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Sunday, March 29, 2015

The Daily Drift

Hey, wingnuts, yeah we're talking to you ...!  
 
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Meet The 6 Year Old Who Is Smarter Than Jim Inhofe

From the "Heroes" Department:

NoahJim Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, doesn’t believe climate change is real. He thinks that a snowball in Washington D.C. in winter disproves…

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Not to take anything away from this brilliant kid, but a hunk of granite is smarter that Jim Inhofe

Lewis Black: Not Even LSD Prepared Me For Ted Cruz

Comedian Lewis Black: Not Even LSD Prepared Me For Ted Cruz
"This is someone who should never have made it to color television."


US House Is Functional For A Day, Passes Bipartisan Bill, Extends CHIP Funding

pelosi and boehner
In a rare moment of bipartisan cooperation, the US House overwhelmingly passed a Medicare payment overhaul bill on Thursday. The bill also included a two-year extension to the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), authorizing 5.6 billion dollars in funding for the program.
The measure overhauls the way doctors are reimbursed for their Medicare patients, eliminating the annual “doc fix” formula used to reimburse physicians. The “doc fix’ formula involves Congress calculating the sustainable growth rate and reimbursing doctors accordingly.
The “doc fix” has been in use since 1997, but it has been criticized by members of both parties as being a flawed way of paying doctors. Without Congressional action, doctors could face a 21 percent pay cut, for treating Medicare patients after March 31st.
The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 sailed through the House on a 392-37 vote, with Republican Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, working in rare cooperation to pass the bill through the House. 212 Republicans and 180 Democrats supported the bill, with 33 Republicans and 4 Democrats voting against the bill for various reasons.
Most of the Republican opponents of the bill objected to the 214 billion price tag over ten years. Some of the costs of the measure will be offset by raising premiums and prescription drug costs, for high-income Medicare recipients.
Some liberal groups also found fault with provisions of the bill. While the bill approves more funding for community health centers, that funding cannot be used to provide abortion services. In addition, the Republicans agreed to extend funding for CHIP for two years, instead of the four years Democrats had hoped for.
Nevertheless, nearly every Democrat in the House, including progressive leaders like Keith Ellison, Alan Grayson, John Lewis, Mark Takano and Jackie Speier, voted for the bill. With the Republican-controlled U.S. House usually being so dysfunctional that nothing positive can be accomplished, liberals and moderates seized upon the GOP’s willingness to compromise, by steering the significant piece of legislation through the chamber, against only muted opposition.
President Obama has already voiced his support for the bill, and he is likely to sign it into law should it pass the U.S. Senate and reach his desk. While the bill, like any compromise piece of legislation, is far from perfect, it does address a long overdue reform that was needed in calculating Medicare reimbursements, and it does provide needed funding for community health centers and children’s health. More importantly for the legislative process, it also demonstrated that at least for one surreal day, Washington wasn’t broken. The U.S. House was actually able to govern. For one day, anyway.

President Obama Vows To Veto Any Republican Bill That Unravels Wall Street Reform

president obama speaks in Birmingham, AL
President Obama issued his most direct threat to veto the Republican budget while speaking in Birmingham, AL. The President warned Congressional Republicans that he would veto any bill that unravels Wall Street reform.
The President discussed how the CFPB is cracking down on payday lenders, and then dropped his veto threat on Republicans.
The President said:
This is just one more way that Wall Street reform, what we passed five years ago, is protecting working families and taxpayers, and that strengthens the economy, and that’s one more why it makes no sense that the Republican budget would make it harder for the CFPB to do its job. And would allow Wall Street to go back to the kind of recklessness that led to the crisis in the first place, and would allow these kinds of lenders who are not doing the right thing to keep at it.
I have to be clear. If Republicans in Congress send me a bill that unravels the reforms we put in place, if they send me a bill that unravels Wall Street reform, I will veto it.
This is not about politics. It’s is about basic values of honesty and fair play. It’s about the basic bargain that says here in America hard work should pay off and responsibility should be rewarded.
Republicans are trying to gut the CFPB and Wall Street reform through their budget. Congressional Republicans are trying to strip the CFPB of its regulatory power, and hand that oversight over to the Republicans in Congress. This was the most direct statement yet that the President is considering vetoing the Republican budget.
There are numerous reasons why President Obama could, and some would argue, should veto the budget. However, Obama went a step beyond the budget. He said that if Republicans send him a bill, which could mean any bill, which unravels Wall Street reform, he will veto it. Senate Democrats will have the President’s back by sustaining any Obama veto of a bill, budget or otherwise, that targets Wall Street reform.
The last card that Mitch McConnell and John Boehner had left to play was the budget. If Congressional Republicans can’t get their agenda enacted through the budgetary process, they will be left with a choice of moving to the middle or passing nothing.
President Obama made it clear in Birmingham that Congressional Republicans aren’t going to get their way.

Long Dead Economist’s Theories Proven Right

Long Dead Economist’s Theories Proven Right – Free Market Advocates The New Utopians In 1944, Karl Polanyi published what became his most notable work, The Great Transformation. Now, 50 years after his death, his work is being re-analyzed...

Oh Look, Turns Out A Strong Welfare State Produces More Entrepreneurs

Oh Look, Turns Out A Strong Welfare State Produces More Entrepreneurs
Why is this a shock to anyone?
Entrepreneurs

Republican moron seeks to save us from coins

From the "Really Screwy Priorities" Department:
Republican moron seeks to protect America from fancy, European-style dollar coins

Obama White House Shreds The Republican Senate Budget That McConnell Passed

obama veto 40 hour work week
The White House is sending the message to McConnell (R-KY) that the Republican budget he just passed will be rejected by President Obama unless serious changes are made.
In a statement, Press Secretary Josh Earnest said:

Following in the footsteps of their House colleagues, Senate Republicans today voted in favor of a budget that relies on top-down economics and gimmicks. The Senate Republican budget refuses to ask the wealthy to contribute a single dollar to deficit reduction, putting the entire burden on the middle-class, seniors, low-income children and families, and national security. Senate Republicans voted in favor of locking in draconian sequestration cuts to investments in the middle class like education, job training and manufacturing and also failed to responsibly fund our national security, opting instead for budget gimmicks, an approach that now faces procedural hurdles put in place by their own party.

Meanwhile, the President has a plan to bring middle class economics into the 21st Century. The President’s Budget builds on the progress we’ve made and shows what we can do if we invest in America’s future, and end sequestration, by cutting inefficient spending and reforming our broken tax code to make sure everyone pays their fair share. It lays out a strategy to strengthen our middle class with investments in research, education, training, and infrastructure, while also fulfilling our most basic responsibility to keep Americans safe.

In 2013 Republicans came to the negotiating table and ultimately chose the responsible path by supporting the Murray-Ryan agreement, which reversed harmful sequestration cuts to both defense and non-defense equally, dollar for dollar. Last night, Senators from both parties came together to call for building on that approach this year and to support paying for sequester relief with both spending and tax reforms. The President has been clear that he will not accept a budget that locks in sequestration or one that increases funding for our national security without providing matching increases in funding for our economic security. The Administration will continue to abide by these principles moving forward.
The tone of the White House statement makes it clear that if Republicans stick to their guns and give the President a budget like the ones that passed the House and Senate, Obama will veto it. By making reference to 2013 and the Ryan-Murray agreement, the White House is suggesting that McConnell and Boehner are not going to be allowed to ram their agenda down the throats of the American people via the budget process.
The Republican budgets rely on the gimmick of keeping the savings generated by the Affordable Care Act while promising to repeal “Obamacare.” The House and Senate budgets are nothing more than Republican wishlists and dream journals that should never become law.
President Obama is isn’t going to sign the Republican budget unless some serious changes are made. Without changes, the prospect of a presidential veto is growing by the day.



The Republican 'Budget' is a Dead On Arrival Joke

Senate passes Republican budget with deep safety net cuts

The Republican Budget: Every Tax Loophole Is Sacred

The wealthier you are and the more you care about yourself over your neighbor or your country, the more you'll like this Republican budget. It achieves balance entirely on the backs of middle-class families and our most vulnerable citizens, without asking billionaires or big corporations to pay -- forget a fair share -- one penny more toward our nation's prosperity.

As Religious Tyranny Arrives, Religious Freedom Lovers Flee Indiana

Indiana is the latest state to proclaim religious tyranny, and the reaction (no NCAA?) is anything but what Hoosier bigots expected…
mike-pence2
Hobby Lobby-style religious discrimination has come to the Hoosier State, and Billy Graham’s son, Franklin Graham, has let the cat out of the bag about the purpose of Indiana’s religious tyranny bill, posting on Facebook on March 25 that,
Indiana’s got the right idea! The Indiana House voted this week to approve a religious freedom bill that would protect business owners who want to decline to provide services for same-sex marriages. After the 63 to 31 House vote in approval of the legislation, The Washington Post says Governor Mike Pence plans to sign it as soon as it lands on his desk. Thanks to those in government who are standing up for the freedom and protection of Christians to live out their faith. I hope more states will be quick to follow suit.
Indiana has landed itself in a boatload of trouble with their new bill, the so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, which doesn’t restore religious freedom, but does create religious tyranny.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence says this is all a big “misunderstanding.” Less eloquently and far less convincingly than George Washington defending the Constitution in his letter to the united baptist cults in Virginia, Pence says “This bill is not about discrimination, and if I thought it legalized discrimination I would have vetoed it.”
But Pence knows it is religious discrimination. And that is why he signed it. Listen to Pence try to sell the idea that freedom is tyranny and tyranny is freedom:
This bill was supposed to be a big deal for Indiana bigots. The idea that icky people they don’t like are equal to them is something they can’t tolerate, and now they won’t have to. Red State, the political rag that represents moochers and economic parasites, actually said yesterday,
It is really a freakin shame when the nation has deteriorated to the point where it is a) necessary to pass a law guaranteeing free exercise of religion and b) where it is controversial to do so.
That would be true if, a) the RFRA guaranteed the free exercise of religion and, b) it was necessary to do so. That’s already covered by the United States Constitution.
Such was the immediate outrage sparked by this new law from far and wide, including the National College Athletic Association (NCAA), the yearly gaming convention GenCon, the mainline Protestant denomination, the Disciples of christ, and technology giant Salesforce, that Indiana has set businesses and organizations looking for places where actual religious freedom reigns (and those probably won’t be red states, Red State).
NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a statement,
The NCAA national office and our members are deeply committed to providing an inclusive environment for all our events. We are especially concerned about how this legislation could affect our student-athletes and employees.
“We will work diligently to assure student-athletes competing in, and visitors attending, next week’s men’s Final Four in Indianapolis are not impacted negatively by this bill.
Moving forward, we intend to closely examine the implications of this bill and how it might affect future events as well as our workforce.
This is huge in a state so closely associated with college basketball as Indiana.
Adrian Swartout, owner and CEO of Gen Con LLC, sent a letter to Pence in the wake of the bill being sent to the governor for signing, writing that,
Legislation that could allow for refusal of service or discrimination against our attendees will have a direct negative impact on the state’s economy, and will factor into our decision-making on hosting the convention in the state of Indiana in future years.
According to Swartout, that’s an economic impact of $50 million a year (added to the $5.9 million impact of the Disciples of Christ) heading somewhere everybody gets treated like a human being. A place with actual religious freedom. In other words, one of the 30 states without laws like the RFRA.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff went on the Twitter warpath in response to the RFRA, tweeting:
Later, he tweeted, showing he’s serious:
And he continued to tweet:
While it’s doubtful the NFL will listen to Keith Olbermann of all people, he did score a solid extra point when he tweeted,
This medieval measure was supposed to be a moment of triumph for bigots throughout Indiana, for men and women who hate Jews, who hate Muslims and atheists and gays and lesbians and transgenders. Instead, Governor Mike Spence slunk away and signed it in private like the shameful act it was.
You see, an actual religious freedom bill has to protect all people. Indiana’s RFRA, by Graham’s own admission, only protects the rights of fake christians like him to persecute everybody they don’t like.
I can think of a very prominent episode when it was legal to refuse to serve Jews: Nazi Germany. Stay classy, Indiana.
The RFRA is religious tyranny, the act of one religion saying it’s better than all others and deciding it will get to make all the rules for everybody else, regardless of their own beliefs. That’s pretty much the history of christianity for the better part of the last 2000 years. People came to this country to get away from that.
We were bequeathed a secular Constitution to protect us from religious tyranny. The RFRA is the very thing the Founding Fathers were trying to prevent when they wrote Article VI, paragraph 3 of the Constitution, and later, the First Amendment.
Like Mike Pence and Republicans everywhere, Graham doesn’t get that. He doesn’t “get” America at all. On March 23 he posted something that says more about his skewed views than about the people he hates:
One of the greatest threats to America is the progressives (a new name for liberals) led by President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder who are trying to impose a new morality—which is really no morality at all—jamming it down the throats of the American people. America has been blessed by dog more than any nation on the face of this earth. When our country was birthed, its foundations and laws were based on biblical laws and principles. We used to be “one nation under dog,” now we’re a nation that has turned its back on God. History shows that when nations do this, their end is near.
Miley Cyrus may have said it best, when she said Mike Pence is an “asshole,” posting on Instagram:
You’re an asshole @govpenceIN -1 cc: the only place that has more idiots tha[n] Instagram is in politics.
And as a little correction to Franklin Graham, we were one nation under dog only since 1954. Before we became “one nation under dog,” we were just “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
For all. Not just fake christians who need an excuse to persecute minorities.
Graham, Pence, and their ilk, don’t understand their own bibles, the U.S. Constitution, or American history.
I have an idea: Maybe Republicans should be required to pass a citizenship test. I bet Franklin Graham and Mike Pence would fail. But I bet they could find gainful employment in a terrorist organization somewhere.

#BoycottIndiana: Big Names React To Passage Of Anti-LGBT ‘Religious Freedom’ Bill

Republican Solicits Obamacare “Horror Stories” But Gets Bombarded With Positive ACA Testimonials

Cathy McMorris Rodgers solicited Obamacare "horror stories" on Facebook, but instead got bombarded with positive ACA testimonials.…

Arizona Law Would Force Doctors to Say They Can Reverse Abortions

taking medicine
The Arizona Senate passed a bill Wednesday that prevents women from buying insurance that provides coverage for abortion through the federal health care exchange. Not only was this…

Wingnut Judge Blocks Obama from Giving New Federal Rights to Same-Sex Couples

gay familyThe wingnut backlash against a recent surge of gay rights continues: a federal judge has blocked same-sex couples living in states where same-sex marriage is not legal from…

A Lot Of Wingnuts Have Egghead Envy

A Lot Of Right-Wingers Have Egghead Envy
They are jealous of intelligent people because intelligent people have something they don't ... intelligence!

Jon Stewart Compares Fox To An 18-Year-Old 'Jerking Themselves Off'

“The great thing is, I get it now. Your network launched in 1996, you’re 18 years old,” he said. “Just like every 18-year-old, you have a massive ego and spend 24 hours a day jerking yourself off.”

Fox News Hack Says Healthy School Lunches Cause Mental Problems, Eating Disorders

From the "Things Idiots Say" Department:
Fox News Host Says Healthy School Lunches Cause Mental Problems, Eating Disorders (VIDEO) The revised New York City Board of Health guidelines are giving Fox hosts plenty of opportunities to make absolutely no sense.

If Monsanto’s Roundup is Safe Why Won’t Their Lobbyist Drink It?

monsantoFrom the "Public Enemies" Department:

In annual polls of the most-hated companies, year after year Monsanto usually ranks pretty high. That didn’t happen without a lot of work. Last Friday, the World Health…