The Truth Be Told

Lush Dimbulb Claims Malaysian Airliner Was Shot Down In a Conspiracy To Help Obama

Well, that sure didn’t take long. On Thursday, wingnut hate speach-radio hack Lush Dimbulb tossed around an insane conspiracy theory regarding the Malaysian jet airliner that crashed in Ukraine. Dimbulb suggested that the airline crash, which the US has confirmed was caused by a surface-to-air missile, occurred at the perfect time for the media to “abandon the Obama news at the border.” Dimbulb made sure to carefully parse his words and point out that this all was just “really eerie.” However, it was clear what the repugican blowhard was implying with his comments.

Below is from The Lush Dimbulb Show’s transcript:

LUSH: Holy cow, folks. Have you seen the news? A Malaysian Airlines flight has been shot down by a missile over Ukraine, at least according to an advisory to Ukraine’s interior ministry. The Interfax News Agency — which has nothing to do with fax machines. It’s what the Soviets used to call their news agency, Interfax. You didn’t know that, did you?

They even had a hotel chain called Interfax and everybody thought, “What? Is it fax machines?” and it had nothing to do with that. Anyway, it’s a Malaysian Airlines jet. You know, I’ve got the British Open on to the top monitor. I haven’t had CNN on all day. What do you bet they have broomed everything and are covering wall-to-wall the Malaysian Airlines flight shot down by a missile?

I mean, you talk about… I don’t want appear to be callous here, folks, but you talk about an opportunity to abandon the Obama news at the border? And, no, I’m not suggesting anything other than how the media operates. Anyway, it’s eerie. It is really eerie. A Malaysian airliner. It was on the way to Kuala Lumpur. Why would it be shot down? Over Ukraine? It was shot down by a missile.

This would lead one to believe that it is not an accident. It carried 295 people, and obviously there are no survivors.

You get that? Lush isn’t suggesting anything; he’s just saying that it all seems a little fishy. This tragedy comes at the perfect time for the President as it distracts everyone from the situation at the border, don’t you know? So it all is just very fortuitous for the administration. They are catching a break. But, maybe, just maybe, they might be in on it. Lush won’t put it past them. But, you know, he’s just pointing things out.

Throughout the show, Dimbulb allowed listeners to spout out their own theories about the airline crash. Lush also told his audience that he didn’t think Obama apologized to Vladimir Putin for the jet crash. The reason is that Putin was the one who called Obama and informed him of the crash. This seemed to be an odd statement from Lush — except when you realize he was helping to feed into his audience’s wingnut fantasies about President Obama. Basically, he lends credence to their thoughts that Obama may have had a hand in this tragic event, even as Dimbulb gives the opinion that Obama likely did not admit any culpability.

LUSH: It was Vladimir Putin who called Obama and told him that the Malaysian Airlines jet had been shot down. Now, Putin was scheduled to call anyway. He was calling Obama about sanctions, US sanctions on Russia. The call was therefore scheduled before the plane was shot down. The AP is claiming that Putin is who informed Obama. So I had some people asking me earlier today if they thought Obama apologized to Putin for the plane being shot down.

I doubt that since it was Putin who made the call.

I know we shouldn’t expect anything else from Dimbulb. But, can’t he at least wait 24 hours before he starts bringing out the crazy conspiracy theories?

The repugican cabal's 'Religious Liberty' Campaign Is Not Working Out Too Well

by Ed Kilgore

Rallying around the Hobby Lobby decision can make repugicans say stupid things.

In the wake of a predictable  repugican cabal filibuster of a Senate bill seeking to reverse the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, repugicans are publicly complaining that Democrats are trying to “change the subject” from this or that issue (real or imaginary) they want to talk about, but are privately conceding the peril for their team of any extended conversation involving reproductive rights. At National Journal Sophie Novack  reports they’d just as soon not go there:

The repugican agitators who were around for [Todd] Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment in 2012 warn candidates to tread carefully on the issue. The repugican cabal’s continued meetings on how to connect with women show the party is still haunted by his loss, and members have denounced his return to the political scene with the release of his new book.

“The fact that the Supreme Court made the decision—repugicans should let that stand and not engage in the debate. It will get them nowhere and take them off the message of real issue Americans are concerned about,” said Ron Bonjean, a repugican cabal agitator and former spokesman for House and Senate leadership. “I think repugicans saw what happened with Todd Akin—it was a stupid and bad campaign strategy. It would be political malpractice for repugicans to engage with that kind of conversation.”

This is another way of admitting that the effort begun in 2012 to reframe the repugican cabal’s extremist position on reproductive rights as a defense of “religious liberty” hasn’t worked as well as cabal agitators had hoped. Indeed, by shifting the focus from abortion to “abortifacient” birth control, the “religious liberty”-driven attack on Obamacare’s contraception coverage mandate has actually increased opportunities for repugican pols to say things that sound stupid or crazy to a big percentage of the population.
Was Akin’s disastrous “legitimate rape” commentary really any farther from the mainstream than talk about IUDs being little Holocaust machines? Is there really any way to frame the the unchanging extremist position on abortion (life begins when ovum fertilized; ban all abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest) most repugicans embrace in a way that doesn’t hurt the the party with swing voters generally and single women in particular? I don’t think so. But I also think “don’t talk about it” demands like Bonjean’s will infuriate the anti-choice agitators who set the repugican cabal’s position in the first place and convince them to demand even more demonstrations of loyalty.

The repugican Demonizing of Refugee Children Shames America

The un-American anti-Family Asshat's Sandy Rios says refugee children carry diseases and she be treated like lepers (never mind that we don't even treat lepers like lepers anymore)…

Murrieta’s white folks protest the arrival of brown folks

On July 15, The New York Times reported that “More than 52,000 children have been caught crossing the United States border alone since October — double last year’s number.”

Steve Stockman (r-TX) referred to this flood of refugee children as an “invasion of our nation,” He told Wing Nut Daily and its uneducated readership that “There are more people coming across the border than invaded France in World War II,”

Never mind that the allies sent 160,000 troops across the Channel to Normandy on D-Day alone, and by the end of June, 1944, had shipped across 875,000 men. But Stockman is a Texas repugican so veracity is the last thing you should expect from him.

Pope Francis says “”This humanitarian emergency requires, as a first urgent measure, these children be welcomed and protected.” Far from it, says Michele Bachmann, appearing on CNN’s Crossfire. She shocked co-host Van Jones by calling immigrant children “invaders” and comparing them to rapists.

It was reported Monday by Mother Jones that,

Last week, Phil Gingrey (r-Ga.) wrote a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with a dire warning: Some of the child refugees streaming across the southern border into the United States might carry deadly diseases. “Reports of illegal immigrants carrying deadly diseases such as swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus and tuberculosis are particularly concerning,” Gingrey wrote. “Many of the children who are coming across the border also lack basic vaccinations such as those to prevent chicken pox or measles.”

It’s no wonder, with rhetoric like this, that bigoted wingnuts are gathering in their thousands to tell immigrant children they’re not welcome in their neighborhood. They are nothing but a bunch of little terrorists after all, future rapists, drug users, and thieves.

As CNN reported,

Earlier this month in Murrieta, busloads of babies in their mothers’ laps, teens, ‘tweens and toddlers were turned back from a detainee facility.

They were met by screaming protesters waving and wearing American flags and bearing signs that read such things as “Return to Sender.”

They were also, to the lasting shame and embarrassment of us all, chanting “USA! USA!”

The un-American anti-Family Asshat’s Sandy Rios says they carry diseases and she be treated like lepers (never mind that we don’t even treat lepers like lepers anymore):

I think of biblical times, the lepers were separated — right or wrong — they were separated. It was understood that leprosy was so contagious. So there’s nothing wrong with wanting to separate your children. We used to quarantine people when they had diseases.

“We’re such a healthy people that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to be diseased and die from those diseases in huge numbers,” she said, “but we’re going to learn, I think, again.”

And egads, these kids are transported in the “same planes that you and I fly in.”

“How do we know about lice and disease before they get on public transportation?”

Never mind that these kids are more likely to be immunized than American children and that many of them have their medical records in hand. In other words, they are nothing like Michele Bachmann, who thinks the HPV vaccine made a child mentally retarded, or Gingrey, who is opposed to mandatory vaccinations.

We saw Arizona’s Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu reveal in a press release the route of a bus full of 40 immigrant children. There must be something in the water in Arizona because that’s all it took to rally the bigots, who gathered in Oracle, Arizona, to do their own Murrieta Intercept. We saw tea party candidate Adam Kwasman freak out over a school bus full of – he assumed – those immigrant children. He hurriedly tweeted, “Bus coming in. This is not compassion. This is the abrogation of the rule of law.” It turned out instead to be a bus full of YMCA kids.

Sheriff Paul Babeu, for his part, says letting those kids come into the country only encourages more. He took to Facebook to say, “These children should be returned to their home country — not to Oracle, Arizona, paid for by American taxpayers.”

Slow your roll, Sheriff. They’re children. They’re not a bunch of diseased invaders looking to grow up and rape white women. They’re children.

The tea party brought out all that is worst in wingnuttery and gave it a point of focus. They crazies then took over the asylum and the repugican cabal is itself now in thrall to the extremists, with the result that attacking and demonizing children has become mainstreamed.

As Sonia Nazario writes in a New York Times op-ed, this is a refugee crisis, not an immigration crisis. Even so, when the Statue of Liberty says…

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

…she could have been looking directly at these children. Instead, Huffington Post reports that a new poll shows that,

A near-majority of Americans want the undocumented immigrant children currently being held at the border deported as soon as possible, even though only about one-third of adults think these children have someplace safe to return to, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll finds.

The degree of heartlessness exhibited by Americans – by repugicans in particular – beggars belief. Many of these children are victims of the drug war America is funding, and refuses to end. A drug war those same wingnuts support. But then, repugicans want babies to be born without caring what happens to them afterward.

In the end though, you have to wonder how different the repugican reaction would be if these were bus loads of blond-haired and blue-eyed Northern European kids who spoke English. My guess is they’d be volunteering their homes, and serial pedophile Ted Nugent and Duck Dynasty’s bible-totin’ Phil Robertson would probably not be alone in offering to take the 15-year-old girls into their own homes.

11 Roles Changed to Fit the Actors Who Auditioned

Did you know that the role of Garcia in Criminal Minds was supposed to be a middle-aged Mexican man? The producers were so impressed by Vangness’ audition -and we don’t know what role she auditioned for- that they changed the character to a young woman so they could hire her. And Hugh Laurie completely fooled executive producer/director Bryan Singer into thinking he was an American to get the role of Gregory House, M.D. But that’s just the beginning. Warming Glow gives us a list of 11 roles in ten TV shows that were changed in order to fit the actor that impressed the producers.

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Ziggy

Mexican Drug Cartel Thugs Kidnap American 'Courier' in SC

A kidnapping and ransom case in the Carolinas suggests just how active Mexican drug cartels have become in the U.S.

Today, authorities identified three purported members of a Mexican drug cartel as the alleged kidnappers of a South Carolina man last week, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District of Court of South Carolina.

The American hostage, who authorities said was drug courier for the cartel, apparently was kidnapped on July 9 and held for ransom, with demands for as much as $400,000 coming from unknown cartel members in Mexico.

After nearly a week in captivity, the hostage was found chained and blindfolded, but alive, in a Roseboro, N.C., home.

The criminal complaint alleged the kidnapping and ransom demands were triggered by the American courier’s loss of 200 pounds of marijuana. The suspected courier, identified only as "ES" in the criminal complaint, "delivered 200 pounds [$200,000 worth] of marijuana to an unidentified customer. ES 'fronted' the marijuana to the customer, expecting payment at a later date; however the customer absconded with the with the marijuana and never made payment," according to the complaint.

In the days before the kidnapping, the FBI said, the purported cartel operatives demanded repayment for the missing marijuana from ES and his father, “SG” who also was allegedly working as a drug courier.

When the father could not come up with the money, ES was pulled out of his truck at gunpoint the morning of July 9 in St. Matthews, S.C., and went missing, officials said.

The truck was found still running with its doors open in a neighbor’s yard.

Later in the day, ES’ fiance got a call saying that ES had been kidnapped and the caller demanded to talk to SG about a ransom.

Police and federal agents were eventually able to trace the origin of that call to a number in Mexico and soon found that Mexican-based phone had also placed calls to another number in the South Carolina area, officials said. It turned out that local number could be tracked to a man named Juan Manuel Fuentes-Morales, they added.

Fuentes-Morales was allegedly using that phone to communicate with cartel leadership in Mexico, which was making decisions concerning what ransom demands would be made.

The criminal complaint charged that between July 10 and July 15, the hostage-takers placed 13 calls to ES’ fiance and father. The hostage takers "demanded ransom in amounts varying between $100,000 and $400,000," according to the criminal complaint. In addition to the ransom money, according to officials, the kidnappers demanded the return of the “200,” referring to the 200 pounds of marijuana that had disappeared.

Local law enforcement and the FBI were able to listen in on those calls and advised the fiance and father to demand “proof of life” from the kidnappers.

It was the “proof of life” demand that helped break the case and find the hostage. The family asked the kidnappers to provide them with family information that only ES would know.

Law enforcement agents listened in as the caller, allegedly Fuentes-Morales, called his purported bosses in Mexico and told them it would take at least 30 minutes to obtain the information from ES.

Police were able to track the caller's cell phone location as he drove to the home in Roseboro, N.C., where ES was being held, and then listened again as he called the family back with the answer to the "proof of life" question.

Now, law enforcement closed the net. It obtained warrants for the locations in South and North Carolina and, at 5 a.m. Tuesday morning, the FBI’s elite hostage rescue team stormed a home in Roseboro, N.C., where they found ES and arrested Fuentes-Morales and two alleged accomplices, Ruben Ceja-Rangel and Luis Castro Villeda.

The complex, international case ended up drawing a massive law enforcement response.

“The cooperation among federal, local and state law enforcement agencies and across state lines was nothing short of incredible throughout this investigation," David Thomas, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Columbia, S.C., field office, said in a statement after the arrests. "The attention and resources contributed to this investigation should send a strong message that the FBI and its partners will not tolerate the kidnapping of American citizens."

Extensive resources were sent to the Charlotte and Columbia FBI field offices by FBI headquarters, including the Hostage Rescue Team, a highly trained group of special agents often called upon to respond to an extraordinary crisis. Crisis negotiators, multiple FBI SWAT teams, evidence response teams, analysts, technical specialists and other personnel were also sent to assist.

The suspects made an initial appearance this morning at the federal courthouse in Raleigh, N.C., and will be transferred to South Carolina to stand trial.

The only mystery left in this case was what really happened to that 200 pounds of marijuana: If ES was involved, was he ripped off or did he steal the grass himself? The FBI said the investigation into that aspect of the case was “ongoing.”

Wife accused of assaulting husband because he hadn't cooked dinner

A South Carolina woman is accused of hitting her husband, upset with him because he not yet cooked dinner, according to a sheriff's office report. Spartanburg County deputies said they were called to the newlywed couple's Boiling Springs home on Monday about the assault.
The man ran out to officers waving his arms at them saying he had been assaulted by his wife, 31-year-old April Cooper, according to deputies. The report said Cooper was upset her husband had not cooked dinner, so he left to get groceries, but when he returned home, she was gone. The man sat in the recliner and waited for her to return and when she did, she began yelling, hitting him in the head and chest, according to the report. Deputies said the man took his wife's phone and went outside to call 911, but Cooper threatened to damage her husband's property if he did not return the phone. He gave it back but went to a neighbour's to call 911 while Cooper made threats to hurt herself, deputies said.
When officers spoke to her, she told deputies her husband has been stressed out because of work, she never touched him, and they were happily married, only arguing occasionally. The report said the couple was married in January. Deputies said her husband had scratches on his neck, chest and injuries on his face. Cooper was arrested and charged with criminal domestic violence.

Stolen Jeep driven 3,400 miles from Miami to Washington State in two days

Police in the town of Blaine, Washington, near the Canadian border found a Jeep in a bank car park that had been stolen 3,400 miles away in Miami, Florida, just two days earlier.

The Jeep was reported to the Miami Police Department as stolen sometime between June 30 and July 1. On July 2 it was found by Blaine Police.
Police don't know who took the black 2012 Jeep Patriot, or why they sped from one corner of the US to the other.
They found some clothing inside the car and the exterior had minor damage to the passenger-side fender, but little other evidence. Meanwhile, Blaine Towing has the Jeep and is trying to contact the owner to send it back home.

Believe It Or Not ...

Hydro-Pryamids

How Did They Build the Pyramids? With Water!

Powerful things can often derive from simple principles, and this one's a doozy. It turns out the Egyptian pyramid builders were able to move the massive stones by greasing the sleds -- with water!

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Skull Rock

Is This The Best Super Villain Lair Ever?

Are you a super villain looking for a new lair? Then look no further. Take a look at Skull Rock, also known as Cleft Island. Situated off the coast of Wilsons Promontory in the state of Victoria it is at the southernmost point of the Australian mainland.
Skull Rock is beautiful, unspoiled and above all, peaceful. From a distance you may not think it is anything to write home about - and that's the beauty of it. Your new hi-tech facility, where you can evolve your next fiendish plan without interruption, is hidden in plain sight.

This Iceberg Looks Like Batman

This iceberg looks just like the Dark Knight spawned on a cold night in Crime Alley.

*I cannot determine if Victor Fries ever completed his doctorate and should therefore be addressed as "Doctor." He wrote a dissertation, but I find no evidence that he defended it successfully.

Daily Comic Relief

The Longest Known Fossilized Dinosaur Poop

This is coprolite--fossilized excrement. It dates back to between the Oligocene and Minocene Epochs, which makes it somewhere around 5.3 to 33.9 million years old. The poop was found in Lewis County, Washington State. The I.M. Chait auction house is selling it, estimating the price at between $8,000-10,000.
According to the auction house, it is a truly outstanding poop. It "boasts a wonderfully even, pale brown-yellow coloring" throughout its full "eye-watering 40 inches." It is a "truly spectacular specimen."
You can see from the picture that this is clearly true. This isn't just an impressive specimen, but a natural work of art.

Elephant Obesity

African Elephants in Zoos Threatened by Obesity

Experts warn that the weight gain is contributing to infertility, which could be detrimental to the survival of the species in zoos. 

21 Big Dogs That Insist They Are Lap Dogs

If you look closely at this picture, you might notice that there’s a woman under all that dog. I’ve said it to my kids, and maybe you have as well: “You’re never too big to sit in Mommy’s lap.” That goes for dogs, too, because they love you, even when they become large enough to crush you! Jeff Wysaski at Pleated-Jeans collected photographs of 21 oversized dogs who still want a little lap time.

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The Daily Drift

Editor's Note: We will be posting sparingly this weekend. We had a tragedy in the family. Our great-great-nephew passed and we are helping with the funeral arrangements. He was only with us for 3 weeks when he passed in his sleep Thursday. His short life was brilliant. He is missed.

Horse Snobs ...!

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 200 countries around the world daily.   

Wild and Free ... !

Today is  -  The celebration Of The Horse Day 
 

Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is

Some of our reader today have been in:

The Americas

Macungie, Maud, Catasauqua, Mishawaka and Nixa, United States

Rio De Janeiro, Maua, Sao Paulo and Salvador, Brazil

Ottawa, L'ancienne-Lorette and Youngs Crossing, Canada

Tipitapa, Nicaragua

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Santiago, Chile

Bogota, Colombia

Montevideo, Uruguay

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Caracas, Venezuela

Europe

Widdern and Stuttgart, Germany

Reykjavik, Iceland

Cerny, Roubaix and Rouen, France

Ivrea, Milan, Rome and Ravenna, Italy

Sarajevo, Bosnia- Herzegovina

Steinsel, Luxembourg

Moscow, Ryazan and Dolgoprudnyy, Russia

Slough, Norwich and London, England

Zagreb, Croatia

Katowice and Szprotawa, Poland

Barcelona, Alicante, O'Lleria, Madrid and Cadiz, Spain

Stockholm, Sweden

Kiev and Uzhhorod, Ukraine

Meria, Georgia

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Dublin, Ireland

Riga, Latvia

Asia

Bangkok and Bang Rak, Thailand

Singapore, Singapore

Bikaner, Kolkata and New Delhi, India

Kuala Lumpur and Cheras, Malaysia

Tehran, Iran

La Dagotiere, Mauritius

Tel Aviv, Israel

Guangzhou, China

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Africa 

Cape Town, South Africa

Casablanca and Rabat, Morocco

Cairo, Egypt

Lagos, Nigeria

Today in History

1525		The catholic princes of Germany form the Dessau League to fight against the Reformation.
1545		King Henry VIII of England watches his flagship, Mary Rose, capsize as it leaves to battle the French.
1788		Prices plunge on the Paris stock market.
1799		The Rosetta Stone, a tablet with hieroglyphic translations into Greek, is found in Egypt.
1848		The first Women's Rights Convention convenes in Seneca Falls, N.Y, organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
1870		France declares war on Prussia.
1942		German U-boats are withdrawn from positions off the U.S. Atlantic coast due to American anti-submarine countermeasures.
1943		More than 150 B-17 and 112 B-24 bombers attack Rome for the first time.
1975		Apollo and Soyuz spacecrafts dock in orbit.

Non Sequitur

This repugican Mayor Is Marching 273 Miles To Demand Medicaid Expansion

From the "Hey, wait a minute, he's a repugican!?" Department"

by Tara Culp-Ressler

Mayor Adam O’Neal and Rev. William Barber on the beginning of the 273 mile walk to Washington

Adam O’Neal, the repugican mayor of a small North Carolina town named Belhaven, is currently on a nearly 300 mile journey to the nation’s capital to raise awareness for a cause that’s rather unpopular within his own cabal. This week, the mayor started walking to Washington, DC on foot, hoping to bring more attention to the human consequences of rejecting Obamacare’s optional Medicaid expansion.
Since North Carolina hasn’t yet agreed to expand Medicaid, the hospital serving O’Neal’s rural constituency was recently forced to close. Vidant Pungo Hospital, which used to care for a disproportionately large population of low-income and uninsured patients, can no longer afford to remain operating in Belhaven. If the state had expanded Medicaid, however, things may have turned out differently. Vidant Pungo would have received an influx of newly insured patients; like the hospitals located in states that accepted Obamacare’s expansion, Vidant’s profit margins probably would have improved.
Now, Belhaven’s residents have to travel nearly an hour to get to the closest hospital, something that has created what O’Neal calls “a medical desert.” So he’s marching 273 miles to Washington to find a solution.
“Our state’s refusal to accept expansion is taking two billion dollars a year out of our state’s healthcare system,” the mayor wrote in an op-ed to explain why he’s making the trek over the next two weeks. “Americans need to realize the rural healthcare struggles across our country. In the last year, more rural hospitals have closed than in the previous 15 years. Every hospital closure means deaths!!!”
In order to make that point, O’Neal is recounting the story of 48-year-old Portia Gibbs, who he says may not have died if she had been able to go to Vidant Pungo. Last week, Gibbs passed away after suffering a heart attack while emergency responders were waiting for a helicopter to transfer her to the closest hospital, which is now located 75 miles away. O’Neal points out it may have turned out differently if Vidant Pungo, which was 47 miles away, was still open.
Although some emergency responders say that a closer hospital wouldn’t have saved Gibbs, her family is still upset that she never had the option to receive emergency care in Belhaven. They joined O’Neal when he kicked off his two-week march on Monday, saying they want to prevent more potential deaths.
O’Neal and his supporters believe the decision to close Vidant Pungo Hospital violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it disproportionately impacted African Americans in the state who rely on that safety net hospital. Earlier this year, the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP filed an official complaint with the Department of Justice on those grounds. The DOJ initially negotiated a settlement that required Vidant Health, the regional health care system that ran the Pungo Hospital, to work out a plan to transfer control of the hospital’s operation. But that plan ended up falling apart, and the civil rights complaint has since been re-filed. The president of North Carolina’s NAACP, Rev. William Barber — who has been an instrumental player in the state’s ongoing Moral Monday movement — will join O’Neal on the first leg of his walk.
North Carolina isn’t the only state where this dynamic is unfolding. Rural hospitals are also being forced to close in states like Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee in the absence of Medicaid expansion. The Rural Policy Research Institute sees the fight over this particular Obamacare provision as one of the most important issues facing its constituency.
“Belhaven’s battle to hold onto emergency healthcare is shaping up to be a do-or-die challenge for rural America,” O’Neal explained at a recent county commissioner meeting, when he announced his intention to begin his march. “When it’s do-or-die, it’s no time to sit still. That’s why I’m walking.” The mayor is hoping to schedule a meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama once he eventually arrives in Washington.

***

Please excuse us for our shock at the fact this person is a repugican - compassion and sympathy - it goes against everything known about repugicans so it is a shock to the system.

We feel he is actually a Democrat who was confused and checked the wrong box on his voter registration form ... if not this 'stunt' as repugicans will see it will guarantee that he will be an independent by next election.

Game On

Obama Endorses Senate Bill to Protect Women from Hobby Lobby repugican cabal

Remember when we said that with the Hobby Lobby decision, repugicans had won a battle but lost a war?

The republicans have handed Senate Democrats a very powerful Get Out the Vote tool. Democrats drafted a bill to protect women from for-profit corporations like Hobby Lobby interfering in their medical and health needs. President Obama has just indicated that his administration supports this bill.

Noting that preventative care like contraception has significant health benefits, the Obama administration also noted that since 2013, when the coverage requirement started, utilization of preventive care under Obamacare saved women $483 million.

Game on.

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY
S. 2578 – Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act
(Senator Murray, D-Washington, and 43 cosponsors)

The Administration strongly supports legislation that would give women affected by the Supreme Court’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., the same coverage that everyone else is offered without interference by their employers.

Preventive health services, when accessible and affordable, have the potential to prevent disease, manage chronic illness, and save lives as well as dollars. That is why the Affordable Care Act ensures that Americans have coverage for preventive care like vaccines, cancer screenings, and contraception that medical experts have concluded are critical to the Nation’s health. According to a recent analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services, an estimated 76 million people have gained preventive services coverage since the law passed, and there are now an estimated 48.5 million women enrolled in private plans that are required to cover contraception without cost‑sharing. Contraception has significant health benefits, as documented by the independent Institute of Medicine, and coverage removes cost as a barrier to its use. One study found that in 2013, the year the coverage requirement started, utilization increased and women saved $483 million.

However, the Supreme Court’s rulings in Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Burwell, allow some employers to now withhold contraception coverage from their employees based on their own religious beliefs that their employees may not share. The Administration believes that women should make personal health care decisions for themselves, rather than their employers deciding for them.

This legislation would restore that right. It would prevent owners of for-profit companies from asserting their personal religious views to deny their employees Federally-required health benefits. At the same time, it would preserve the regulatory exemption for religious organizations like houses of worship and an accommodation for eligible nonprofit religious organizations, like some charities, that have religious objections to contraception coverage. This legislation is consistent with the congressional intent in enacting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

The Administration strongly supports Senate passage of S. 2578 and remains committed to working with the Congress to improve the affordability and accessibility of health care for all Americans.

With the Hobby Lobby decision, it became obvious that there is a repugican cabal War on Women. It became obvious that repugicans anti-Obama fever and faux 'pro-life' stance was forcing them into a corner where they were against contraception, which is, of course, the best way to reduce abortion rates. This is not a matter of opinion, but logic backed up by evidence. It should be noted that contrary to the accusations made by repugicans, the abortion rate has dropped under President Obama.

If a person is really “pro-life”, they are going to be for things that prevent unplanned for pregnancies. If a person is really “pro-life”, they are also going to be for health initiatives that protect women, since women are human beings. Yes, rumor has it that a fetus can turn into a woman, so it makes little sense to protect a fetus only to destroy a woman’s health.

While repugicans deny rape and pretend that contraception is all about sex, women and the people who love them know better. This issue impacts most women at some point in their lives, so it wasn’t a smart move for wingnuts before an election. While midterms favor repugican voters demographically, repugicans are doing their best to motivate the opposition. And the opposition, in this case, is an ever-expanding tent.

repugicans won a battle, but now that battle is being used against them in the war. Game on, repugican cabal.

***

The repugicans obstructed the legislation as we knew they would, but as they say "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

Senate repugicans Doom The repugican cabal By Blocking Bill To Reverse Hobby Lobby

The reaction to the Senate repugicans’ move to block a bill that would have reversed the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision demonstrates why the repugican cabal is doomed.

On a mostly party line vote of 56-43, repugicans blocked the Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act from advancing. Three repugicans joined with the Democrats in voting to move the bill forward (Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mark Kirk). Harry Reid changed his vote to no for procedural reasons.

The repugicans continued to wrap themselves in the false flag of religious freedom. Mitch McConnell (r-KY) said, “Well, repugicans continue to insist that we can and should be in the business of protecting everyone’s rights. We think that, instead of restricting Americans’ religious freedoms, Congress should instead work to preserve a woman’s ability to make contraceptive decisions for herself.”

Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen summed up the position of the bill’s supporters, “A woman’s health care decision should be made with her doctor, with her family, with her faith, not by her employer with her employer’s faith.”

The reaction to the vote suggests that the Senate repugicans have made another big mistake.

Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America said, “It is shameful and wrong that Senate repugican leaders ... decided to side with corporate bosses who are exploiting loopholes and a narrow Supreme Court vote to shirk their responsibility to their workers instead of supporting the women who elected them to office and expect their rights upheld….Votes and political games like these are why we are seeing a huge gender gap in nearly every poll. Access to birth control is not a fringe issue; it is a mainstream issue that affects nearly all women in this country. We will continue to work between now and Election Day to remind women, and all voters, where their representative stands on this vital issue.”

Nita Chaudhary, co-founder of UltraViolet, said, “The repugican cabal has just shown America what its 2014 agenda is all about— opposing access to birth control. Despite its wild popularity, and medical necessity for many, wingnuts seem hell-bent on ending women’s access to contraception. Today’s Senate vote is appalling, and like the Supreme Court decision that came before it, proves to women across America that if we don’t fight conservatives will roll back our rights to the 50′s. This isn’t a vote women will forget in November.”

It is wrong to suggest that the contraception issue is just a women’s issue. This issue should matter to every man and woman in this country who cares about liberty. It’s not an issue of how women get access to birth control. The problem is that repugicans have given employers the power to tell women what they can do with their bodies.

In terms of rights, Hobby Lobby is a return to the 1950s, but even more, it is a return to the 19th Century idea that the an employer controlled the lives of their employees. The majority of people in this country are not going to stand by and allow women to be treated like property. The repugican cabal is catering a segment of their base by standing by the Hobby Lobby decision, but they have also mobilized millions of voters who they were trying to keep away from the polls.

After 2014, the electoral map will shift. It will be repugicans who will be defending the majority of Senate seats over the next few cycles. Women, and all supporters of access to contraception will be coming for these Senate repugicans in 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020.

By not seeing the bigger picture, repugicans swapped short-term victory for long-term defeat. Senate repugicans didn’t win a battle today. They just took another step towards losing the war.

Renee Ellmers’ Advice to the repugican cabal: Stop Confusing Women Voters with Pie Charts

While repugican controlled states continue to do all within their power to make voting more difficult for people who are likely to vote Democrat, repugican cabal contenders still need substantial support from women.  At least they understand that reality.  That is where the momentary lapse into reality ends.

Obviously, most women understand that voting for the repugican cabal is synonymous to handing their personhood to the very people who applauded the Supreme Court’s ideologically based Hobby Lobby ruling.  We understand that the repugican cabal opposes equal pay for equal work, opposes laws criminalizing violence against women and favors corporate control over women’s access to healthcare.

In short, a woman who votes repugican isn’t merely voting against her economic and political interests, she is voting against her very personhood.

The repugicans continue to believe the problem is messaging.  Renee Ellmers is the most recent to argue that if only women are talked down to at a low enough level, we’ll get it.  We will wrap our pretty little heads around the complex concept that corporations are people and women should be property.  Talking down to us means we will understand that the glory days entail women knowing their place is in the binder.

We can solve unemployment if only women would just get married – ideally before they find out about things like dignity, equal partnership in marriage and if the marriage doesn’t work out (or the husband is abusive) community property.  Politics would be so much more stable if nice women knew they really don’t want the vote and for that matter, realize that owning property is way too complex.  America would be a much better place if only women understood their purpose in life is home, children, satisfying their man and church.

If only repugicans would talk to us at a low enough level, so we will understand. You can listen to Ellmers explain it all here.

“Men do tend to talk about things on a much higher level,” Ellmers said. “Many of my male colleagues, when they go to the House floor, you know, they’ve got some pie chart or graph behind them and they’re talking about trillions of dollars and how, you know, the debt is awful and, you know, we all agree with that.”

Hear that ladies?  The problem with the repugican is not their policies, it’s those complicated pie charts, graphs and big numbers.

“We need our male colleagues to understand that if you can bring it down to a woman’s level and what everything that she is balancing in her life — that’s the way to go,”

The best thing the repugican cabal can do for America and for the Democratic Party is to take Renee Ellmers’ advice.

They can do that by getting rid of those pie charts, graphs and big numbers. It would certainly help if they reduce the message to monosyllabic words, ideally with pictures. The messaging would be much more effective if they can wrap it in bling.  After all, the evidentiary support that woman are easily distracted by shiny objects is indisputable.

The best thing women can do for America, for their families and for themselves is to recognize that Ellmers is the latest to admit that the repugican cabal still does not understand that the problem is backward and oppressive policies – not messaging.  They don’t understand that even if you wrap the war on women in the shiniest object on the planet, it remains a war on women.   They still don’t understand that the repugican cabal ‘s problem is that they talk down to everyone who isn’t part of the 1%. That’s why they are on the path to self-destruction.

Their ignorance is our strength, provided we use our voices at election time.

In One Sentence, Michele Bachmann Proves How Ignorant repugicans are about the Constitution

by Allen Clifton

I often comment about how hypocritical repugicans are when it comes to our Constitution.  They’re usually the first to stand on a pedestal and speak about the importance of “Constitutional values,” yet they seem unable to even grasp the basic fundamentals of what that even means.
And while most people with common sense already know this, Michele Bachmann perfectly showcased repugican ignorance about our Constitution in one sentence.
While speaking with wingnut shrieking head Lars Larson, Bachmann said that gay people have “so bullied the American people and they have so intimidated politicians that politicians fear them and they think they get to dictate the agenda everywhere.  Well, not with the Constitution you don’t.”
Though almost perfect, her next sentence really showcased true repugican ignorance about the Constitution.
“If you want take away my religious liberties,” she continued, “you can advocate for that but you do it through the constitutional process and you don’t intimidate and no politician should give away my religious liberties or yours.”
And that’s the sentence that shows the true ignorance repugicans have about our Constitution.
Advocating for equal rights for homosexuals isn’t “bullying” or “taking away” anyone's religious liberties.  It’s simply saying that it’s unconstitutional to discriminate against homosexuals based on religion - because that’s what our First Amendment says! 
First Amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..”

Notice the whole part about not establishing religion?  That means it’s unconstitutional (be it on a state or federal level) to pass laws that are derived from religious beliefs.
End of story.
So, there’s no need to “advocate” to take away her religious liberties on a Constitutional level because the First Amendment to the United States Constitution already does that for us. 
What these “activist judges” and “lawless President Obama” are doing is simply adhering to the Constitution which says laws cannot be based on religion.
It’s also ironic that these judges, who are making rulings based on the Constitution (which the Supreme Court sided with when they overturned DOMA), are actually using the “constitutional process” for which Bachmann seems to be advocating.
But the real problem is wingnuts like Bachmann just don’t like how reality is proving time and time again that their values don’t seem to be Constitutional.  They long for a version of our Constitution that exists in their minds, just not in reality.

Why Do wingnut 'christians' Think 'Religious Freedom' Means Forcing Their Delusion on You?

by Amanda Marcotte

Religious freedom has turned into wingnut code for imposing christianity.

Religious freedom is one of the most fundamental American values, written directly into the First Amendment of the Constitution. Of course, true religious freedom requires a secular society, where government stays out of the religion game and leaves it strictly to individual conscience, a standard that runs directly against the modern wingnut insistence that America is and should be a “christian nation”. So what are people who claim to be 'patriots' standing up for American values to do? Increasingly, the solution oo the religio-wingnuts is to redefine “religious freedom” so that it means, well, its exact opposite. “Religious freedom” has turned into wingnut code for imposing the christian delusion on the non-believers.
While it seems like a leap even for the most delusional wingnuts to believe that their religious freedom can only be protected by giving christians broad power to force their delusion on others, a new report from the People For the American Way shows how the narrative is constructed. The report shows that christian wingnut circles have become awash in legends of being persecuted for their delusion, stories that invariably turn out to be nonsense but that “serve to bolster a larger story, that of a majority religious group in American society becoming a persecuted minority, driven underground in its own country.” This sense of persecution, in turn, gives them justification to push their actual agenda of religious repression under the guise that they’re just protecting themselves.
The most obvious and persistent example of this is the issue of creationism in the classroom. Clearly, teaching creationism in a biology classroom is a straightforward violation of the First Amendment, a direct attempt to use taxpayer money to foist a very specific religious teaching on captive students. So what the wingnuts do is re-frame the issue, arguing that teaching evolutionary theory is a form of religious oppression, a direct attack on the beliefs of fundamentalists in the classroom. This is pure hooey, of course, since evolutionary theory is not a religion but a scientific reality, and teaching science as science is no more a violation of religious freedom than teaching kids to that “cat” rhymes with “hat” is an imposition of religion. But once they’ve convinced themselves that learning science in the science classroom is religious persecution, it becomes easier to convince yourself that it’s okay to “fight back” by forcing your actual religion on everyone else.
You can see this play out in the legends that PFAW details out. Do christian wingnuts want to force their religious hostility to gays onto the military? Tell a lie about how a sergeant was persecuted for simply holding that religious belief to paint yourself as the “real” victim. Want to justify forcing non-believing kids to pray to your god in school? Tell lies about how kids are being punished for having private prayers all to themselves. Want to force people in the VA hospital to sing your religious songs and worship your god? Spread a false tale claiming that people aren’t allowed private ownership of religious cards. Tell enough of these stories and wingnuts can convince themselves the only way they can protect their own right to worship is to force their religious practice on everyone else.

You can see how this kind of logic swept over the Becket Fund, a legal institution that was initially set up to protect the individual right to religious freedom. As chronicled by Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux at The American Prospect, the Becket Fund started off doing easily defensible work protecting people who wanted to express their religious beliefs in personal ways that are not coercive to others, such as protecting prisoners who wanted to have religious tchotchkes or workers who wanted to maintain religious hairstyles at work.

But the Becket Fund’s latest high profile case is an outright attack on religious freedom, in a case that was erroneously decided by the Supreme Court. The Becket Fund defended the Green family that owns Hobby Lobby in their desire to impose their religious delusions about contraception on employees, by denying employees the right to use their own insurance benefits on contraception. The idea that it could ever be “religious freedom” to tell an employee that her private use of her own compensation package should be constrained by her boss's religious delusions should be laughable. But that’s the logic of the modern christian wingnut that holds that the only way to “protect” their own religious delusion is to start forcing it on others.

Of course, this kind of logic inevitably starts to crumble when people who don’t share the wingnut christian delusion start pushing back and arguing that their right to their own private beliefs should not be infringed by being made to pray to someone else’s god in school, being taught bible stories in biology class, or being forced to check with the boss first before you pick up your prescription medications after hours. The solution, increasingly, is to outright argue that non-believers or people of different faiths have beliefs that are simply less worthy of basic protections for religious freedom, much less the hyper-charged “religious freedom” of imposing your delusion on others, the kind of “religious freedom” wingnut christians mistakenly believe they’re entitled to.
Take, for instance, Jody Hice, a repugican candidate for a U.S. House seat from Georgia. Hice has a novel solution to the problem of the religious rights of muslims being infringed upon when they are subject to having religion imposed on them by christians: Simply deny that islam is a religion and therefore deny that its followers enjoy freedom of religion. “Although islam has a religious component, it is much more than a simple religious ideology,” he wrote in his 2012 book It’s Now Or Never. “It is a complete geo-political structure and, as such, does not deserve First Amendment protection.”
It’s a dumb statement on two levels. One, it’s plainly obvious that islam is a religion and therefore people who believe in it are absolutely guaranteed their actual freedom to worship how they please. (Though perhaps Hice is worried that muslims will decide to adopt the christian wingnut definition of “religious freedom” and start demanding that you can’t eat pork and you have to pray five times a day.) But even if someone doesn’t have a religion doesn’t mean that they lose their basic right to decide for themselves what to believe. Atheists do not have a religion, but it’s just as wrong to force atheists to pray to your god as it would be to do so to a muslim.
Sadly, this argument that the christian wingnuts try to make that  religious freedom includes the right to foist their delusion on others has made the leap to the Supreme Court, with Justice Scalia arguing incoherently that the “First Amendment explicitly favors religion” in order to justify the hijacking of a school event to force religion on the non-believers in attendance. As Scott Lemieux at Lawyers Guns and Money pointed out, it’s actually the exact opposite: “it disfavors religious endorsements by the state.” But in this new topsy-turvy bizarro wingnut world, up is down, left is right, and the only way to protect religious freedom is to use government and corporate force to make everyone follow the wingnut version of christianity, whether they believe it or not.