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The response to The Truth Be Told has been great.
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Thank You

Senate Democrats Block Republican Attempt To Override Obama’s Veto of Keystone XL Bill

Senate Democrats have successfully blocked the Republican attempt to override President Obama’s veto of Keystone XL.

Sixty-seven votes were required to override the veto, and Republicans came up several votes short. The final vote was 62-37. The senators who voted to uphold President Obama’s veto included, Sens. Al Franken (D-MN), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid also voted no. The same group of Democrats who helped pass Keystone XL also voted to override the president’s veto.

Before the vote, Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) tried to sell his gift to Big Oil as a middle-class issue, “I’m urging every Democrat who still believes their party should be about workers, not these deep-pocketed special interests and extremists, to join us. Vote for cloture. Vote to override. Keystone’s bipartisan coalition in the Senate is only a few votes shy of from the two-thirds majority we’d need to override this partisan veto and bring Keystone’s jobs here to America. And it’s not too late stop your party from venturing down a path even further afield from the interests of American workers and the Middle Class.”

The Keystone XL bill was never a jobs bill. It was never about energy independence. The Keystone XL bill was a gift to a foreign oil company that would have allowed them to ship oil that was destined for sale on the open market through the United States.

The failure to override the president’s veto represents another failure for the Republican congressional majority. McConnell spent nearly a month in passing Keystone XL, and he is right back to where he started from. Keystone XL is no closer to be approved, and Republicans wasted valuable time on an issue that has never caught on with the American people.

McConnell’s failure to override President Obama’s veto is proof that the power in the Senate is with the Democrats. Keystone XL was supposed to be the issue that divided Democrats and allowed Republicans to get something done. In reality, Republicans are accomplishing nothing while Democrats continue to stand strong.

Bernie Sanders Applauds Senate Democrats For Sustaining Obama’s Keystone XL Veto

Senator Bernie Sanders applauded the Senate today for sending the message that United States is listening to the scientific community on climate change by sustaining President Obama’s veto of Keystone XL.

In a statement, Senator Sanders (I-VT) said:

I applaud President Obama for vetoing the Keystone XL legislation and the Senate for sustaining that veto.

The Senate and President Obama have sent an important message that the United States finally is listening to the scientific community and recognizing that global warming poses a real threat to our planet.

At a time when we should be doing everything we can to promote the development of clean sources of energy, it would have been crazy to let a Canadian oil company ship some of the dirtiest oil on the planet across the United States.

Climate change is real, it is caused by human activity and it is already causing devastating problems. Our job now is to aggressively transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy.

Senator Sanders was correct. The push for Keystone XL defied all logic and common sense. Rejecting Keystone XL is the first step in creating a policy that will lead to real energy independence. Having the opportunity to buy oil from another country is not a strategy for energy independence. The message is clear. Republicans aren’t going to be allowed to get away with ignoring science so that the oil industry can profit.

Bernie Sanders has led the charge to sustain President Obama’s veto. The Keystone XL bill was a waste of time. There was no chance that the president was going to sign the bill into law, or that Republicans would ever be able to muster enough Democratic support to override President Obama’s veto. Senate Republicans spent a month passing a bill that would never become law.

Keystone XL is bad energy policy. It is an even worse jobs bill, and the country is better off because Democrats and Independents like Bernie Sanders sustained President Obama’s veto.

Google Exploring A Big Change Guaranteed To Make Republicans Lose Their Minds

It’s also sure to enrage birthers, climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers and all others littering the Internet with misinformation.

Google is working on a new way of ranking web pages. Republicans, notorious for spreading lies to further their political agenda, are sure to hate Google’s new search. It ranks web pages based on facts. That’s right, it ranks web pages higher on the search engine result page based on how truthful they are!

Read more

Political Ethics: Republican Edition

The Truth Is, Conservatives Hate The United States Of America

by Allen Clifton

As much as I disliked George W. Bush, I never hated the man. Sure, I strongly disagreed with just about everything he did while he was in office, but I never really stooped to the level of blind hatred. In fact, as Americans we should always root for the success of whatever president we have. Because the truth is, to cheer for the failure of a president is essentially rooting for the failure of this country.
But when it comes to President Obama, the vast majority of conservatives absolutely detest him. It’s not partisan disagreement or just a general dislike, it’s blind, unfettered hatred. I truly believe that most of them would rather seen this country burn to the ground before they’d ever hope to see this president succeed.
The truth is, no matter what this president does, they’re going to attack him for it. Even if it’s exactly what they’re saying he should be doing.
Just look at the way in which Republicans and conservatives fall all over themselves trying to praise leaders of other countries, while absolutely bashing and lying about our own.
They consider President Obama an “un-American tyrant” who apparently doesn’t love this country. Meanwhile, I’ve seen Republicans heap gushing praise on the King of Jordan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The truth is, congressional Republicans show more respect toward Netanyahu than they do our own president.
Hell, I’ve seen Fox News even praise Vladimir Putin’s “strength” as a leader.
But what is it about this country that they love?
They loathe liberals, so there goes over half of our population. Conservative ideologies (especially those in the South) are almost always on the wrong side of history when it comes to the constitutionality of their beliefs. They detest homosexuals, treat women as second-class citizens and have almost no respect for anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their brand of Christianity.
Even when it gets right down to our Constitution, they really don’t “love” it. Outside of the Second Amendment, and the Tenth (because they often claim “states’ rights” whenever they’re trying to violate another one of our amendments), what is it about our Constitution that they “love”? Oh, and the main reason why they adore the Second Amendment so much is because they think guns give them the right to overthrow the government – the government that was created by the Constitution.
Our First Amendment continually prevents them from turning this country into a theocracy. The First Amendment was what gave rise to the civil rights movement. You know, back when Southern conservatives were fighting to keep segregation legal, prevent interracial marriages and oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was the protection of our First Amendment that gave power to those who marched through the streets of Selma and all over this nation, demanding equal rights for those who had been denied them for far too long. This was all done against the resistance of those who clung to their ignorance and their Bible – just as conservatives continue to do today.
Conservatives are the people we often hear uttering the phrase “traditional American values,” which makes absolutely no sense. This nation has been a nation of progress since its inception - we have but one tradition, and that’s progress. But progress cannot be achieved clinging to yesterday, while resisting tomorrow.
I see conservatives kind of like the Blockbuster video of our society. Once upon a time, Blockbuster (a company that at one time dominated the video rental industry) had the opportunity to buy Netflix for around $50 million. It passed. Today, Netflix is worth nearly $30 billion, whereas Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy back in 2010 and is all but non-existent now. All because Blockbuster refused to adapt and embrace the future, instead choosing to cling to the past.
It’s conservatives who are the ones who often talk about secession and revolts whenever they don’t get their way. It’s never made a whole lot of sense to me for someone to claim they love their country, yet hate the very government the Constitution of this nation created.
But the truth is, conservatives hate this country. They hate its leader, its government, over half the people living here and basically anyone with whom they disagree.
The only thing they really “love” is an idea of what they wished the United States was, but has never been and will never be.

The Entire GOP Field for 2016 is as Tainted as a Bucket of Rotten Meat

We are already well on our way to becoming a 13th century-ish, Islamic State-like apparatus of repression…

If you are looking for a Republican candidate in 2016 who isn’t either bought and paid for by the Kochs, or in thrall to the Religious Right – or both – good luck. Not one of them has your interests at heart. Or for that matter, America.

People for the American Way in a press release yesterday informed us that both Bobby Jindal and Ted Cruz will be not just attending but headlining an event in Iowa next week with the Religious Right’s evil mastermind, David Lane.

And remember the supposedly moderate Jeb Bush, the guy whose attempt to tell Republicans at CPAC that it’s not good to be seen as “anti-everything” triggered a walk-out? (For that matter, remember when Bobby Jindal warned the GOP they have to stop being the party of stupid?)

Well, Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council (FRC) says he managed to sink his hooks into Jeb Bush while at CPAC (apparently after the “anti-everything” attempt), and reported Monday that, “the former Florida leader was very willing to listen” (I bet he is!), “especially on issues like religious liberty and same-sex ‘marriage.’ Although social issues may not be his first priority, I sensed he was genuinely interested in learning how to effectively work those themes into his overall messaging.”

And OneNewsNow suggests God has selected Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker:

Sam Rohrer, president of the American Pastors Network, believes Governor Walker could be a very special candidate. “My personal opinion is it may just be that we’re seeing an individual who God has raised up perhaps for this time,” Rohrer tells OneNewsNow.

“He has already stood against a great deal of opposition, and God has kept him standing. He has stood for the right issues. He has stood for the rule of law. He’s stood firmly on the side of biblical, moral issues.”

You know, like comparing teachers to terrorist who behead and burn people alive. You can’t get more biblical than that.

In fact, the entire Republican field for 2016 is as tainted as a bucket of rotten meat. There is not a single one among them prepared to defend American democracy or the United States Constitution.

Take a look at PFAW’s press release:

Cruz, Jindal Headline Event with Extremist David Lane

Likely Presidential contenders Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal will headline the American Renewal Project’s Pastors and Pews event in Iowa next week, according to the Des Moines Register. By leading the event, Cruz and Jindal ally themselves with one of the most inflammatory voices in the Republican Party: David Lane, who founded the American Renewal Project.

“By standing with David Lane, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal show their extreme anti-gay allegiances and their blatant disregard for the fundamental American value of embracing religious freedom,” said People For the American Way President Michael Keegan. “We deserve to know why Cruz and Jindal would align themselves with David Lane and this event.”

All members of the Republican National Committee (RNC) have been invited to attend the event. RNC chair Reince Priebus also has previously sung the praises of David Lane, and Priebus ignored calls from PFAW and others to cancel the recent RNC trip to Israel that Lane organized.

PFAW’s Right Wing Watch blog has long documented the bigoted statements of David Lane. Here are some of the key examples:

“Homosexuals praying at the Inauguration” of President Obama in 2013 will provoke God’s wrath in the form of “car bombs in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Des Moines, Iowa.” [7/23/13]

“Our long-term strategy must be to place the Bible in Public Schools as the principle [sic] textbook of American education.” [1/29/15]

“America was founded by Christians, as a Christian nation.” [7/17/13]

Republicans who support marriage equality are like politicians who backed slavery in the run-up to the Civil War. [1/29/15]
While “America was a Christian nation” since its founding, now it must choose between being “a Christian nation or a pagan nation.” [7/17/13]

Americans “grovel to the false god of Islam”; “America, a Christian nation in heritage and culture, is being dismantled brick by brick.” [1/29/15]

See more here.

You get the idea these people don’t like America too much, don’t you?

We can probably expect limited media exposure to these events from now on, as a Bobby Jindal speech in Greenville, North Carolina last night, demonstrates. Originally, David Lane’s American Renewal Project, told the media, “News reporters aren’t allowed to attend unless they can agree with the candidate on which quotes to report.”

In other words, he may have said it, but you can’t report it. This is an interesting attempt to retroactively edit the past by an ideology that regularly repurposes the past for its own ends.

This, the local paper, the Greenville News, “declined to do,” they tell us. But “after a version of this story broke online, Twitter lit up and a Jindal aide asked the sponsors to reconsider.”

Social media, at this point, may be Democracy’s last, best hope for survival in this country. But you have to ask yourself, if Jindal wants to be president, why is trying to hide from the media? The Greenville News reports,

The American Renewal Project, Jindal’s host for a dinner at the Embassy Suites hotel, is a California-based, socially conservative organization that says its mission is to return America to its Judeo-Christian roots.

David Lane, its president, told The Greenville News he has little to gain from exposure in the news media. Some reporters, he said, “have agendas” and “don’t even care what the truth is.”

“It’s too bad that’s the way it is, but that’s the way it is,” Lane said.

As for Jindal, reporters can quote him “all they want,” said Shannon Dirmann, an aide to the governor.

This is also interesting – it’s the media that has an agenda, not the guys trying to overthrow American democracy and the Constitution using the Bible and theocracy.

David Lane is right about having little to gain, given exposure of his plans will certainly retard his attempts to destroy the country founded on secular Enlightenment principals.

The 2016 elections will be nothing less than an attempt by Religious conservatives to destroy America and turn it into a 13th century-ish, Islamic State-like apparatus of repression. We have already seen agreement by the Religious Right and the Islamic State on certain theological issues, with the major disagreement between them being what to call God and the set of anti-constitutional religious laws used to hold us all in thrall.

Practically speaking, from where the rest of us stand, it doesn’t matter if we are being repressed by Sharia law or the Law of Moses. Repressed is repressed. I warned you that the 2014 midterms would be a vote between democracy and theocracy. It was, and democracy lost. But in 2016, we are electing not only a congress but a president.

One thing become clear in all this: the enemy isn’t in Iraq and Syria. The enemy is here. And they’re coming for us in 2016.

Reality is ...

Christie's Capers Continue

New Jersey's Christie's office pushed to settle with Exxon for pennies on the dollar: NYT

Sessions: Lessen Donor Influence, But Don’t Limit Contributions

by Lauren Windsor 

At the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, Jeff Sessions (R-AL) struck a populist tone with remarks chiding the GOP for its focus on…

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Former Reagan Adviser: CPAC Cons 'Rather Stupid,' 'Not Very Well Read'

Bruce Bartlett, a former adviser to Ronald Reagan, doesn't think all that highly of the CPAC crowd's intellectual rigor.

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Flip Flopping the Core

by Peter Greene

So CPAC happened, at which various GOP future candidates try to see if they can win a little conservative love. And that means that Common Core had to be trotted out for ceremonial abuse, like a disgraced former party officer in Communist China.

Live by the Sword...

Idiots never learn ...

Republican senators propose bill to cut taxes for corporations

Jim Inhofe Is As Dumb As Homer Simpson

As chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, climate change denier Sen. Jim Inhofe is one of the most powerful policy makers in the country when it comes to global warming.

This is very bad.

Inhofe is famous for his wrong-headed, illogical pronouncements about global warming. In a recent stunt, he brought a snowball to the Senate floor to prove that climate change is fake because it still snows in winter.

Sigh.

At least someone had some fun with Inhofe’s utter stupidity. The National Resources Defense Council posted a video to its Facebook page showing how Senator James Inhofe, chairman of a powerful committee on the environment, uses the same logic to disprove climate change as Homer Simpson.

Leadership My Ass

7 Reasons Why King v. Burwell Isn’t Good For the GOP

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell, in which plaintiffs claim the government cannot provide premium tax credits and other insurance subsidies that help low and moderate-income individuals and families afford health insurance in states using a federal health care exchange.

If the court rules against the government, women, who make up 55 percent of those enrolled in the federal marketplaces, will be hardest hit. The National Women’s Law Center estimates that 2.5 million women already receive premium tax credits to purchase health insurance, and many of them get cost-sharing reductions as well, making their deductibles and copayments more affordable.

Here are seven facts about women who will face disaster if SCOTUS rules the wrong way on King v. Burwell:

1. Nearly 7 million women could lose their tax credit eligibility.
2. Almost half of those 7 million are women of color.
3. 1.8 million are Latinas.
4. 250,000 are Asian women.
5. 106,000 are Native American.
6. More than 1.2 million at risk of losing the financial help they need are women living in Texas.
7. More than 900,000 are living in Florida.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, women can no longer be discriminated against merely because of their gender, and they and their families finally have the security of having comprehensive health coverage.
The National Women’s Law Center points out that by going after the premium tax credits available to millions of women, the entire health care law will be put on shaky ground. This is the clear intent by Republicans. The law’s success is reliant upon “reforming the health insurance market, requiring individuals to purchase health insurance, and providing financial help for individuals to purchase coverage.”
Without the financial help, the insurance market will fall apart in the states and premiums will soar, leaving women and their families to go without insurance once again.

Bill O’Reilly is registered to vote as a member of the “Independence” Party

Bill O’Reilly has been making all of the wrong headlines for himself recently, following a Mother Jones report showing that his stories about seeing combat in the Falkland ...

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Yes, He Lied: Fox News Officially Throws Bill O’Reilly Under The Bus

by Kerry-Anne  As Bill O’Reilly’s past embellishments come back to haunt him, his employers at Fox News have finally thrown him under the bus with an astonishing admission: yes, he lied.
It all going so well for Bill last week. Despite a dizzying array of allegations, with sound evidence, the network came out in strong support of their cash cow. Fox dismissed the the whole litany of allegations against O’Reilly as “nothing more than an orchestrated campaign by far left advocates” and argued that “responding to the unproven accusation du jour has become an exercise in futility.”

But as ever greater lies are exposed, one after the next, even Fox News can’t stand by their man. The network has quietly thrown the O’Reilly Factor host under the bus.

So what changed their mind?

In his 2013 book Keep It Pithy: Useful Observations in a Tough World: An Essential Collection of Writings By One of the Most Powerful Voices in Media Today, O’Reilly stated that he personally witnessed “Irish terrorists kill and maim their fellow citizens in Belfast with bombs”.

He elaborates elsewhere in the book:

“I’ve seen soldiers gun down unarmed civilians in Latin America, Irish terrorists kill and maim their fellow citizens in Belfast with bombs.”

Paul Farhi of the Washington Post sent Fox News a very specific question: did this happen, or not?

In a statement to the Post, Fox admit that O’Reilly’s claim is false:

Asked about O’Reilly’s statements Friday, a Fox News spokesman said that O’Reilly was not an eyewitness to any bombings or injuries in Northern Ireland. Instead, he was shown photos of bombings by Protestant police officers.

So, just to underscore how irrevocably screwed O’Reilly’s credibility is right now – his lies are so many and so large, that even Fox News is calling him on it. Finally, after years of misrepresenting his credentials and career history, the past is catching up with Bill O’Reilly. Not a moment too soon.