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Thursday, June 25, 2015

The Daily Drift

Breaking News: Wingnut heads are exploding all over the place as we speak because SCOTUS did the correct thing this morning and upheld The Affordable Care Act's subsidy provision(s). The loud sonic boom you heard was the bubble bursting in wingnutistan as the ruling was announced.
Hey, wingnuts, yeah we're talking to you ...!  
 
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It’s Not War Crimes, But shrub junta Officials Can Be Sued For Post 9/11 Violations

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For even semi-intelligent Americans, various actions by the shrub junta after the terror attacks on 9/11 were either war crimes or at the very least unconstitutional. Whether it was illegally spying on American citizens, or rounding up “suspected terrorists” based solely on their country of origin, perceived faith (Islam), or suspected racial makeup, the shrub junta likely violated the Constitution in several ways. Although the actions in America by the shrub junta do not qualify as war crimes, they were certainly constitutional violations that must be addressed and rectified. Now, according to a recent ruling by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals shrub junta officials did take part in “grave constitutional violations” after the 9/11 terror attacks. The Appellate Court revived a ‘long-runninglawsuit against the shrub junta brought by mostly muslim immigrants who were rounded up as terrorists, subjected to months of beatings, humiliating searches, and a wide range of other prisoner abuses at a detention center on American soil.
The case that finally made it to the 2nd Circuit Court, Turkmen v. Ashcroft, was originally filed as a class action in 2002 at a time it was dangerously daring to challenge the shrub's policies that swept up hundreds of predominately muslim men after the September 11 terror attacks. Instead of targeting the shrub White House, which likely would have garnered a visit from a black ops hit team, the plaintiff’s lawyers only cited former attorney general John Ashcroft and former F.B.I. director Robert S. Mueller III as defendants. Filing a lawsuit against the shrub or his White House in 2002 would have been an insanely foolish, and likely deadly, move.
There was a similar case in 2009 to the one the 2nd Circuit just decided, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, where the Supreme Court ruled another wrongly-detained man was prohibited from suing Ashcroft and Mueller III. The High Court claimed that Mr. Iqbal had failed to supply enough detail about what Ashcroft and Mueller did wrong in rounding him up as a terrorist, but according to the 2nd Circuit’s ruling this past week, “the plaintiffs cleared that (legal) hurdle.”
In writing a joint opinion for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, Judges Rosemary S. Pooler and Richard C. Wesley said that the eight plaintiffs, who are either Arab or South Asian immigrants, were unjustly detained, tortured, and generally abused because  the shrub junta’s policies after 9/11 informed them that Muslim immigrants were terrorists. If the shrub junta did not determine the brown-skinned immigrants were already Al Qaeda terrorists, they did claim they were ‘suspected terrorists’ based on their “perceived faith or race” according to the 2nd Circuit.
The eight men were arrested under orders from the shrub junta under the guise of committing the most heinous and deadly of all  immigration violations; working without legal authorization or overstaying a visa after the shrub family’s Saudi Arabian friends committed unspeakable acts of terror on 9/11. The truth is that the men were arrested and seized (according to the 4th Amendment) because they were “suspected of being muslims,” not because of petty immigration violations and the 2nd Circuit’s judges were perfectly capable of working that out of their own accord.  The eight men were detained by the shrub junta for being “suspected terrorists” and sequestered in jail between three to eight months in New York and New Jersey, abused by prison guards, and placed in solitary confinement for extended periods of time.
In fact, according to the 2nd Circuit ruling, “The suffering endured by those who were imprisoned merely because they were caught up in the hysteria of the days immediately following 9/11 is not without a remedy. Holding individuals in solitary confinement 23 hours a day with regular strip-searches because their perceived faith or race placed them in the group targeted for recruitment by Al Qaeda violated the detainees’ constitutional rights.” Further, the judges wrote, “We simply cannot conclude at this stage that concern for the safety of our nation justified the violation of the constitutional rights on which this nation was built. The question at this stage of the litigation is whether the eight foreigners arrested on immigration charges have plausibly pleaded that the (shrub) government officials exceeded the bounds of the Constitution in the wake of 9/11. We believe that they have. The Constitution defines the limits of the Defendants’ (shrub junta’s) authority. Detaining individuals as if they were terrorists, in the most restrictive conditions of confinement available, simply because these individuals were, or appeared to be, Arab or Muslim exceeds those limits.”
In what has to be the most bizarre, most absurd, and most typically neo-con thinking possible, particularly for a Circuit Court judge, Reena Raggi wrote in a 91-page dissenting opinion that no court was fit to decide if the eight men were illegally detained or if the shrub junta violated the Constitution in seizing, torturing, and holding them captive without due process. Judge Raggi, a 2002 shrub appointee, said that deciding what is and is not constitutional is the sworn duty of the United States government’s legislative branch, not the judicial branch. It leads one to ponder why the shrub appointed this person who is without a rudimentary comprehension of the Constitution or what the separate branches of government’s specific duties are. According to the Constitution Judge Raggi swore to uphold, it is the judiciary that determines what is constitutional; Congress makes laws. However, lacking that fundamental knowledge Raggi foolishly wrote in her dissent that “Congress, not the judiciary, is the appropriate branch to decide whether the detained aliens should be allowed to sue executive policymakers in their individual capacities.”
It is a simple task to fathom why the shrub appointed Raggi to the 2nd Circuit Court. In typical shrub fashion she railed on the “majority” opinion and said they made a serious error in daring allow a lawsuit against “the nation’s two highest-ranking law enforcement officials for executing (shrub) policies propounded to safeguard the nation in the immediate aftermath of the infamous Al Qaeda terrorist attacks.” One gets the true neo-con thinking in Raggi’s statement that arresting, detaining, and abusing eight men because they were perceived as muslims was a public good and display of tolerance. Seriously, she actually said that “it is difficult to imagine a public good more demanding of decisiveness or more tolerant of reasonable judgments than the protection of this nation and its people from further terrorist attacks.” Only in neo-con world is the idea of imprisoning and abusing eight human beings living in America for appearing muslim that made them “suspected terrorists” considered “a public good” or a remotely “reasonable judgment” regardless the reason or who in the shrub White House issued the executive order.
After thirteen years, the eight plaintiff’s lawyer said the ruling sent a powerful message. A lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, Rachel Meeropol concurred with the plaintiff’s lawyer and held out hope there will be more defendants going forward. Ms. Meeropol opined that, “although punishing low-level perpetrators is necessary, it is hardly sufficient to prevent future abuse. Orders came from officials at the highest levels of government. Now we have the chance to ensure that they are held accountable and not treated as if they are above the law.”
However well-intentioned Meeropol’s assertion, high level shrub junta officials are above the law or they would be sitting in the Hague awaiting trial or waiting to see which prison they would be spending the rest of their pathetic war criminal lives in. However, they are above the law and free because here in America the rule of law is not applicable to Republican war criminals. Why? Because it is more crucial for Democrats to “look forward” and “not backwards” at seven-and-a-half years of a Republican junta that regularly violated the Geneva Convention and the United States Constitution.
However, it appears that now, thanks in great part to the long-suffering and perseverance of eight men the shrub’s junta perceived were muslim  and therefore terrorists, and a decision by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, at least two of the shrub criminals will face their accusers in a court of law. Sadly the shrub duo is not being sued for war crimes, but for violating the U.S. Constitution that they do not believe applies to a Republican junta.

Trickle down economics is wrong, says IMF

Adding another nail to the coffin of Reaganomics, a recent study published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has concluded that, contrary to the principles of “trickle-down” economics, an increase in the income share of the wealthiest people actually leads to a decrease in GDP growth.“The benefits do not trickle down,” the authors of the study write, directly contradicting the theory that US pretender Ronald Reagan popularized in the 1980s. Reagan argued that decreasing the tax burden for the rich–investors, executives, corporations and the like–would not only increase their own income but stimulate broad economic growth as they create opportunities for others’ increased prosperity. This belief has been at the center of conservative economic thought in the United States and abroad since Reagan’s presidency, during which he cut tax rates for the rich.
But the IMF study’s five authors say we should instead focus on raising the income of the poor and the middle class. “Widening income inequality is the defining challenge of our time,” they write. “In advanced economies, the gap between the rich and poor is at its highest level in decades."

The Republican Clown Car as Indecipherable Strategy

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I’m beginning to think the Republican Clown Car of Candidates is a deliberate campaign strategy that is somehow beyond the comprehension of most regular-thinking mortals. The upcoming 2016 Presidential Election being the third in a row where the vast majority of Republican candidates were gleefully unhinged, unqualified, unintelligent, or in some other way completely and totally unbelievable, I have to wonder whether this is one of those slight-of-hand type tricks where we’re seduced into looking at what’s going on over here, when what’s really about to stomp us into the dirt is coming at us from way over here.
 If you don’t believe me, or think I’m venturing too far down the conspiracy theory trail, then let’s take a look at the roster, shall we? This is not a full list of all the Republican candidates from years past, and I will freely confess that there were even a few reasonable candidates in there (2012 candidates Buddy Roemer and Jon Huntsman both come to mind, neither of whom stood a chance due to such intolerable character defects as sanity, decency, etc.) but the list of names to follow should, at the very least, cause you to go hmmmmm…

2008
Final Four
Nominee: John McCain (accompanied by Sarah Palin)
Mike Huckabee (dog told him to run)
Mitt Romney (money told him to run)
Ron Paul (great entertainment value)

Honorable Mention (who dropped out before or during the primaries)
Rudy Giuliani
Alan Keyes (because Obama)
Fred Thompson (played same character in life as on screen)

2012

Final Two
Nominee: Mitt Romney
Ron Paul

Honorable Mention
Newt Gingrich (good at sounding smart)
Michele Bachman (scary fun)
Rick Santorum
Rick Perry (what’s wrong with Texas, Exhibit A)
Herman Cain (more great entertainment)

2016:

Declared
Jeb Bush (related to two earlier mistakes)
Donald Trump
Ben Carson (good at medicine)
Ted Cruz (Dr. Smooth)
Carly Fiorina (because Hillary)
Lindsey Graham
Mike Huckabee (again)
Rand Paul (Son of Ron)
Rick Perry (again)
Rick Santorum (again)
Marco Rubio (really good at sweating)

In the Wings
Bobby Jindal (whatever)
Chris Christie (whatever again)
Scott Walker (same)
Even if they all became Koch addicts, it’s difficult to see how most of these jokers ever imagined themselves in the White House, or any house that serves solid food or offers a room with an actual view not framed by padded walls. Jeb Bush was supposed to be the moderate Republican candidate for 2016, or so I thought until he started spouting such teabagger crowd-pleasers as suggesting the public shaming of single mothers. Mitt Romney was supposed to be the (somewhat) reasonable and realistic Republican candidate of 2012, except that no one liked him and he couldn’t stop running away from himself screaming every time he confronted a mirror. John McCain in 2008, once again the same thing, until he let Palin on board and it was full speed ahead to Wacky World.
Now here comes the recently announced Donald Trump on his widdle tricycle, tooting his widdle horn, the Clown Prince Triumphant. Seriously?
For a political party so obsessed with the evils of overspending to be spending this much money on this many idiots, time after time, has just got to be part of some grand design.
Doesn’t it…?

How Republicans Turned Running For Pretender Into A Giant Money Making Scam

How Republicans Turned Running For President Into A Giant Money Making Scam (VIDEO)
Who needs a real job when you can be a professional pretender candidate?

... And They'll Prove It

Fox News Freaks Out That POTUS Used The Same Word The Republican Cabal Calls Him

Fox News Freaks Out That POTUS Used The Same Word The GOP Calls Him
On Friday's WTF Podcast with Marc Maron, President Obama uses the N word, Fox News loses their minds

The Charleston Massacre: 'While Republican Cabal Candidates Stammer, Clinton Confronts Race'

The Charleston Massacre: 'While GOP Candidates Stammer, Clinton Confronts Race'
According to Gearan, "Clinton plans to discuss the Charleston shootings Tuesday afternoon during a community meeting at a predominantly black cult in Florissant, Mo., near Ferguson, site of last summer's searing race riots."

MSNBC's Alex Witt Calls BS When Ron Christie Says Too Soon To Talk Guns

Finally! MSNBC's Alex Witt Calls BS When Ron Christie Says Too Soon To Talk Guns
After a years-long pattern of mass shootings followed by conservatives who always say that it's too soon after the tragedy to talk about gun control, MSNBC Alex Witt finally hit her breaking point on Saturday.

Black Cults In Arizona Say ‘No Thanks’ To ‘Protection’ From Arpaio’s Posses: He Ignores Them

Black Churches In Arizona Say ‘No Thanks’ To ‘Protection’ From Arpaio’s Posses: He Ignores ThemRacist Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio is sending his racist posses to black cults in Maricopa County. Whether they want them or not.

Fox News Is Now Trying To Blame Cultural Diversity For Gun Violence

Fox News Is Now Trying To Blame Cultural Diversity For Gun Violence (VIDEO)
Fox News supports a white supremacist narrative.

Follow The Money: Tracing The Immoral Disgusting Greed Of The NRA

It's way past time that Americans stop being bullied by the disgusting, immoral greed of the NRA and that members know this is not the old NRA.…
pray you can put away the guns
After an NRA leader predictably blamed the Charleston victims for their own deaths based on a faulty premise and an inaccurate understanding of the legislative process, you might be wondering why the NRA says such tone-deaf, ignorant things after each mass shooting.
It’s because they have a lot of money at stake and they need to find a way to keep lax gun regulations from being blamed for the shameful level of gun violence in the United States. They can’t make that argument logically, so they throw rhetorical bombs at people who were just murdered and at their families and friends.
Lot’s of people think of the National Rifle Association of America of yesterday — back before it was a corporate whore killing innocents for profit. But it has evolved from the independent group it used to be into a monster of corporate greed.
Since 2005, the gun industry and its corporate allies have given between $20 million and $52.6 million to it through the NRA Ring of Freedom sponsor program. Donors include firearm companies like Midway USA, Springfield Armory Inc, Pierce Bullet Seal Target Systems, and Beretta USA Corporation. Other supporters from the gun industry include Cabala’s, Sturm Rugar & Co, and Smith & Wesson.
The NRA also made $20.9 million — about 10 percent of its revenue — from selling advertising to industry companies marketing products in its many publications in 2010, according to the IRS Form 990.
Additionally, some companies donate portions of sales directly to the NRA. Crimson Trace, which makes laser sights, donates 10 percent of each sale to the NRA. Taurus buys an NRA membership for everyone who buys one of their guns. Sturm Rugar gives $1 to the NRA for each gun sold, which amounts to millions. The NRA’s revenues are intrinsically linked to the success of the gun business.
The NRA is no longer a group of gun enthusiasts advocating for gun rights. Now they fight viciously to bar universal background checks while then using the fact that killers get weapons they would not have this way to fearmonger people into carrying more guns.
Remember this? “We need to have every single school in America immediately deploy a protection program proven to work — and by that I mean armed security.” That was the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre just one week after 26 people, including 20 children, were mass murdered in Sandy Hook Elementary School.
All they are really saying each time they open their malevolent, greedy mouths is GIVE US MORE MONEY. WE DON’T CARE WHO DIES. PAY US.
The NRA is why legislation to require universal background checks failed to go anywhere in Congress, in spite of the fact that it had massive public support.
As Secretary Hillary Clinton said at a U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) 83rd Annual Meeting Saturday, “It makes no sense that we wouldn’t come together to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, or people suffering from mental illnesses, even people on the terrorist watch list. That doesn’t make sense, and it is a rebuke to this nation we love and care about.”
It’s way past time that Americans stop being bullied by the disgusting, immoral greed of the NRA and that members know this is not the old NRA. This isn’t the independent group you joined. The NRA is a festering corporate monster feeding off of the relentless murders of innocents.
Responsible gun owners must reject the irresponsible, sick agenda of the NRA.

Republicans Reeling: White House Candidates And Congressmen Took Cash From White Supremacists

Rand Paul, Ted CruzThe Republican Cabal is being rocked by the news that three pretender candidates and several members of Congress took campaign donations from white supremacist cabal referenced by Charleston shooter Dylann Roof in his manifesto.
The Guardian reported on the donations that Earl Holt, the president of the Council of 'Conservative' Citizens made to Republicans:
Holt has since 2012 contributed $8,500 to Cruz, the Texas senator running for the Republican pretender nomination, and his Jobs, Growth and Freedom Fund political action committee, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings. On some filings Holt’s occupation was listed as “slumlord”. He has also given $1,750 to RandPAC, the political action committee of Paul, the Kentucky senator and presidential contender, and he gave $2,000 to the 2012 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney.vA further $1,500 was donated by Holt to Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator and 2012 Republican pretender primary runner-up, who is running for president again in the 2016 race and attended Sunday’s memorial service at Emanuel AME Cult.
….
Holt has also distributed tens of thousands in campaign contributions among prominent Republicans in Congress, such as Steve King of Iowa ($2,000), Tom Cotton of Arkansas ($1,500) and Jeff Flake of Arizona ($1,000). He also gave $3,200 to the former Minnesota congresswoman and pretender candidate Michele Bachmann.
The Republican pretender candidates rushed to refund the donations, but their refunds can’t hide the larger point.
The hate speech and anti-immigrant policies of the Republican Cabal are appealing to racists. Steve King is a flaming racist who regularly demonizes immigrants. Tom Cotton has also engaged in the anti-immigrant rhetoric while calling for military action against muslims in the Middle East.
Attention will focus on the donations to Republican pretender candidates, but this is a party wide issue. Republicans have spent years trying to divide the country along racial lines, and the racist chickens are coming home to roost.
Racists hear the Republican dog whistles loud and clear when it comes to President Obama and other minorities. The Republican Cabal is the anti-minority cabal. Republicans oppose equality and citizenship women, Hispanics, gays, and African-Americans. This platform has not only made it virtually impossible for Republicans to win the White House. It has also turned the Republican Cabal into the cabal of racist hate.

The Cockroaches Scatter: Ted Cruz Can’t Give Back Wingnut Cabal’s Money Fast Enough

The Council of 'Conservative' Citizens says blacks are "the laziest, stupidest and most criminally-inclined race in the history of the world"…

No Matter How Hard They Try, Republicans Can’t Prove That Repealing Obamacare Saves Money

Even Republican Cabal-endorsed math still finds that getting rid of Obamacare would add billions to the federal budget.

Four Giant Problems With The Supreme Court Case Against Obamacare


The trouble with saying untrue things to the Supreme Court is that you can get caught.

House Republicans Propose Stripping Family Planning Services From Millions Of Low-Income Women

House Republicans released a budget proposal this week that would eliminate funding for the Title X program, a decades-old network of family planning providers offering birth control, cancer screenings, STD testing, and reproductive health treatment to millions of low-income women across the country.
The Title X program was first created in 1970 under former President Richard Nixon. Back then, federally-funded family planning services had broad bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle acknowledged the government’s role in making birth control more accessible to impoverished Americans. “It is my view that no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition,” Nixon declared at the time.
Since then, the GOP position has shifted considerably. Spurred by concerns that some Title X providers — like Planned Parenthood — also function as abortion clinics, conservative lawmakers have set their sights on stripping funding from the federal program. In 2011, House Republicans voted along party lines to dismantle Title X.
These legislative attacks on the family planning program have so far been rebuffed by a Democratic-controlled Senate. However, now that Republicans control the Senate, it’s possible that Congress’ final budget could include the elimination of Title X this year.
The proposal from the House Appropriations Committee also seeks to roll back much of the Affordable Care Act, eliminate most of the federal funding for comprehensive sex ed and teen pregnancy prevention programs, and give employers more power to refuse to cover reproductive health care services they object to. The committee is holding a hearing on the proposal on Wednesday morning

Top Ten Rotten Fruits Of The Wingnut ‘Christian’ Spirit

Featured image credit: Jacob Esben H. via flckr, creative commons license 2.0From ignorance to fear, hate and violence, here’s a list of the top ten rotten fruits of the wingnut 'christian' spirit.

Court Forces Poor Disabled Woman To Pay 3 Times Her Student Loan Amount

Court Forces Poor Disabled Woman To Pay 3 Times Her Student Loan Amount
It’s such a scam that people should start life in debt and remain there for the rest of their lives.

Bad Cops