The Daily Drift

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Obama Sets A Trap For Boehner and McConnell By Threatening To Veto Defense Spending

President Obama is setting a trap for John Boehner and Mitch McConnell by threatening to veto defense spending for the entire year unless Republicans back off of their budget cuts.

The veto threat came in a statement of administration policy:

Enacting H.R. 2685 and adhering to the congressional Republican budget’s overall spending limits for FY 2016 would hurt our economy and shortchange investments in middle-class priorities. Sequestration was never intended to take effect: rather, it was supposed to threaten such drastic cuts to both defense and non-defense funding that policymakers would be motivated to come to the table and reduce the deficit through smart, balanced reforms. The Republican framework would bring base discretionary funding for both non-defense and defense for FY 2016 to the lowest real levels in a decade. Compared to the President’s Budget, the cuts would result in tens of thousands of the Nation’s most vulnerable children losing access to Head Start, more than two million fewer workers receiving job training and employment services, and thousands fewer scientific and medical research awards and grants, along with other impacts that would hurt the economy, the middle class, and Americans working hard to reach the middle class.

Sequestration funding levels would also put our national security at unnecessary risk, not only through pressures on defense spending, but also through pressures on State, USAID, Homeland Security, and other non-defense programs that help keep us safe. More broadly, the strength of our economy and the security of our Nation are linked. That is why the President has been clear that he is not willing to lock in sequestration going forward, nor will he accept fixes to defense without also fixing non-defense.

The President’s senior advisors would recommend that he veto H.R. 2685 and any other legislation that implements the current Republican budget framework, which blocks the investments needed for our economy to compete in the future. The Administration looks forward to working with the Congress to reverse sequestration for defense and non-defense priorities and offset the cost with commonsense spending and tax expenditure cuts, as Members of Congress from both parties have urged.

The White House’s veto threat came shortly after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected demands from Democratic Senate leaders for a budget summit. Democrats have already warned Republicans that they will block the Senate from taking up the bill unless they agree to lift the sequester cuts. Republicans provoked this fight by using a gimmick to get around the defense sequester cuts. The Republican budget upped the funding the account used to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. By going off the books, Republicans violated the sequester cuts by shifting spending to the war fund.

Republicans are cutting spending for programs that benefit children and seniors to pay their favorite form of pork and red state welfare.

President Obama and Congressional Democrats are setting Boehner and McConnell up. The Republican leaders will have to choose between not funding the military or keeping the sequester cuts. This could all be resolved if Republicans treated every appropriations bill the same way that they treated defense spending. Boehner and McConnell are trying to have their cake and eat it too, but the President and Democrats are standing tall, and they are about to make life miserable for John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.

House Democrats Have Obama’s Back By Opposing Republican Defense Spending Bill

When Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is telling her colleagues how to vote, they usually follow suit, unlike the chaos we see under the current Republican leaders of both chambers. And Nancy Pelosi just wrote a letter to her colleagues telling them that they need to have President Obama’s back in order to lift the sequester.

Here’s the letter she just sent out:

Dear Democratic Colleague,

Once again, I am writing to underscore the urgent need for House Democrats to support the President’s path to lifting the sequester by urging a ‘No’ vote on the Republican Defense Appropriations bill.

Recognizing that our first responsibility is to protect and defend, Democrats stand for a strong national defense. That is why we support lifting the sequester and fully funding the President’s defense budget request.

As with the Republican Defense authorization bill, the Defense appropriation bill is bad budgeting and harmful to military planning – perpetuating uncertainty and instability in the defense budget, and damaging the military’s ability to plan and prepare for the future.

As Defense Secretary Carter said, Republicans’ approach is “clearly a road to nowhere,” “managerially unsound” and “unfairly dispiriting to our force.”

As the Administration’s veto threat states, “the bill drastically underfunds critical investments in DOD’s base budget and instead uses Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding in ways that leaders in both parties have made clear are inappropriate. Base budget sequestration levels will damage our ability to restore readiness, advance badly-needed technological modernization, and keep faith with our troops and their families.”

The veto threat continues, “The Republican framework would bring base discretionary funding for both non-defense and defense for FY 2016 to the lowest real levels in a decade. Compared to the President’s Budget, the cuts would result in tens of thousands of the Nation’s most vulnerable children losing access to Head Start, more than two million fewer workers receiving job training and employment services, and thousands fewer scientific and medical research awards and grants, along with other impacts that would hurt the economy, the middle class, and Americans working hard to reach the middle class.” You may read the full veto threat here.

Republicans should come together with Democrats in a fiscally responsible way to protect our national security and grow our economy.

House Democrats’ sustaining of the President’s veto on unacceptably damaging appropriations bills will more forcefully bring Republicans to the table.

Our sustaining the President’s veto, combined with Senate Democrats’ refusal to allow the appropriations bills, including Defense, to come to the Senate floor is the key to unlocking sequestration for defense and non-defense.

Please vote ‘No’ on the Republican Defense Appropriations bill.

Thank you for your consideration and your leadership.

Best Regards,

Nancy

Yep. That’s how Nancy gets things done. Leader Pelosi knows that the nation is suffering due to the Republican sequester cuts, and she and the President also realize that Republicans were trying to get around the sequester cuts to their favorite welfare charities while starving poor children.

Not so fast.

Pelosi can get a vote together like nobody’s business and she has set her eye on this one so you can bet it’s a done deal.

Bernie Sanders: 'I'm An American,' Not An Israeli

“You know, I got offended a little bit by that comment, and I know it’s been on the internet,” Sanders said.

Bernie Sanders: 'I'm An American,' Not An Israeli

Bernie Sanders Gets Victimized By Lazy Journalism During Radio Interview

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) found himself in the middle of a bizarre situation, when during an interview on WAMU’s Diane Rehm Show the Democratic presidential candidate was told incorrectly that he is a Jewish citizen. The senator from Vermont was the latest victim of an epidemic of lazy journalism that is sweeping the nation.

Here is how the exchange went down at the 24-minute mark of Sen. Sanders being interviewed on The Diane Rehm Show:

Rhem said, “Senator, you have dual citizenship with Israel.”

“Well, no I do not have dual citizenship with Israel. I’m an American. I don’t know where that question came from. I am an American citizen, and I have visited Israel on a couple of occasions. No, I’m an American citizen, period.”

Rehm apologized and asked if there were any members of Congress that have dual citizenship, “I honestly don’t know, but I have read that on the Internet. You know, my dad came to this country from Poland at the age of 17 without a nickel in his pocket. He loved this country. I am, you know, I got offended a little bit by that comment, and I know it’s been on the Internet. I am obviously an American citizen, and I do not have any dual citizenship.”

Michael Briggs of the Sanders campaign released a generous statement in response to the controversy, “Diane Rehm is an excellent radio host. There’s a great big Internet out there with lots of good and bad information. I’ve never heard the question come up before.”

Rehm apologized again in a statement, “On today’s show I made a mistake. Rather than asking Senator and Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders whether he had dual U.S./Israeli citizenship, as I had read in a comment on Facebook, I stated it as fact. He corrected me, saying he did not know where the question came from. I apologized immediately. I want to apologize as well to all our listeners for having made an erroneous statement. I am sorry for the mistake. However, I am glad to play a role in putting this rumor to rest.”

I am not sure that anyone knew that the rumor existed before she said it. Diane Rhem is a good host who spent nearly an hour talking to Sen. Sanders today. The problem is that no one in the media should use Facebook as a source of information without double checking that information with a reliable source. There is lots of crazy and inaccurate information on the Internet.

Despite the millions of people who support Bernie Sanders, the vast majority of the country does not know much about the senator from Vermont. Sanders is an unknown to the vast majority of the electorate. He was victimized by a journalist who did not do her homework. As Rehm stated, her mistake was phrasing the dual citizenship point as a fact instead of asking a question. There is lots of credible information on Bernie Sanders. Rehm’s statement was an act of lazy journalism, and a perfect example of what happens when a member of the media does not do their homework.

Bernie Sanders Rips The Hearts Out Of Republicans By Debuting A Real Family Values Agenda

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is taking back family values from the Republican Party by unveiling his Family Values Agenda. The Sanders agenda calls for ten days of guaranteed paid vacation for employees who have worked for an employer for at least a year, and 12 weeks of universally paid family and medical leave.

At a Capitol Hill news conference, Sen. Sanders went after Republicans on family values:

When my Republican colleagues talk about “family values,” what they usually mean is opposition to a woman’s right to choose, opposition to contraception, opposition to gay rights. Let me today give a somewhat different perspective on family values – on real family values.

When a mother has a baby and is unable to spend time with that child during the first weeks and months of that baby’s life, and is forced back to work because of a lack of money, that is not a family value. That is an attack on everything that a family is supposed to stand for. When a wife is diagnosed with cancer and a husband cannot get time off of work to take care of her, that is not a family value. That is an attack on everything that a family is supposed to stand for. When a mother is forced to send her sick child to school because she cannot afford to stay home with her that is not a family value. That is an attack on everything that a family is supposed to stand for. When a husband, wife, and kids, during the course of an entire year, are unable to spend any time together on vacation – that is not a family value. That is an attack on everything that a family is supposed to stand for.

Sen. Sanders’ agenda is centered around two pieces of legislation, “Senator Sanders’ Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act would provide 10 days of paid vacation for employees who have worked for an employer for at least one year. This legislation would make sure workers have access to minimum vacation benefits that most companies already offer to their white-collar, high-salary workers. The Act would apply to employers with at least 15 employees….Workers in the United States should have at least 12 weeks of universal paid family and medical leave. The FAMILY Act introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand does just that. This bill, which Sen.Sanders is co-sponsoring, allows mothers and fathers to receive 12 weeks of paid family leave to care for a baby. It also allows workers to take the same amount of paid time off if they are diagnosed with cancer or have other serious medical conditions or to take care of family members who are seriously ill.”

For decades, Republicans have been calling themselves the party of family values while carrying out an ideological agenda that weakens and undermines the economic security of the nation’s families. Republicans oppose any steps that would strengthen families. Studies have found that the more money a couple makes, the less likely they are to divorce. Economic stability increases family stability.

When a worker has to place economic survival ahead of their family, the family suffers. Republicans have gotten away with disguising their family killing policies as values for too long.

Conservatives hijacked the term family values, but Bernie Sanders is taking it back.

Paul Ryan Gets Smacked Down While Grandstanding About Obamacare During House Hearing

Paul Ryan got stopped dead in his tracks by Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI) while he was trying to grandstand and trash Obama during an unrelated House hearing.

Rep. Ryan (R-WI) used a hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee that was supposed to be about the HHS budget request to grandstand about President Obama and Obamacare.

Ryan said, “It shouldn’t surprise you that we’re more interested in talking about ObamaCare, especially given the president’s remarks this week. Whatever the Supreme Court decides later this month, I think the lesson is absolutely clear: ObamaCare is flat busted.”

Rep. Ryan accused Obama of dictating to Republicans instead of working with them, “Here is the question I’m trying to get at. Is the President going to stand up and wave I have a one-page bill? I have a one sentence fix is that going to be the administration’s position, or is the administration going to be willing to work with Congress to find a way to give the American people more healthcare freedom?” Later, Ryan suggested that the President would put concrete around his ankles and say my way, or the highway.

Ranking Democratic committee member Sander Levin (D-MI) laid it down on Ryan. Levin said, “I am not surprised at the tone, but I find it so counterproductive. Mr. Chairman, you talk about two-sidedness. The two sides when you say you worry about the millions who will lose their insurance when it’s your allies who brought the suit that would deprive them of insurance. You talk about concrete, having feet in concrete? That’s exactly where you’ve been in terms of ACA. Your feet have been in concrete, while you’ve brought up bill after bill to try to destroy ACA, and when you say will the President by my way or the highway, that’s precisely what has been your approach to ACA. Precisely. You’ve never sat down with us to say how can we make some changes. Instead, you have been out to destroy ACA, and you say where’s the President’s plan when the President believes that that court will and should uphold the law. All you’ve done is issue op-eds and bills, contradictory bills. You don’t have a plan. Like you haven’t had a plan for sixty years.”

Paul Ryan has nothing. Ryan is the person that John Boehner put in charge of coming up with the Republican Obamacare replacement bill, and he has produced nothing. No bills, no ideas, no legislative proposals, Rep. Ryan has made it clear that the Republican alternative to the ACA is to throw millions of people off of their health insurance.

Ryan did his best Darrell Issa impression, and he got smacked down for his efforts. Republicans think that they can take away health insurance from millions and blame President Obama. Paul Ryan was trying to set the stage for Obama to take the blame for the Republican plan to harm millions, but Rep. Levin delivered a dose of stone cold reality.

Congressman Asks, Why Aren’t People Automatically Registered To Vote?

Congressman Asks, Why Aren’t People Automatically Registered To Vote?

Republicans To Start Eating Their Own In 5, 4, 3...

I've been wondering when Jeb Bush was going to wake up and realize that he's losing the nominating contest he was favored to win.

Republicans To Start Eating Their Own In 5, 4, 3...?

Rick Santorum Says He Decides What is Constitutional, Not the Supreme Court

Rick Santorum says says you refusing to believe what he wants you to believe is a violation of the First Amendment…

It is a good thing Rick Santorum has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting into the White House, because like all his fellow candidates, he has no idea how the United States Constitution works.

According to Santorum, the legalization of gay marriage is the “establishment of religion,” even though what it would, in fact be, is a slap in the face to the idea of the establishment of religion – namely, Santorum’s religion.

It is bad enough that Santorum is trying to play off “gayness” as a religion. What is worse is him thinking that he doesn’t have to abide by the Supreme Court’s ruling because he disagrees with it.

The fact is – and the way this whole thing is set up – if the Supreme Court says something is constitutional, it is constitutional.

Grade-schoolers know this stuff. Why doesn’t Santorum?

We may not like what the Supreme Court says – the Hobby Lobby ruling being a case in point, or Citizens United – but it’s the law of the land, period. The best we can do in response (short of a new system of government) is a Constitutional Amendment, which changes the Constitution and therefore what the Supreme Court can rule about it.

But Rick Santorum, fresh from entertaining a voter or two in Iowa, told Glenn Beck a bunch of Bartonesque BS – namely that marriage equality will force boys and girls to share locker rooms (Mike Huckabee’s fantasy of showering with teenage girls becoming reality) – before he went on to claim,

This is tantamount to government establishing religion. When the United States government comes in and says this is what you are going to believe, this is how you’re going to practice your faith, this is a new religion. This violates, in my opinion, the Establishment Clause in the Constitution that says that Congress shall make no law with respect to an establishment of religion. If the government goes around and tells churches what they have to believe in and what their doctrine is, that is something that is a violation of the First Amendment.

Far from telling you what to believe, the Supreme Court would be telling you that you DON’T HAVE TO BELIEVE what the Religious Right is selling you. It would be affirming that you have a right to your own beliefs, as opposed to having Rick Santorum’s beliefs stand in for your own.

What Santorum’s claim comes down to is this: “If you don’t believe what I, Rick Santorum believe, you are violating the First Amendment.”

Until Rick Santorum understands the First Amendment, he should stop talking about it. You can read it for yourself. It doesn’t say anything about marriage of any kind. Marriage isn’t religion. To claim marriage is religion is to establish religion by forcing everybody else to accept your definition of marriage.

My fourth grader understands that. But then he’s reading at a 10th to 12th grade level. Based on the available evidence – and assuming Santorum is not just obscenely dishonest – I suspect things are reversed for Santorum.

To listen to him, you would think a Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality would force straight people to marry members of their own sex. They protest so much you almost wonder if that isn’t secretly what they want.

Clearly, we could ignore Santorum simply on the basis of what CNN calls his “empty diner” strategy. When only one voter shows up at your campaign stop, you know you’re not popular.

However, in what passes for a political party on the right these days – but which is actually a religious cult – extremism feeds extremism, and that is the real danger in claims like these.

What one candidate says, another has to at least match, and more often, surpass, in order to keep up with the demands of the feckless multitude. Jesus would have fed them loaves and fishes. Republican candidates feed them extremism.

Rick Santorum, who was pro-choice until he found it expedient to be anti-choice when he ran for office, has apparently found it expedient to be completely stupid, and to be honest, it’s not working out very well for him. Unless his entire goal was to appear to be a buffoon, in which case it has worked out very well indeed.

What is amazing is that Republican candidates can say these things without any response at all from the mainstream media.

Can you imagine what would happen if President Obama announced that he would just ignore anything the Supreme Court ruled with regard the Affordable Care Act because he’s the final arbiter of what is and is not constitutional? Obama, unlike Santorum, at least specializes in Constitutional Law.

And there is precedent, after all, in Gov. Brownback of Kansas threatening to eliminate the Kansas judiciary if they rule against him. And this seems to be what Santorum is hinting at, when he says,

“If they get it wrong and the consequences are what I suspect they will be toward people of faith (those consequences being a bunch of stuff David Barton made up the day before) then this president will fight back.”

Well, Rick, right now you are not even the president of one person in Iowa – she wouldn’t endorse him till she gets all the facts – And that is more than Santorum has bothered to do.

North Carolina Overrides Governor’s Veto, Allows State Officials To Refuse To Conduct Marriages

From the "That's Fucked Up" Department: 

Both North Carolina's House and Senate have insisted that state magistrates have the right to refuse to officiate marriages.

Scott Walker Intends to Rob Taxpayers to Enrich Billionaires

It is typical of Republicans to rob taxpayer dollars to subsidize their favorite industries, and in Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker intends on forcing taxpayers to subsidize a basketball arena…

It is no great secret that Republicans can never find a penny for education, infrastructure improvements, social services, or safety nets, but they have a veritable endless supply of taxpayer money to benefit billionaires. It is typical of Republicans to rob taxpayer dollars to subsidize their favorite industries, and in Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker intends on forcing taxpayers to subsidize a sports arena to save a few billionaires hundreds-of-millions of dollars.

Scott Walker’s plan to build a new basketball stadium for the Milwaukee Bucks paid for with taxpayer dollars is, no matter how it is viewed, an outrageous example of corporate welfare and typical Republican corruption. Some proponents of the publicly financed gift to billionaires claim that taxing Wisconsin residents to build a new stadium is an opportunity to reinvigorate an “economically depressed city,” but their assertion falls short of any reasonable person’s concept of what “reinvigorating an economically depressed city” means. However, this is happening in the dysfunctional state of Wisconsin and the publicly financed gift to bolster the wealth of  billionaires is being pushed by Scott Walker, so it is not meant to make economic or ethical sense to reasonable people.

According to Koch puppet Walker, the brilliant plan to build a new $500 million stadium for the billionaire owners of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball franchise forces taxpayers to pay for half of the cost. What is no mystery is that the initial $250 million taxpayer contribution, before the typical and significant cost overruns, is exactly the amount Walker and his Republican legislature have planned to cut from the University of Wisconsin system.

Even though the price of a ticket is far beyond the reach of most Wisconsin residents whether they live in Milwaukee or not,  Walker explained that his plan rob $80 million from all Wisconsin taxpayers and the remaining $170 million will be pilfered from “a variety of sources at the local level and truly protects the taxpayers.” Walker also claimed that “It’s also something I can say is good for lawmakers anywhere in the state.” One state official who will benefit from taxpayers’ largesse to billionaires is Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, one of the key architects of the taxpayer-funded sports arena and gift to billionaires.

Abele, promised, with all his heart, that the brand new stadium would “generate millions of dollars in property value and provide a great return on investment.” There is a very good reason Abele raised the point about property value and a “great return on investment;” charging taxpayers to build the stadium will increase his property’s value and generate millions of dollars in income for him. Abele recently purchased a $2 million condominium directly next to the site of the proposed arena as well as the restaurants and stores developers plan to surround it with.

According to Milwaukee economics professor Michael Rosen, “The appreciation for that condo will go sky-high; it will appreciate like crazy when that stadium gets built. He has an interest in this, even though his job as public official is to look out for this community, but I’m not saying that’s why he bought it.” Fine, if Rosen is unwilling to say it, this column has no such reservations; Abele certainly bought the property next to a major development to take a substantial profit at taxpayers’ expense. It is why Walker and Abele’s plans to build the stadium is “an example of typical Republican corruption,” as well as a blatant example of “corporate welfare” funded by cash-strapped Wisconsin taxpayers; most whom will never be able to afford a $60 – $80 ticket to watch a basketball game.

Walker’s plan has been criticized by progressives and wingnuts alike, and at a public meeting earlier this week, a large crowd rightly took exception to the idea of using hundreds-of-millions of taxpayer dollars to build a sports complex that only benefits billionaires. In fact, besides robbing taxpayer money meant for education, law enforcement, firefighters, and roads, the attendees were livid that public land worth $9 million was sold to the team’s billionaire owners for a measly 1 dollar. Walker claims that giving free taxpayer money, and public land, to billionaires is an incredibly wise means of investing in the Milwaukee economy even though economists claim that is patently false.

According to economics professor Michael Rosen, “You could do more for the local economy by taking a plane over the city of Milwaukee and dropping $500 million dollars down. That would generate more economic activity than building a stadium. People have a fixed entertainment budget. So if they go see the Bucks and spend $60 or $80 on a ticket, that’s money they’re not using to go to the theater or movies or out to eat. That’s why stadiums have no positive impact on economic growth.” Rosen also made an important point that since most Bucks’ players do not live year-round in Milwaukee, the “millions of dollars in their salaries will not benefit the community.”

Rosen, an economics professor is, of course, absolutely right according to a 2004 Cato Institute study criticizing taxpayer-subsidized sports’ stadiums. Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys wrote that economic projections for subsidized stadiums are always vastly overstated; “The wonder is that anyone finds such figures credible.” In fact, over the years there have been several Cato studies that examined what they label “absurd economic claims of stadium advocates” and found that; “The lone beneficiaries of sports subsidies are team owners and players. Indeed, the results of studies on changes in the economy resulting from the presence of stadiums, arenas, and sports teams show no positive economic impact from professional sports.” However, there is always a very positive economic impact for developers and the politicians reaping campaign donations for pushing taxpayer-funded projects that benefit their billionaire donors.

Republicans never seem to lack ways of stealing from taxpayers, particularly the poor and middle class, to enrich the already wealthy whether they own corporations or sports’ franchises. Scott Walker is no exception and his antipathy toward Wisconsin residents, and education in particular, is epitomized by his crusade to build a sports stadium that benefits no-one but the Milwaukee Bucks’ billionaire owners and multi-millionaire players. As Michael Rosen opined, “Our elected officials need to better look out for the people of this community, who need parks, who need social services and health care.” However, Republicans are incapable of looking out for the people of any community because their entire focus is looking out for billionaires and in Scott Walkers’ case it is a cabal of billionaires who own the Milwaukee Bucks.

Protesters Win Court Award Against Walker's Wisconsin

Looks like Scott Walker wouldn't be able to handle ISIL after all.

Protesters Win Court Award Against Walker's Wisconsin

House Republicans Unveil Latest Attempt To Block Obama’s Climate And Clean Water Rules

They've tried legislation and lawsuits, and now Republicans are now trying to use the budget to stop environmental regulations.

Senate Republicans Just Literally Voted Against Clean Water

Republicans are using the ruse that farmers will have mud puddles regulated to push their pro-polluter agenda.

Read more

Georgia Releases Kenlissia Jones After Illegal Detainment But Threatens More Charges

Georgia is releasing 23-year-old Kenlissia Jones from the Doughterty County Jail, where the black mother to a toddler has been illegally detained, but they are threatening her with more charges…

Apparently trying to save face after realizing that they had no legal leg to stand on, Georgia is releasing 23-year-old Kenlissia Jones from the Doughterty County Jail, where the black mother to a toddler has been illegally detained for allegedly taking a drug to end her pregnancy. She was facing a possible charge of “malice murder.”

But her nightmare is far from over.

This is the end result of many Republican allegedly “pro-life” laws around the country, and naturally, it ended up violating all kinds of personal liberties and Constitutionally-protected rights, as well as interfering in medical care and making Jones’ toddler suffer. It also sends a message that women can be arrested for being pregnant, which is not exactly an incentive.

National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) said in a statement that it “applauds Dougherty County Prosecutor Gregory W. Edwards’ conclusion that there is no legal authority for charging a pregnant woman with the crime of murder for having terminated her own pregnancy. As the prosecutor explained in this detailed legal analysis released today, no Georgia law permits prosecution of women for murder or related criminal charges based on pregnancy or the outcome of their pregnancies.”

However, as any reasonable person would think, NAPW notes that she never should have been arrested in the first place and as a result of the state’s actions, “Ms. Jones had to endure the trauma of arrest, imprisonment, and the profound violation of her rights to physical liberty as well as medical and personal privacy.” They continued, “It is especially troubling to see a young black mother of a toddler charged with a crime that carries the death penalty.”

Ms. Jones was arrested after seeking care at a hospital, where a social worker turned her in to police for having allegedly tried to give herself an abortion. This is how they do it in Georgia, and not just Georgia, as we pointed out in the first article about Jones’ arrest and illegal detainment, “Anne Bynum in Arkansas was arrested for “concealing a birth”, and “abuse of a corpse” after she took medication to terminate her pregnancy at home. Purvi Patel of Indiana was convicted and is serving 20 years in prison for what Indiana called feticide.”

Not only was she falsely imprisoned, held without bond and her constitutionally-protected rights grossly infringed upon by the eager stupidity of Georgia law enforcement’s agenda-laden inability to understand basic law (a pro-life group was telling them the law did not allow them to do this), but her medical and personal privacy was obscenely violated without her consent.

But the prosecutors aren’t going down so easy. Being forced to release the young mother, they’ve rooted around for anything they can charge her with in what looks to be a daft and transparent effort to avoid being sued for their epic mishandling and personal violations of the young mother, and have landed upon a misdemeanor charge of “possession of a dangerous drug,” among other unnamed possibilities.

Oh, what a thug, you’re thinking. Hardcore drugs? Sure she deserves it. But wait. The drug Georgia prosecutors are charging her as having allegedly possessed is misoprostol, which is not a dangerous drug, according to people who actually know things. That would be the World Health Organization and medical researchers.

Small government Georgia is going to prosecute the single mother of a toddler whom they falsely imprisoned because she allegedly took a drug that is used “safely around the world” for many reasons (obstetric and gynecological — areas about which the Georgia law enforcement must inaccurately fancy themselves as expert as some Republicans in Congress).

NAPW pointed out that the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists oppose threatening women with arrest in relationship to their pregnancies “because it deters women from seeking help and, as a result, undermines maternal, fetal, and child health.”

So the next time a woman needs medical care during her pregnancy, she will probably avoid it if there is any way she could be charged with malice murder, which is exactly the opposite of pro-life.

“Pro-life” apparently excludes women, as we see from Governor Scott Walker’s (R-WI) latest bill, Republicans aren’t making exceptions in their policing of your medical decisions even for the life of the mother or incest. They are all about entitling the father to sue the doctor for ’emotional and psychological distress’ no matter what his relationship with the woman, which Walker’s law allows.

NAPW is calling for the prosecutor to drop all charges, “Because public health, fairness to pregnant women, and fundamental principles of human rights and dignity prohibit the use of state power to arrest and punish women for being pregnant and for the outcomes of their pregnancies, NAPW calls on Mr. Edwards to drop all charges against Ms. Jones.”

Ms. Jones needs a good lawyer and she needs to sue the state, the police officer who arrested her, the prosecutor’s office, and the entity where the social worker is employed. There’s a bounty of things to sue for, and it needs to happen or else these folks are just going to continue making up laws to suit their religious ideology.

Mike Huckabee faces class-action suit over robo-calls promoting cheesy 'christian' propaganda flick

“Although the campaign appeared to survey whether recipients had ‘traditional American values,'” the film’s promoters were “more concerned with getting viewers to see ‘Last Ounce of Courage’ than gathering information about them."

Huckabee sued and it couldn't have happened to a 'nicer' guy*

* Note the sarcasm

The 'christian' Co-Author Of Mike Huckabee Books Was Caught Duggaring A Child

A 2012 police investigation of Perry's alleged offenses found that "the allegations of sexual battery were sustained" but that the statute of limitations had expired.

The 'christian' Co-Author Of Mike Huckabee Books Was Caught Duggaring A Child

Fox News Helped The Duggars Cover Up New Child Abuse Investigation In Arkansas

The DHS in Arkansas has launched a new investigation into the Duggars, and it looks like Fox News helped Jim Bob and Michelle cover up the new investigation into the welfare of their children.

InTouch Weekly reported:

The Duggar family is under investigation again by the Arkansas Department of Human Services and police were called when the family refused to cooperate, In Touch magazine is reporting exclusively in its new issue that hits newsstands today.

A representative from the Washington County DHS called 911 on May 27 at around 11 a.m. asking for police assistance when DHS was not allowed to see the minor they were concerned about.

….

After identifying himself as a Washington Country DHS employee and stating the Duggar family address, the caller tells the 911 operator, “We have an investigation and I guess they’re not being cooperative. We have to see the child to make sure the child is all right. So we just need police assistance.”

The Duggars first interview with Fox News aired on June 3. Fox News had days before the Duggar interview to learn about and disclose to their viewers the new investigation, but they did nothing. It is possible that Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar lied to Megyn Kelly and Fox News. It is just as possible that Fox News never bothered to look and invested themselves in supporting the Duggars.

If Fox News was not aware of this new investigation, it is because they didn’t want to know. The new investigation also explains why the Duggars and Kelly put so much effort into trying to discredit the police and social services. Fox News defended a family that was uncooperative with the authorities and under a new investigation related to the welfare of their children.

Fox News put propaganda ahead of facts, and now they have to explain why they didn’t know that the Duggars family was again under investigation. Whether Megyn Kelly and Fox News acted intentionally or not, they helped to hide a key fact from their viewers. Fox News turned a blind eye to what they didn’t want to see and now have to deal with the consequences of the decision to put partisan politics ahead of the welfare of children.

Fox News Is Unraveling As Their “Objective Witness” To McKinney Pool Party Is A Convicted Felon

Fox News is unraveling as their support for the Duggars has blown up in their faces, and the "objective witness" to the McKinney Pool Party incident is a liar…

Megyn Kelly needed to assure viewers that the horrific violence enacted upon a 15-year-old black teenager by Corporal Eric Casebolt during the McKinney pool party debacle, as well as the same officer drawing his gun on two other black teenagers for no justifiable reason, was not racially motivated.

In order to accomplish this rather Herculean task given the video, Megyn Kelly had on Sean Toon as a “witness” and a “resident”, who explained “what really happened.” Yep, watch Fox and you’d think Toon is just a random dude who called the police because he was worried about the music being played and some teenagers were accusing “residents” of being racist. Totally out of the blue, you understand.

“Witness” explains it’s not racial:

Sean is a guy who only wanted to be known by his first name, which should have at least sparked a warning enough that her producers did a background check. I did it yesterday. And guess what?

Dude has a record. Dude was arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in September 2000, for which he served 75 days in jail, according to the Guardian.

This doesn’t mean that his account isn’t accurate, but it does call into question his character when he is justifying violence. It would give a reasonable person pause with one conviction (wait for it).

After all, Toon was one of the people who called police, and his wife Barber Toon was also at the pool party Friday night. In fact, Sean’s wife is the person seen in the original fight (including what looks like pulling a teenager’s hair) that caused her husband to call the police. He left that part out.

Yet her husband Sean is such a stellar member of the community that the police took his word for things and Officer Eric Casebolt, who has now resigned after abusing his authority, took it upon himself to round up all of the kids of color. Based on the words of a convicted criminal. But race is totally not an issue.

Why were only dark skinned kids chased down and tackled to the ground? (To be clear, there is only one officer who behaved in an overtly racist and violent manner, the rest tried to keep things calm and did their job properly, even restraining him at one point.)

Buzzfeed reported that Fox and Friends replayed Toon’s version of events in the morning. They also report that it was actually Toon, Kelly’s “witness”, who yelled racist things at the teenagers:

What Toon has failed to mention, though, is that he was part of a group of adults that, according to teens at the pool party, initially made racist comments to the mostly black youths, sparking a violent fight.

“I’m 100% sure that he said, ‘You should go back to the Section 8 [public] housing where you’re from because you don’t belong in our neighborhood,'” Grace Stone, a 14-year-old white McKinney resident who defended her black friends, told BuzzFeed News. “That’s when I went off. I called him an asshole. He had no right to say that. You shouldn’t be that hateful. That’s when [one of Toon’s female acquaintances] came up to me and said, ‘You don’t talk to adults like that.’ She was saying I needed to do something with my life and find a nice path for myself.”

Lest this turn into he said, she said, the lady who organized the event corroborated Stone’s version of events according to Buzzfeed, including the charming use of the totally not-racial slur “black fucker”. Oh.

So died the ridiculous notion that this wasn’t racial. And it’s starting to look like the “witness”, who was years earlier was arrested for aggravated assault, wasn’t so innocent.

But the bad news isn’t done yet. This Toon guy, Megyn Kelly’s “witness”, was also convicted in 1999 of felony criminal mischief and he pled guilty to killing and maiming animals as an 18-year-old.

Sean Toon was convicted of torturing animals and served 285 days in jail, according to records obtained by the Guardian:

Sean Toon was sentenced to more than nine months in jail after pleading guilty to killing and maiming prize farm animals and covering them in paint, according to court records in Texas. He was separately sentenced to two and a half months for an assault…

As a teenager, Toon had two serious encounters with the criminal justice system. He could not be reached for an interview. Asked whether he had any comment about his past crimes, his wife said in a text message: “In the end you will get what you deserve.”

So that’s a charming threat by the wife, the one in the video who is pulling the hair of a teenager. You know, the fight that started this whole McKinney pool party debacle. Good thing the police took Toon’s word for things.

But not nearly as charming as the details (WARNING, graphic) that caused Toon to not only be arrested, but expelled from school:

“Cows and pigs were cut and bruised, apparently beaten with wooden boards. And baby turkeys were slain, their limbs torn apart,” the Dallas Morning News reported at the time. Dale Gardner, a teacher in the school district’s agri-science and technology program, told the newspaper: “It was brutal. There’s no way to describe it. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The police officer who resigned is blaming emotional distress, because like every doctor, nurse and medic knows, dealing with emotionally disturbed people is a pass for becoming an aggressive lunatic on their next patient.

This concludes today’s episode of “It’s not racial!” brought to you by a twice convicted criminal and animal killer, his hair-pulling wife, and the white police officer who acted violently and aggressively based on their word.

Megyn Kelly is already looking dubious at best after her assist-style “interview”/public relations broadcast on behalf of the Duggars, which it turns out she conducted days after the Duggars refused to cooperate with the DHS who were concerned about a minor in the home. Fox News’ rising star is on a roll.