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Wednesday, May 20, 2015

The Daily Drift

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15 Differences Between Democrats And Republicans

by Jeff
Democrats and Republicans - 15 big differences between them.
I’ve noticed over the years, there are some fundamental differences in the way Republican and Democratic politicians think. Here are just 15 examples.
Still think there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans?
I’ve noticed over the years, there are some fundamental differences in the way Republican and Democratic politicians think. Here are just 15 examples.
(1) Republicans fear that the government has too much control over corporations. Democrats fear that corporations have too much control over our government.
(2) Democrats believe it benefits all of us to help the weakest and the poorest among us. Republicans believe it benefits all of us to help the wealthiest and most powerful among us.
(3) Republicans believe large corporations will always do what is best for the American people if the government stays out of the way. Democrats believe large corporations would disembowel you and sell your organs to the highest bidder if the government didn’t stop them.
(4) Democrats believe everyone is entitled to health care regardless of their ability to pay. Republicans believe everyone is entitled to jack squat if they can’t pay for health care.
(5) Democrats believe too much of our money goes to crooked corporate executives who take government subsidies and pay themselves $80 million salaries. Republicans believe too much of our money goes to teachers who make $30,000 a year.
(6) Democrats believe anything that helps the American people during a recession or a time of crisis is the true essence of patriotism. Republicans believe anything that helps the American people during a recession or a time of crisis is the true essence of communism.
(7) Democrats believe that we need to set high standards for clean air and drinking water. Republicans believe that standards for clean air and water are burdensome over-regulation.
(8) Democrats believe the President and Congress need to work together to create jobs during a weak economy. Republicans believe that Congress should do nothing to create jobs and then blame the President.
(9) Democrats believe that corporate polluters should be made to pay for the cleanup of their pollution. Republicans believe that making corporations clean up their pollution is burdensome over-regulation.
(10) Democrats believe our health care system exists solely for the purpose of making people healthy. Republicans believe our health care system exists solely for the purpose of making a healthy profit.
(11) Democrats believe Congress should be of the people, by the people and for the people. Republicans believe corporations are the people.
(12) Democrats believe that corporations have too much influence over Congress due to their lobbyists and huge campaign contributions. Republicans believe the middle class has too much influence over Congress due to their voting and paying taxes.
(13) Democrats believe we need to protect victims of corporate negligence by allowing Americans to file lawsuits against corporations. Republicans believe we need to protect large corporations from lawsuits by Americans who’ve been victimized by them.
(14) Democrats believe that the rich should be taxed more than the poor and middle class. Republicans believe that the rich should be allowed to keep all their wealth, except for the millions in campaign contributions they give to politicians.
(15) Democrats believe that too much money in politics produces corruption and destroys the American way of life. Republicans believe that money and corruption in politics are the American way of life.
These are just my observations from a lifetime of watching Democratic and Republican politicians.

Bernie Sanders Turns The Tables On The Republican Plan To Cut Financial Aid For Students

bernie sanders abc this week
In contrast to the Republican plan to cut financial aid and make college more expensive for students, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is set to propose legislation that would give students free tuition at four-year public colleges and universities.
The Republican budget would end mandatory funding for Pell grants, the end of the in-school subsidy on Stafford loans, and the budget would also end income-based student loan repayment programs.
Sen. Sanders is going in the opposite direction.
In a statement, Sen. Sanders said:
We live in a highly competitive global economy and, if our economy is to be strong, we need the best-educated workforce in the world. That will not happen if, every year, hundreds of thousands of bright young people cannot afford to go to college, and if millions more leave school deeply in debt.
Countries like Germany, Denmark, Sweden and many more are providing free or inexpensive higher education for their young people. They understand how important it is to be investing in their youth. We should be doing the same.
We used to lead the world in the percentage of our people who graduated college. Today we are in 12th place. We used to have great universities tuition free. Today they are unaffordable. I want a more educated workforce. I want everybody to be able to get a higher education regardless of their income.
Republicans are trying to make higher education less affordable. Their goal is to give people one less avenue for economic advancement. Sanders was correct. If the United States hopes to regain its status as the land of opportunity, a key piece to the puzzle is affordable higher education.
It is a tense time for students who are just graduating or still in school. The Republican-controlled Congress has targeted programs that aid students by making college more affordable for budget cuts. Sen. Sanders is making the line between the left and right clear. Democrats and the left are fighting to expand educational opportunities.
The contest on the left is a competition to see who can deliver a plan that will make college affordable for the most people. Republicans try to avoid any discussion of their plans by burying their cuts deep in their budget.
Bernie Sanders is shining a light on those plans while setting a new bar for the left for making college more affordable.

Bernie Sanders wants to make college free — and he’s going to tax the rich to pay for it

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks to CNN on Oct. 12, 2014.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will introduce a bill on Tuesday that would eliminate tuition for college undergraduate students through the use of a “Robin Hood tax.”

Wingnut Cabal Fails To End Criminal Probe Into Scott Walker

The case now goes to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which has serious conflicts of interests in the case.

Christie Describes Government Surveillance If He Were Pretender


Christie criticized “civil liberties extremists” who have been skeptical of the federal government’s intelligence collection programs.

Here are the 8 dumbest presidential campaign blunders in modern political history

Rick Perry speaks to CNN
Candidates like Rick Perry, Gerald Ford and Dan Quayle prove there's no IQ test when it comes to running for president or veep.

President Obama Finally Has A Personal Twitter Account, And It’s The Best Thing Ever

President Obama Finally Has A Personal Twitter Account, And It’s The Best Thing Ever (TWEET)
Barack Obama finally has a REAL, LIVE personal twitter account. What kinds of unfiltered tweets would you like to seem from POTUS?

Wingnuts Go FULL RACIST On POTUS Twitter Account

‘Welcome To Twitter, N*gger': Righties Go FULL RACIST On POTUS Twitter Account (TWEETS) Well, President Obama finally has his own twitter account, and wingnuts didn’t waste any time showing just how racist they really are. While...

A White Man And A Black Man Open Carry An AR 15: Guess Who Gets Arrested?

A White Man And A Black Man Open Carry An AR 15: Guess Who Gets Arrested? (VIDEO)
On May 6,  a white man and a black man conducted a high-risk experiment. The two pro-gun, open carry supporters walked the streets of their neighborhoods with the exact same type of gun — an AR 15 — slung over their backs. They both live in places where it’s legal to open carry, and they both got stopped by police.
That’s where their similarities end. It’s awfully strange how the NRA-sponsored GOP loves open carry — and law enforcement tolerates it — but not when black people do it.
The two men each went on their open carry strolls as someone followed with a video camera. The videos — which they spliced together and shared on Live Leak — show encounters with police that are disturbingly different.
The video first shows the white man — who hails from the state of Oregon and posts lots of YouTube videos of his open carry adventures under his Marked Guardian handle — getting approached by a cop. The police officer clearly dislikes the AR 15, demands Marked Guardian’s I.D., and asks a few questions. Marked Guardian refuses to give the officer his ID, explaining that open carry is perfectly legal in their state. And that’s it.
If you search “Open Carry” on YouTube, you’ll see oodles of tense but ultimately peaceful interactions like this, because these mostly white people often record their walks and their interactions with police. What we don’t see as often is what happens to black people who open carry.
The video switches over to the black man sauntering down the street with his perfectly legal AR 15. When the police come, they don’t bother asking him any questions, they just pull out their guns and order him to drop his weapon and lie prone on the ground or they’ll shoot.  Who cares if open carry’s legal, they’ll arrest him anyway. Seconds later, there are two police cars and three cops with guns drawn as the fourth takes the black man into custody.
Now, this writer harbors a strong revulsion towards the open carry movement and guns in general. Nonetheless, this black man was open carrying an AR 15, which is LEGAL in his state and which he was not pointing at anyone or waving around threateningly or doing anything different than what the white man was doing. Yet the cops threatened him with their guns, forced him to the ground, called another squad car for help, and then illegally arrested him.
There’s something seriously wrong with open carry being legal, but there’s something even more seriously wrong with black open carry activists getting abused and detained illegally while their white counterparts walk away Scot-free.
Watching this video is almost enough to make you wonder whether open carry is justified in some communities, and that’s a scary thing. You’d think that communities of color would have more reason to fear police and embrace open carry than white folks, but try explaining that to a bunch of paranoid white tea baggers.
This is not the first time cops discriminated against black open carry activists.
White liberal folks (including this writer) love to tar the open carry movement with the viscous brush of racism, but in some cases, it’s more complicated than that. Last September Hell’s Saints, a mixed-race open carry group from Michigan, raised a hullabaloo after a black member got arrested for open carrying in Detroit. Naturally, he was the only one who got arrested. At the time, this writer was unable to get the standard police report information because Detroit’s GOP-run “Emergency Manager” has privatized all the record-keeping and not only requires a fee (which this writer would have paid), but requires you to come to the Detroit Police Dept.’s main office in person.
Here’s the video with the sharp and disturbing contrast between the white and the black open carry activists’ encounters with police in Oregon — a state in which open carry is perfectly legal.
Note: This experiment is not exactly scientific, as some commenters have pointed out. The incidents shown happened in different locations, and others pointed out that the position of the black man’s AR 15, slung alongside his hip instead of over his back, may have provoked the police officer. Still, given what we see in the news headlines every day, it is hard to see how an encounter between police and a black man open carrying could have ended any differently than this.
Correction notice: An earlier version of this post lumped law enforcement in with the “NRA-sponsored GOP” that “loves “open carry. Obviously, that is not true. Anyone who has watched the numerous open carry videos showing confrontations with police (as this writer has) knows that people in law enforcement do not seem fond of open carry at all, though they are forced by law to tolerate it. In February, the Dallas News reported that a survey of 200 police officers in Texas — ground zero for the open carry movement — revealed that 75 percent oppose open carry. This writer regrets the error.

CNN Busts Fox News For Lying About President Obama’s Remarks On Poverty

obama-cnn
CNN called out a major lie of omission that Fox News tried to pull off by editing out key comments from remarks made by President Obama.
After playing a clip of Fox News’ outrage, Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter showed viewers what Fox News left out.
STELTER: Here’s what almost everybody missed about the panel discussion. The president was talking about what he called a 40-year effort to stir up class divisions. FOX, of course, has only been around 15 years. Let’s go back to the original video, but let’s let it keep playing, so Obama finishes his thought.

FOX only played this part of the clip once. It was in a news report by Howie Kurtz. Notice that Obama is talking about the whole news media’s responsibility to make sure the middle class and poor Americans know — I’m sorry — what middle class and rich Americans know what it’s like to be poor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: And that becomes an entire narrative, right, that gets worked up. And very rarely do you hear an interview of a waitress, which is much more typical, who’s raising a couple of kids and is doing everything right, but still can’t pay the bills.
And so if we’re going to change how John Boehner and Mitch McConnell think, we’re going to have to change how our body politic thinks, which means we’re going to have to change how the media reports on these issues and how people’s impressions of what it’s like to struggle in this economy looks like and how budgets connect to that.
And that’s a — it’s a hard process, because that requires a much broader conversation than typically we have on the nightly news.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STELTER: He called for a broader conversation, but FOX ended up having a very small conversation.

Anyway, that’s “Red News/Blue News” for this week.
It would be nice to think that the media is finally catching on to Fox News’ selective editing tricks, but outside of the cable news competition at CNN and MSNBC, most of the mainstream press doesn’t bother to call out their lies.
If more members of the media would stand up to the Fox News propaganda machine, not only would the news be more trustworthy, viewers would be better informed. The bulk of the press is terrified of Fox News, so they will never directly criticize, debunk, or call out the Republican talking point network.
Brian Stelter of CNN took a few minutes of his show to debunk a major Fox News lie of omission, and if more members of his profession did the same, the Fox News blight could be removed from journalism.

The Real Reason Republicans Hate Welfare And Food Stamps

by Ben Madison
These days, it seems that the majority of wingnuts tend to view the world through a very simplistic scope that allows little room for discussion, interpretation, or compromise. We have reached a point where any questioning of unregulated capitalism automatically gets you labeled as a socialist, communist, Marxist, or Fascist because those are all interchangeable right?
When President Obama became the Democratic nominee in 2008, conservatives unleashed a vicious tornado of attacks labeling him a Kenyan born dictator who supported redistribution of wealth, taking from those who have, and giving it to those who do not. They were right about part of that. He does believe in redistribution of wealth but guess what? So do most Americans.
If your children go to a public school, if your streets are patrolled by the city or county law enforcement, if your garbage is picked up by city workers, if you have ever dialed 911, if you or anyone in your family has worked in the public sector, if you’ve ever claimed deductions on your taxes, and if you’ve ever driven on a public road, not only have you condoned redistribution, you have supported it.
The modern day wingnuts are led to believe that all government is bad, and that they don’t need government in their everyday lives. We have reached a point of insanity where an average Joe making 30,000 a year drives on a public road, to drop his kids off at a public school, all while listening to wingnut hate speech radio tell him how evil every aspect of government is. This disconnect from reality is unreal.
The truth is, many of the services that Americans rely on are rooted in redistribution. Social Security, Medicaid, public safety services, and emergency services are just a few of the redistributive services that all Americans enjoy, while never even realizing that they are a form of democratic socialism.
Why then do wingnut Americans freak out when a family needs food stamps to eat, or when a young mother needs WIC, or TANF to survive? The answer is racism.
I’ve had friends over the years that took advantage of public assistance services for their families such as WIC or Food stamps. The truth of the matter was, they really didn’t need them, but in their minds, they earned the right to use these public services since they worked and paid taxes. The problem was, they were all white, and they all shared a disdain for minorities that receive public assistance. You see, when white people use public assistance, they are getting back what they’ve paid in – but when black people or other minorities use public assistance, they are lazy and entitled. Sadly, that’s how wingnuts think.
The Republican Party has done a wonderful job of getting everyday, white Americans to look down upon, and demonize minorities for doing the same thing that they do, all while being oblivious to the fact that they are being robbed blind by the billionaires behind the Republican party money machine. In the South, there is an understood but subtle racism among many white people that is rarely talked about, but always present. Just delve into any comment section of a local news story on virtually any city in a southern state that involves the subject of an African American, and those dog whistles turn into sirens very quickly.
You see, it all goes back to looking at a very complex world through a very simplistic lens. It doesn’t work. Modern day wingnuts truly believe that everyone is given the same exact opportunity to succeed regardless of their race or where they come from, and that is just not true. Study upon study proves that African Americans and minorities have a much harder path to success than their white counterparts, yet when they look to take advantage of the same public assistance services that many white people enjoy, they are demonized, they are called lazy freeloaders, they are made into the punch lines of jokes, and they are ridiculed beyond belief – all because of an obvious double standard that is rooted in white privilege.

Kansas Republicans Attempt To Set $25 ATM Limit For Poor Backfires; May Cost State $100 Million

Kansas Republicans Attempt To Set $25 ATM Limit For Poor Backfires; May Cost State $100 Million
Brownback’s fanatical war on the poor backfires yet again, this time to the tune of $100 million. How much longer will Kansas voters keep supporting him?

How Ronald Reagan Started The Hysteria Against Obamacare

How Ronald Reagan Started The Hysteria Against Obamacare (AUDIO)
Reagan, not Obama, is why we don’t have single payer.
Read more

This Republican wants doctors to narc on pregnant women they suspect of using drugs — without any proof

State Representative Mack Butler (R-AL) (screenshot/backmack.com)
Mack Butler (R-AL) introduced legislation this week requiring medical professionals to notify police within two hours if they suspect a pregnant woman of having consumed illegal substances — regardless of whether she tests positive for drugs or not.

Republican To Ex-Cons On SNAP: You Made A Mistake, Your Kids Should Starve

Wyoming Republicans Ban Scientists From Reporting Water Pollution At Request of Cattle Lobby

According to the State of Wyoming, ignorance is a civic virtue and investigation and free thought a crime. The state’s conservative government has pulled ahead of the pack in the Republican-led campaign against science when Governor Matt Mead (R) signed into law a bill that criminalizes collecting information about the state of the environment “with the intent” to share it with the state or federal government.The law is incredibly broad in scope, making it a crime to “collect resource data” or “preserve information in any form” from any “open land,” whether publicly or privately owned. Thus it is now a crime in Wyoming to engage in any form of citizen science – even taking a photograph of the environment – if it is shared with government in any way. Coming hot on the heels of efforts in Wisconsin and Florida to ban any research into or even discussion of climate change, the new Wyoming law is only the latest and most extreme example of a wide-reaching Republican crusade against science and knowledge.
From where, however, did Wyoming’s Republican overlords get the idea that citizens taking pictures of the state’s natural beauty were a threat? The answer, as is so often the case with abusive and totalitarian laws, is big business and lobbying groups. And in Wyoming, where cattle ranching is a multi-billion dollar industry, big business means Big Cattle.
The problem for Big Cattle is that not only has overgrazing led to land degradation throughout the state, but inadequate regulation has led to pollution of numerous Wyoming streams and rivers with a dangerous and potentially-fatal strand of the E. coli bacteria, which is found largely in cow excrement.
The Western Watersheds Project and several recent studies have confirmed the presence of E. coli concentrations in Wyoming waterways far in excess of what is considered safe, and have of course traced the source to cattle ranchers. The sensible solution would be to implement regulations and controls to assure that ranchers manage their herds properly, but Wyoming and its Big Cattle business would rather pretend the problem doesn’t exist to maintain their bottom lines.
The Wyoming Stock Grower’s Association, a cattle ranching lobby that is one of the most influential groups in the state and once launched a war on the state government, took its case to Cheyene. And, sure enough, the Republican-dominated government quickly bowed before the interests of big agribusiness, even if that meant contaminating the environment and endangering public safety.
Wyoming is not the first state to prioritize its big agriculture over decency and democracy – Idaho made it a crime to film animal abuse last year – but the scope of the new law, and all the ways it violates the Constitution Republican’s claim to swear by, is unprecedented. First of all, the new law is a blatant violation of the supremacy clause, which states that federal laws are the highest laws in the land.
A certain federal law called the Clean Water Act mandates that efforts be made to reduce contamination in surface water and encourages citizens to share information about unsafe conditions with their government, the latter of which is now punishable in Wyoming by a $1,000 fine and a year in prison. More fundamentally, the law makes a mockery of the First Amendment, not only criminalizing certain forms of speech and expression that are inconvenient to cattle ranchers, but also removing citizens’ right to petition and present information to their government.
It is an increasing trend among Republicans to ignore science when it doesn’t support their world view (which is almost all of the time) and to pretend that problems don’t exist if fixing them would be inconvenient. The new Wyoming law breaks new ground in this field by literally making it impossible to bring any case against the dangerous polluting cattle herders. According to the law, “no resource or data collected in violation of this section is admissible in any civil, criminal, or administrative proceeding” and such data “shall not be used in determining any agency action.”
There is clearly something drastically wrong in America when willed ignorance at the expense of public safety is the norm in Republican states nationwide and the Big Cow Manure lobby can determine state environmental policy.

The catholic cult Won’t Sack Child Abusers, But Fires Priest For Gay-Friendly Facebook Post

The Catholic Church Won’t Sack Child Abusers, But Fires Priest For Gay-Friendly Facebook Post (IMAGE) Truly a dismal state of affairs for a cult which claims moral authority across the globe.

No Charges For Pastor Who Raped Mentally Disabled Woman, Thanks To Louisiana Law

Featured image credit: video screen capture, WBRZ in Baton RougeThanks to Louisiana’s ‘it’s not rape if she doesn’t resist’ law, a pastor can’t be charged for having sex with a 20-year-old woman, even though she has the mental capacity of a seven-year-old child.

White christian Former Congressional Candidate Arrested For Massive Plot To Kill muslims

White Christian Former Congressional Candidate Arrested For Massive Plot To Kill Muslims (VIDEO)
This is terrorism, but  because Doggart is a white christian, law enforcement isn’t calling it terrorism.