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Tuesday, July 28, 2015

The Daily Drift

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Jobless Claims Fall To Lowest Level Since 1973

THANKS OBAMA
THANKS OBAMA: Jobless Claims Fall To Lowest Level Since 1973
Yes, better than Reagan.
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President Obama’s ‘Greatest Frustration’ Is Republican Obstruction Of Gun Safety Laws

President Obama’s ‘Greatest Frustration’ Is GOP Obstruction Of Gun Safety Laws (VIDEO)Hours before a gunman opened fire in yet another mass-shooting, President Obama spoke about being “stymied” on gun safety.

Democrats Drill Republicans By Hitting Them In The Koch With Supreme Court Ethics Bill

It is an affront to Americans, and frankly the rule of law, that every judge is held to ethical standards except the 9 Supreme Court Justices…
Scalia Thomas Kochs
Since America is supposed to be a nation of laws, even though those laws are not enforced universally, the people expect the judiciary to be impartial, transparent and adhere to the highest ethical standards. For all but nine American judges, the nation’s judiciary is held to high ethical standards because they have to adhere to a “judicial code of conduct.” Perhaps it is because they are appointed for life, or are completely exempt from adhering to any kind of ethics code, conservative Supreme Court Justices have blatantly flouted ethical standards every federal judge in America is required to follow.
For the second time in as many years, Democratic legislators in Congress are calling on the Supreme Court to finally, at long last, adopt a code of ethics for Supreme Court Justices to rein in wingnut Justices working for wingnut, corporate, and religious cabals. The bill, “The Supreme Court Ethics Act of 2015″ that was recently reintroduced would to media silence, if passed by the Koch brothers’ Congress, requires the Supreme Court to adopt a code of the ethics within 180 days. There is little hope the Koch brothers will allow Republicans to be for the legislation eliminating their substantial influence over at least two, and likely three, of the High Court’s wingnut Justices.
As it stands now, the nine Supreme Court justices are so powerful that they are currently exempt from adhering to the code of conduct all other U.S. judges are required to follow; an ethics code to ensure there is a semblance of neutrality and transparency in the nation’s federal courts. It is a requirement that the American people support overwhelmingly, and if enacted may well lead the population to believe that the highest court in the land is not working solely for the rich and religious entities controlling the five conservatives on the Court.
In the latest polling from Gallup, the American people’s faith in the High Court as an independent, transparent, and fair entity is a despicable 30 percent; likely because of a recent rash of wingnut rulings based on the demands of powerful special interest and religious cabals. The solution is a simple fix requiring the Supreme Court justices to recuse themselves from cases where they have a blatant, often monetary conflict of interest, and finally restrict them from engaging in political activities to raise money and awareness for wingnut causes; specifically corporate and religious causes.
New legislation introduced by Representative Louise Slaughter is a reiteration of a 2012 bill that has an updated title, “the Supreme Court Ethics Act of 2015.” The new legislation, if by a world-shaking miracle, was passed by the Koch Congress will be a huge step toward ensuring that wingnut Justices start “ruling fairly and start conducting themselves in ways that uphold the impartiality and integrity of the judiciary.” Several rulings over the past five years by the wingnut Court belie any belief that integrity and impartiality exists in at least three of the Court’s wingnut puppets.
According to Senator Chris Murphy (D-CN) “there is absolutely no reason why Supreme Court Justices shouldn’t be subject to the same code of conduct as all other federal judges. The American people deserve to know that our highest court is held to the highest ethical standards, which is why we introduced the Supreme Court Ethics Act of 2015.” All other Federal judges are held to high ethical standards due to requirements in “The Code of Conduct for United States Judges.” Supreme Court conservative Justices not only have no intent, much less obligation to adhere to the Code of Conduct, it is fairly well known that some of them refuse to even “avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities.”
This is not the first, or even the second, time legislators have attempted to hold Supreme Court Justices to the same standards as every other federal judge. A similar bill was introduced in 1973, and again in 2013, and three years ago 212 legal scholars recognized the pressing need for an code of ethics and appealed to Chief Justice John Roberts in a letter “urging him to adopt a code of conduct for the Justices.” Roberts has also received a petition signed by 130,000 Americans (so far) begging him to adopt and enforce some kind of ethics code for the High Court; likely because the public knows that wingnut Justices, particularly Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, are closely tied to, and committed to serve the Koch brothers, wingnut delusion tanks, evangelicals, and corporations.
Democratic legislators say, and rightly so, that Congress has the purview to create a Supreme Court Code of Conduct because it legally determines how many Justices sit on the Court as well as how much they are paid by the federal government, not the Koch brothers or wingnut delusion tanks. In a press release, the bill’s author, Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY) said “The questionable activities of some of our Supreme Court justices have been well documented — participating in political functions, failing to report family income from political groups, and attending political fundraisers. It doesn’t make sense that members of the highest court in the land are the only federal judges exempt from the code of conduct.”
Slaughter was referring to Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas Koch-funded attendance at a highly-secret Koch brother strategy meeting and corporate fundraiser with Citizens United plaintiffs prior to hearing and ruling that corporations are exempt from campaign finance laws according to their 1st Amendment right of free speech. She also noted that Clarence Thomas deliberately concealed hundreds-of-thousands of dollars paid to his wife by the “anti-Obamacare” wingnut Heritage Foundation to lobby against the Affordable Care Act; even while the Supreme Court was taking up the Constitutionality of the healthcare insurance reform law. Last year, Justice Samuel Alito was the featured guest speaker at a $25,000-a-head political fundraiser for a wingnut magazine cabal, American Spectator. There is no way of knowing whether or how much Alito earned as a featured speaker because there is no Supreme Court Code of Ethics. Regardless of whether he earned one penny, Alito like Scalia, did use his status and position as a Supreme Court Justice to raise money for wingnuts.
It is an affront to Americans, and frankly the rule of law, that every judge in America is held to some kind of ethical standards except the nine Supreme Court Justices with the power to interpret the Constitutionality of any and every law in the nation. Over the past five years, particularly, the American people have suffered the consequences, including the selling of their democracy to the rich and powerful, of a High Court without a code of judicial conduct.
It is true there is no guarantee that a judicial “ethics or conduct code” will ensure transparency and neutrality, especially among the Koch wingnuts on the Court. It may, however, serve as a reminder to Justices that they are not above following basic judicial ethics standards; something the Koch brothers will never allow “their” Republican Congress to enact or enforce. If, by some Earth-shaking miracle Congress did enact a Supreme Court Ethics Code, it is likely that the 5 wingnuts on the High Court would rule it unconstitutional.

John Kerry Tells Republicans To Stop Believing In Unicorns And Join The Real World On Iran

John Kerry dismissed Corker's fantasies about a world where Iran's nuclear knowledge can be made to magically disappear.…

In Swing States, Voters Want Action On Climate Change





Republican Cabal's Favorability Rating Nosedives

Pew Research Center Poll: Republican Party's Favorability Rating Nosedives

Republicans Still Want Trump, But He Would Get Crushed By Clinton Or Sanders

Trump still leads the Republican cabal field, but he trails both Clinton and Sanders by double digits, according to a poll released last Thursday.…

trump-hands-up
A Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey released on July 22, 2015, finds that Trump is still the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. Trump continues to leads the national Republican cabal field with 19 percent support, followed by Wisconsin's idiot Walker at 17 percent, and  Jeb  at 12 percent. Fruitcake Carson and the moron  Rubio round out the top five, with each of them polling at 10 percent support.
Trump continues to hold the lead in the Republican field, even after making his controversial comments mocking John McCain for being captured as a POW during the Vietnam War. While 50 percent of Republican voters disagreed with Trump’s comments, compared to only 22 percent who agreed, the fallout has not cost Trump his lead in the Republican race.
Republican voters want Trump as their nominee, but choosing him to represent their cabal would be akin to political suicide. Trump trails Hillary Clinton 50-37 percent in a head to head match-up. He also trails Bernie Sanders 47-37 percent, making him by far the weakest Republican candidate surveyed, when pitted against a Democratic opponent.
The PPP poll also found that if Republicans choose not to nominate Trump, he could still inflict fatal damage on the cabal if he decides to follow through on his threat to run as an Independent candidate for pretender. For example, in a three-way race between Hillary Clinton, Jeb  and Trump, the Democrats would win in a landslide. In that hypothetical match-up, Hillary Clinton polls 43 percent, followed by Jeb at 25 percent, and Trump at 23 percent.
Republican voters find Trump’s demagoguery appealing. By a 49-36 percent margin they hold favorable views of the bombastic billionaire. However, American voters in general view Trump negatively, with just 29 percent seeing him favorably compared to 61 percent who dislike him.
Republican voters can choose to nominate Trump to represent their cabal in 2016, or they can select another candidate and hope that Trump doesn’t run as an Independent. Either way, the bottom line is that if  Trump’s name appears anywhere on the ballot in November 2016, the Democrats will win their biggest landslide victory since LBJ crushed Barry Goldwater in 1964.

Georgia Republican Hurls Racist Insults At Black Woman, Says She Should Apologize To Him

Image WXIA
A Georgia Republican used vile racist language to insult an African-American woman on Facebook, but he expects and is demanding that she be the one who apologizes.
WXIA's Catherine Beck confronts Newton County Commissioner John Douglas over racist Facebook comments (Screenshot/WXIA)
Newton County Commissioner John Douglas took to Facebook to respond to a photo of the woman giving the finger and wiping herself with the flag with the words, “She is just a cheap street walker knee grow who lays down for white men.”

Republicans Plans To Hold Social Security Hostage - And 'Phase Out' Medicare. Don't Let Them!

GOP Plans To Hold Social Security Hostage -- And 'Phase Out' Medicare. Don't Let Them! These two programs been around a long time, helping people live in dignity. Stand up for them!

We Need To Phase Out Medicare, Says Jeb at Koch Brothers Sponsored Event

Jeb-screen-captureJeb told an audience at a Koch brothers’ sponsored Americans for Prosperity event in New Hampshire, that we need to phase out Medicare. Bush, the so-called “moderate” candidate in the GOP field, is ready to scrap Medicare, stripping away a vital program that helps cover medical costs for elderly and disabled Americans.
The moron made his intentions clear when he stated:
The left needs to join the conversation, but they haven’t. I mean, when [Rep. Paul Ryan] came up with, one of his proposals as it relates to Medicare, the first thing I saw was a TV ad of a guy that looked just like Paul Ryan … that was pushing an elderly person off the cliff in a wheelchair. That’s their response.
And I think we need to be vigilant about this and persuade people that our, when your volunteers go door to door, and they talk to people, people understand this. They know, and I think a lot of people recognize that we need to make sure we fulfill the commitment to people that have already received the benefits, that are receiving the benefits.
But then we need to figure out a way to phase out this program for others and move to a new system that allows them to have something – because they’re not going to have anything. And that argument I think is going to be a winning argument if we take it directly to the people.
What Jeb does not seem to understand is that what passes as a winning argument in a room full of Koch brothers’ republican cabal lackeys and what passes as a winning argument with the American people are two very different things.
According to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey released on July 17, 2015, 89 percent of Americans want to leave Medicare as it is, or they want to increase funding for Medicare. 77 percent of Americans say Medicare is “very important” to them, including 69 percent of Republicans. Only 4 percent of Republicans, 3 percent of Independents and 1 percent of Democrats say Medicare is “not very important” or “not at all important” to them.
Mitt Romney was widely regarded as out of touch in 2012, for wanting to completely ignore 47 percent of the electorate. However, his formula for victory at least was mathematically possible if he could have somehow implausibly ran the table with the other 53 percent of voters. Jeb, however, thinks its a winning argument to send people door to door to push a policy that will have the support of just 4 percent of Republicans and less than 3 percent of Americans in general.
Apparently when a candidate spends all his time sucking up to the Koch brothers, he loses sight of what constitutes sensible or popular public policy. Jeb, by all means, go ahead and send your paid staffers and your volunteers to knock on every door in America with the message that you want to phase out Medicare. Oh, and good luck with that.

Pharmacy owners cannot use religion to deny medicine

Federal appeals court says pharmacy owners cannot use religion to deny medicine

Indiana County Clerk Files Lawsuit Claiming Persecution After Being Fired For Refusing To Issue Same-Sex Marriage Licenses

Image via https://twitter.com/mimiyyo/status/581312232673320960
A county clerk in Indiana is throwing a temper tantrum over being fired because she refused to obey the law and didn’t want to do her job without the ability to discriminate against people.

Louisiana pastor arrested twice in three months for trying to molest teen boys

Jules Anderson, Jr. (St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Office)
A Louisiana pastor has been arrested for the second time in recent months for attempting lewd acts with a 16-year-old boy.

Dead Man With 1200 Guns Thought He Was An Alien With Special Powers

Featured image credit: video screen capture, via KTLA
Authorities say that Jeffery Lash, a man who apparently believed he was an alien being with super powers, had an arsenal that included at least 1200 guns and 6.5 tons of ammunition.

White, Religio-Wingnut, Teabagger Nazi, Extremist Shoots Up Movie Theater, Killing Two And ‘Terrorist’ Isn’t Uttered Once

John R. Houser, 59, was the gunman in a deadly shooting at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, Thursday, July 24, 2015, Lafayette Police Chief Jim Craft said Friday. He was formerly of Alabama, was "kind of a drifter" and is believed to have been in Lafayette since early July. He had been staying at a local hotel, Craft said.
Another day, another shooting by a wingnut who hasn’t been labeled a terrorist.
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Man dons Knights Templar costume to scare away muslims from New York military recruiting center

Decked out in full Renaissance Faire regalia, a New York man has joined hundreds of 'patriots' who have appointed themselves defenders of U.S. military recruitment centers.

Seattle bus driver’s eyeglasses camera reveals deputies lied ...

Seattle deputies could be fired after hidden camera reveals they lied in report (KIRO)
Two sheriff’s deputies patrolling Seattle’s transit system lied about a bus driver’s use of profanity during a heated argument last November captured by a camera embedded in the driver’s eyeglasses, a police investigation has found.

Court Rules That Air Fresheners, Rosaries And Pro-Police Bumper Stickers Are Reasonable Suspicion

Court Rules That Air Fresheners, Rosaries And Pro-Police Bumper Stickers Are Reasonable SuspicionCould you imagine if, instead of being Latino, the defendants were anti-choice white 'christians' and the probable causes were anti-choice and NRA bumper stickers?

Anti-Forfeiture Corruption Bill Gets Pushback From Guilty Prosecutors Stealing Seized Cash, Home

(Image courtesy of WikiMedia) Here’s a story that lends a lot of credibility to that suspicion many have that cops sometimes pocket your drugs, money and other property for themselves...