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Thursday, May 28, 2015

The Daily Drift

Hey, wingnuts, yeah we're talking to you ...!  
 
The Truth Be Told is read in 203 countries around the world.
 
Republicans do not care for the environment ... !
Today is - Sierra Club Day
 
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The Big Banks Are Corrupt ...

The Big Banks Are Corrupt – And Getting Worse
Our financial system is not merely corrupt in practice. It is corrupt by design.

Top Reagan Staffer: Fox Is A ‘Self-Brainwashing Bubble’ That’s Destroying The Republicans

From the "You say that like it's a bad thing" Department:
Photo with Bruce Bartlett and Brian Stelter on CNN: Photo: Composite with screen grab/CNN, soap bubbles/ImgBuddy, Brain _DJ_/Flickr, TV/Pixabay. We know Fox creates a ‘self-brainwashing bubble’ for fact-averse wingnuts…But Bruce Bartlett’s the last person we’d expect to say it.

The shrub Ranks Above Stalin And Genghis Khan In World’s Most Hated People

George Bush Ranks Above Stalin And Genghis Khan In World’s Most Hated People
Do you agree with this?
Read more 
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People were really generous with this ranking

Wingnut Sheriff Demands You Pay His Bills

White Supremacist Disrupts 'Black Lives Matter' Press Conference

White Supremacist Disrupts 'Black Lives Matter' Press Conference (Video)
White supremacists hate it when the brown people speak.
White Supremacist Disrupts 'Black Lives Matter' Press Conference
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OK, so now we'll hear all about the times when blacks have disrupted whites over the years. Yes, it has happened and it was just as wrong then as it was wrong in this case - rude is never acceptable regardless of the 'color' of the skin

Koch-Republicans Remember Soldiers’ Sacrifice With A Veterans Healthcare Coupon Scam

On Memorial Day, besides celebrating the unofficial start of Summer vacation, Americans are supposed to remember the ultimate sacrifice made by the men and women that served in the nation’s armed services. What is often overlooked is the sacrifice made by those who served their country, survived, and were fortunate to make it back home to what is increasingly an ungrateful Republican Party. Republicans, by the way, that are Hell-bent and duty-bound to Israel to send more Americans to fight and die in the Middle East according to a twisted ideology that there is never a time America should be at peace.
When George W. Bush committed crimes to take America into an unnecessary war of aggression against a Muslim nation at Israel’s behest, any opposition to putting America’s brave soldiers in harm’s way was condemned as “not supporting the troops.” What has been an increasing revelation since the start of the Iraq War was that Republican support for the troops comes to a screeching halt the second service men and women are mustered out of the military. Since Barack Obama has been in office, Republicans have predictably blocked each and every Democratic attempt to increase funding for Veteran’s services whether it is better access to healthcare or providing assistance to find living-wage jobs.
In the 2012 general election, Republican presidential candidate Willard Romney floated an idea favored by the Koch brothers of giving America’s Veterans a limited dollar amount coupon to get healthcare privately they received for free through the Veterans Administration. Now, another Republican, Jeb Bush, is the first GOP presidential candidate thus far to propose that the best way to show appreciation to America’s Veterans is the Koch brothers’ plan to privatize the VA and issue a set dollar-amount coupon to be redeemed at private hospitals, private doctors’ offices, or health insurance carriers.
Bush said, “I know it has a pejorative for some, but I’m all in on the voucher thing … empowering people with the equivalent of a voucher that gives you the same economic benefit of receiving care inside of a clinic or a hospital.” Like all Republicans, Jeb Bush is a rank liar and obviously indebted to serving the interests of the Koch brothers. This is not Bush’s first foray into the coupon-care proposition for Veterans, one that began back in February at the direction of the Koch-funded group, Concerned Veterans for America.
The Koch group began seriously pushing its Republican lackeys to create a “premium-support private insurance option” for Veterans healthcare services when drastically underfunded VA hospital could not provide timely services to Veterans. The privatization scam amounts to a yearly-issued, and set amount, coupon to purchase healthcare services at a private hospital or doctor’s office, or use as a discount card to purchase a private insurance policy.
There are two specific reasons Republicans and the Kochs want to issue what amounts to a discount coupon to Veterans to use for healthcare. One is because the Kochs see a prime opportunity to make more money from the nation’s Veterans, and two; it is an easy means of eliminating part of the federal government they hate with religious conviction. It is noteworthy that the cost-effective, highly-successful, and wildly popular Veterans healthcare system is the only completely socialized part of the federal government and the Koch-Republicans want it eliminated immediately. That they deprive Veterans of quality healthcare is a value-added bonus only Republicans that hate troops once they are finished serving can celebrate.
While Republicans envision punishing over 8 million veterans enrolled to receive a wide range of services through the VA with a coupon and higher out-of-pocket expenses, the Kochs see potential profits from privateers. Privatization means corporations will profit from the annual “89.7 million outpatient visits” and over “236,000 health care appointments per day” of Veterans at no charge because they served their country and survived. 
The Koch goal, like all GOP privatization scams is leaving over 8 million veterans, tens-of-thousands with combat-related injuries, without coverage or services; it is the how the GOP supports the troops after they send them to fight unnecessary wars of aggression.
Private hospitals, community clinics, and private doctors cannot match Veterans health centers’ provided services because they are not uniquely equipped to deal with specialized care for combat-related injuries like amputations, psychological disorders, and traumatic brain injuries. However, Republicans or the Kochs are not the least bit concerned with offering care to Veterans. Not when they can provide a coupon for Koch profit and privatization for Koch’s libertarian ideology; Veteran’s health and welfare has never entered into the equation. The Veteran’s coupon scam is sponsored and heavily promoted by the “special interest Koch lobby” Concerned Veterans For (Koch’s) America that betrays its ‘concern’ for America’s Veterans by pushing privatization. Privatization that real Veteran’s advocacy groups such as AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars are all adamantly opposed to because they believe Veteran’s deserve more than being subjected to a pathetic healthcare coupon scam.
Veterans, and the groups they belong to, understand that sending more than 8 million of America’s Veterans, many of them older and sicker than most Americans, particularly those requiring highly-specialized care for rare and complex health problems to private insurers, private doctors, and private pharmaceutical companies is an abomination. They know what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded was that handing out discount coupons for Veterans’ healthcare will create certain chaos and de facto healthcare rationing on a grand scale. In fact, the CBO gave the same assessment to privatizing Veteran’s healthcare as they did Paul Ryan’s scam of transforming Medicare into a discount coupon. Privatizing the VA with a coupon, like a coupon for Medicare, will do nothing but create a “dramatic shift of health care costs onto patients.” Apparently America’s Veterans have not yet paid enough through their service to America so the Koch-Republican plan is making them pay more for the rest of their lives; another way Republicans support the troops.
According to a Rand Corporation explanation in 2012 of how, “‘Socialized’ or Not, We Can Learn from the VA,” the Veterans health care system “delivers care as good or better than its private sector counterparts; all while doing a much better job of controlling costs for American taxpayers.” The Rand study revealed that the Veteran’s health care system delivered a consistently higher-quality of care than “the national sample of private hospitals and doctors on all measures except acute care” in which each sample was comparable. In every other aspect the Veterans received better care on all counts including screenings, diagnosis, treatment, and access to physicians and services on follow up.
Among chronic care patients of which especially older and disabled Veterans make up a larger share than in the private sector, the Rand study reported that VA patients received over 70 percent of recommended care compared with under 60 percent in the national sample. The difference was substantially greater with preventive care where VA patients received 65 percent of recommended care compared to patients in the private national sample receiving preventive care less than 45 percent of the time. Privatization means less care all the way around for higher costs to taxpayers and Veterans that the Koch-Republicans pant to enact and the Republican candidates for president will be pushing leading up to the 2016 general election regardless the opposition from those it will impact most; America’s Veterans.
The GOP and their money machine portrays a coupon for Veterans the same way they portray a coupon for Medicare; a major cost saving measure that provides incredibly better service. However, as far as cost savings, the socialized Veteran’s healthcare system has always outperformed the private sector by a wide margin. The CBO calculated that after adjusting for changing cases as younger veterans have, and are, returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and require healthcare services,  the VA’s average health care cost per enrollee grew by about 1.7% from 1999 to 2005; an annual growth rate of 0.3%. During the same six year period, Medicare’s per capita costs grew by 29.4 % or an annual growth rate of 4.4 %. However, in the private insurance market during that time premiums for family coverage jumped by more than 70% according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Republicans’ call for privatizing the VA means substandard care, more expense, and higher costs to Veterans who fought Republican wars. President Obama and Democrats have attempted to increase funding for Veterans, but Republicans blocked any increase that could improve the Veteran’s health system and make it even more successful and popular than it already is. Republicans and the Kochs want Veterans healthcare services slashed through privatization and make the Veterans bear the brunt of the expense. It may be a day to remember those that made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country, but it looks as if Republicans intend on making those who fought and survived continue making sacrifices for the rest of their lives or until the next Republican war of aggression.

CNN Treats The Washington Free Beacon Like A Reputable News Site

CNN Treats The Washington Free Beacon Like A Reputable News Site
Matthew Continetti is given the full spa treatment from Brian Stelter of Reliable Sources.
CNN Treats The Washington Free Beacon Like A Reputable News Site instead of the farce they are

Obama to 5-Year-Old Gay Marriage Advocate: 'Couldn't Agree More!'

Obama to 5-Year-Old Gay Marriage Advocate: 'Couldn't Agree More!'
Five-year-old Yasmeen Faruqui didn't feel like doing her homework. She insisted she wanted to write to President Obama instead. And he wrote back.
@POTUS A letter from my 5 year old niece. Right out of the mouths of babes!
"Please stop war for our world, instead have a meeting," reads Yasmeen's handwritten note, posted to Twitter by her aunt. "Please give a speech to tell everyone they can marry who they want."
Fahmida Zaman PhD @DrFahmida
@POTUS A letter from my 5 year old niece. Right out of the mouths of babes! pic.twitter.com/Q8Sovz8eEL
.@DrFahmida tell your niece I really like her letter. Couldn't agree more!
"Tell your niece I really like her letter. Couldn't agree more!" the commander-in-chief replied Friday on Twitter. It's just the sixth tweet on his new account.
 Yasmeen's words were all her own, her mother told ABC News. (After all, only a 5-year-old would note she's "almost six" in a letter to the leader of the free world.)
"I just let her do her thing," Tasha Faruqui said. "Those are absolutely her spontaneous ideas. ... She has a mind of her own!"
Yasmeen, who's set to participate in a family member's same-sex wedding ceremony this fall, was bothered when her playmates insisted "boys can't marry boys."
"I don't think that's wrong," she told her mom.

Fahmida Zaman PhD @DrFahmida
@POTUS I will let her know you tweeted her back!
@POTUS She has been a long time supporter sir- you made her day! pic.twitter.com/n00yQ7lPzA
"She's very much an independent thinker," Yasmeen's aunt, Fahmida Zaman, told ABC. "She attempts to respectfully color outside the lines."
Because her father serves in the Navy, war has always scared Yasmeen. When she heard the president had read her letter, she went through the roof.
"This means the war's going to end! He got the letter," Yasmeen yelled.
When her mother explained that isn't quite how diplomacy works, Yasmeen was still ecstatic: "Now he got my message and he can share my message," she told her mom.
"I think it says a lot about our president, responding to a letter of a 5-year-old. That's pretty remarkable," Zaman said. "It lets her feel like her voice is heard."

Arkansas school board caught cyber-bullying student advocate for LGBT rights

An authority figure yells at students (Shutterstock)
A school board member in Arkansas stands by disparaging comments she made on Facebook regarding a student advocate for LGBTQ rights, ArkansasOnline reports. In a statement on Friday, Bentonville School Board member Rebecca Sue Powers defended herself against charges of cyber-bullying a local public school student. Though she insulted a child on a public Facebook page, Powers says her “comment was meant only for private discussion… I am sincerely sorry that these remarks became public, and I sincerely […]

Texas Fisticuffs ...Well, Almost

Male Texas Republicans nearly fistfight on House floor after Republican women defect from anti-abortion bill

Texas Stupidity

Texas governor signs bill to speed up permits for industrial projects by limiting public scrutiny

After Tax Cuts Blow Hole In Budget, Arizona Republicans Throw 2700 Children Off Food Stamps

The state of Arizona has dug itself into a deep budget hole, and it’s decided that the children must bear the cost for the tax cuts to the wealthy.Will its lawmakers begin to make sensible decisions and cease wasting taxpayer dollars on senseless parades of stupidity like chemtrail hearings? Probably not.
Will lawmakers address the fact that the wealthy in Arizona only pay about 4.7 percent of their income in taxes, while the poorest residents pay 12.9 percent of theirs? Nope.
State lawmakers have instead chosen “option c” which, as with taxes, further hurts the poor in one of the most impoverished states in the nation. Arizona faces a $1 billion hole in its deficit — and Republican lawmakers have decided that this hole will be filled with the tears of the poor, thousands of whom will be kicked off food stamps on July 1, 2016.
1,600 families, including more than 2,700 children will fall victim to Republicans’ successful implementation of a scheme to reduce lifetime welfare benefits to 12 months — the shortest cutoff in the country.

It is Mike Huckabee’s deeply-held religious belief that Al Gore should have been president

Mike Huckabee, via Wikimedia CommonsIt is Mike Huckabee’s deeply-held religious belief that Al Gore should have been president
Mike Huckabee apparently thinks “judicial supremacy” means Bush v. Gore was wrongly decided.

Jim Bakker: ISIL Is Getting Ready To Kill Us, So Buy Mac & Cheese And Veggie Burgers Before It's Too Late

The Old 'Pass The Loot' Huckster is still fleecing the idiots of the world we see ... Last month, televangelist Jim Bakker broadcasted his show live from a “prepper” expo he was hosting at his megacult in Missouri, where he offered viewers several reasons why they should fear imminent chaos and unrest in America: ISIL, urban violence, and anti-christian persecution at t... MORE

Pastor caught having gay sex in van spent stolen cult money on farmer dating website

Boyd Watson Holder Jr. - Kingsport Police Department
Boyd Watson Holder Jr. 44, was taken into custody after church officials reported that between $70,000 and $100,000 had been discovered missing from the Victory Apostolic cult bank account.

Republican ally suggests criminal charges for police chief who released Duggar sex abuse report

Bart Hester (Facebook.com)
A Republican asshole wants an Arkansas police chief fired — and to possibly face criminal charges — for complying with state law and releasing the police report in the Josh Duggar molestation case.

If You Want To See The Josh Duggar Police Report For Yourself, Look No Further

(Image courtesy of salon.com) Don’t worry, the identities of the victims has been protected in the enclosed, released report.

Here’s how the Duggars’ patriarchal homeschool world teaches kids to shame sex abuse victims

Frustrated student studies at home (Shutterstock)
The Duggar family’s involvement in Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute (ATI) homeschool program adds complexities to this story which are unknown to the average person.

Creationist: If evolution is true, then it wasn’t wrong for Josh Duggar to molest his sisters

Eric Hovind (Facebook)
A creationist pastor suggested Josh Duggar be punished for molesting his sleeping sisters and their friends by being paid to campaign against LGBT people marrying one another.