosexual political movement, which had previously defined its goal as “the right to be left alone,” took a militant turn. At the Stonewall Bar on Christopher Street in New York City, “gay” activists rioted against police who tried to arrest an underage “drag queen” prostitute. That episode of violent rebellion is now commemorated annually as “Gay Pride Day.”
Violent rebellion. You notice it’s always violent rebellion when it’s the marginalized who protest their persecution, but never when it’s a wealthy white rancher.
Needless to say, being left alone is difficult when you are being constantly raided and harassed by the police simply because you are gay.
Naturally, a guy who can invent a fantasy Third Reich can reinvent American history. The religio-wingnuts thrive on this sort of thing, after all, else authors of speculative fiction like David Barton would not be so popular. So Lively’s take on what followed is worth noting:
In 1972, two hundred homosexual organizations, representing the entire LGBT movement, met in Chicago to outline their Marcusian agenda: a blueprint for supplanting Biblical morality with sexual anarchy — in essence, the overthrow of family-centered christian civilization.
In 1973, their “long march through the institutions” began with the political takeover of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to redefine homosexuality as psychologically healthy.
In 2013, after just forty years, the last secular institution to resist LGBT bullying was finally subdued: the Boy Scouts of America.
Funny, while listing all these important dates, he missed the takeover of the repugican cabal by white evangelicals. Lively likes to recast the Third Reich as some sort of 12 year gay orgy but he completely misses the appropriation of not only Nazi tactics but Nazi rhetoric by his own side.
Having recast history to be more amenable to his ideological purposes, Lively then goes on to tell us how the cult itself is under attack from these gay bullies:
One last barrier to “gay” cultural hegemony remains: the christian cult. All of the battle-hardened “gay rights” activists with all of their formidable resources are mobilized for an assault on christianity itself under the hijacked rainbow banner of “Gay Theology.” Indeed, the process has already begun, like the retreat of the tide before the tsunami.
Not much hyperbole there.
And hijacked rainbow banner? Yes, there’s a rainbow in Genesis 9:13, but for Heathen folk, the rainbow is the Bifrost (Grímnismál 44, Fáfnismál 15, Gylfaginning 40), the bridge connecting Asard to Midgard, and guarded, as you Marvel fans know, by Heimdall (Gylfaginning 16, 26).
And even if it was possible for gays to have stolen Lively’s precious rainbow, so what? This comes from a guy connecting himself to a religion, remember, that has hijacked every Pagan thing it could, including Xtmas, Easter, and even the Pope’s hat and the title of the Pagan high priest of Rome.
For crying out loud, Scott Lively, you people put jesus’ name inside a Pagan fertility fish that represents a vagina and then weaponize jesus to use in your war against the vagina. And you complain about gays stealing a rainbow? Really?
Apparently being a complete liar and hypocrite isn’t enough for Lively. Attacking gays and lesbians isn’t enough for Lively. He’s got to go after mainline christians, your average, everyday christian who just minds his own business according to a policy of live and let live. These people, Lively insists, are heretics, in a move not designed to endear himself to millennials, he says in a new brochure:
Lively_Brochure
A dangerous modern heresy called “gay theology” is infiltrating the christian cult at an alarming pace. Many believers, fearful of being called “haters,” are trivializing the threat by calling homosexuality “just another sin.”
Of this brochure he says,
In late 2013 I began working on a simple tool to warn and equip the church to resist the impending onslaught. That finished tool is a brochure titled “NOT Just Another Sin” which succinctly summarizes the biblical case against homosexuality from Genesis to Revelation. In short, the bible identifies rampant homosexuality in society as the harbinger of god’s wrath. It is decidedly Not “just another sin.”
In point of fact, it is just another sin, along with shaving (Leviticus 19:27), eating shellfish (Leviticus 11:9-12), mixing fabrics (Deuteronomy 22:11). These sins are not listed in order from bad to worse. They are all apparently equally bad. It is people like Scott Lively who have decided that being gay is bad but mixing fabrics, or even failing to stone your disobedient children to death, is okay.
If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. They shall say to the elders of his town, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid (Deuteronomy 21:18-21).
Of course, as Paul wrote, “since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god” (Romans 3:23).
What’s funny is that Lively is so opposed to gays and lesbians that he is willing to pretend publicly the Bible says thing it does not say, which is, of course, a violation of the things the bible does say. For example, and I will make you suffer only this one, I promise:
Leviticus 18 god identifies incest, homosexuality and bestiality as the sins which cause the land to “vomit out its inhabitants” V.25. Even in this dark context, homosexuality is singled out for special condemnation as “an abomination” V.22.
Of course, if you read through these passages, you will find that, 1) most of them have to do with various degrees of incest, and 2) that homosexuality is not singled out:
If you begin at Leviticus 18:6 and go through the list to 18:23, you will find 18 prohibitions against incest, 1 against relations with menstruating women, 1 against having sex with your kinsman’s wife, 1 against sacrificing your children to Molech, and 1, exactly ONE VERSE OUT OF EIGHTEEN, against “lying with a male as with a woman.” And that is sandwiched between all the anti-incest prohibitions and verse 18:23, which says both boys and girls are supposed to stay away from the sheep.
So no, homosexuality is not singled out. Yes, Lively lies. Nothing is singled out. It is just an unordered list, as we would say today, and if you go by sheer numbers, you’d have to say incest is a bigger no-no than lying with another man.
After slandering and persecuting gays and lesbians – to the extent of pushing for their executions in Uganda – and their friends in cults across America (not to mention the manly men of the Third Reich), Lively closes his article with hypocritical and weepy overtones of self-martyrdom:
Finally, if you have the courage to risk slander and persecution for associating with us, I am one of a small group of highly educated and experienced pro-family advocates available on a limited basis for speaking, seminars and christian media interviews. The “perilous times” of II Timothy 3 have come. Let us stand together in Truth as His remnant.
Yes, poor you, Scott Lively. It must really suck to not be able to lie about your own bible with impunity, and worse, for people to say, “You know what? I don’t think I’ll be persecuted by you today.”

Woman punched man who farted in her face

A South Carolina woman punched a 64-year-old man after he “passed gas” in her face on Monday night.
According to a police report, Jessica Cerney, 33, was laying on the couch in a Myrtle Beach residence when Darrell McKnight “came into the house intoxicated and ‘passed gas’ in her face.” Cerney told police that she left the home to get away from McKnight, but said that he followed her outside.
As the two argued over the incident, Cerney said, the cursing McKnight approached her in a “threatening manner.” Cerney said that when McKnight bent down, she “struck him in the face approximately three times with a closed fist.” The blows left McKnight with a swollen right eye, for which he subsequently received treatment at a local hospital.
Cerney, who was not drunk, did not suffer any injuries during the confrontation. A witness identified as “Ricky” told officers that Cerney and McKnight had been fighting over the gas passing and McKnight’s intoxicated state. Cerney and McKnight were both issued citations for fighting.

Man snoozing in armchair woke up to find blood-covered stranger passed out on his couch

A man from Marlborough, Massachusetts, fell asleep in an armchair in his living room early on Saturday morning, only to wake up hours later to find a bloody stranger passed out on a couch across the room. The homeowner quickly got his wife, two small children and father-in-law out of the house and called police, who arrived and had to awaken, then arrest, Timothy Francis Benway, 30, of Framingham.
When police arrived, Benway, who was wearing winter gloves and covered in blood from cuts and scratches all over his legs, was still asleep on the couch and was difficult to rouse, according to a police report filed in Marlborough District Court. The homeowner told police he had fallen asleep in a chair in his living room at about 1:00am. He woke up again just before 4:30am and saw Benway across the room, asleep and covered in blood with his shorts ripped open, according to the police report.
Police said Benway got into the home through an attached apartment, where the homeowner's father-in-law lives. Police said the door to the outside was closed and locked, but the latch gave way when Benway pushed on the door. Officer Peter Richardson wrote in his report that Benway's injuries appeared to be consistent with a "highly intoxicated" individual walking through a wooded area, falling down and hurting himself.
Police took Benway to the station and booked him. Hours after the arrest, he told police he had no recollection of how he received the injuries to his legs. He also said he didn't know the family in the home where he was found, according to the report. Benway was charged with entering a building at nighttime and putting a person in fear, and vandalism, because of the blood on the couch. Marlborough District Court Judge Michael Fabbri set Benway's bail at $500.

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