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Saturday, August 8, 2015

The Daily Drift

Welcome the to Weekend Expanded Edition of The Truth be Told.
Hey, wingnuts, yeah we're talking to you ...!  
 
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Republicans - No happiness for you ... !
Today is - Happiness Happens Day
 
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Australia walks away from Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal talks

The world’s biggest regional trade deal – Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – is still within reach despite Australia walking away empty-handed from the latest talks, the federal government says.
The trade minister, Andrew Robb, confirmed that a conclusion was not be reached on the $200bn deal during the latest round of negotiations in Hawaii.
“Australia had made some excellent progress but unfortunately some difficult issues were not resolved,” he said on Saturday.
Robb has laid the blame for the failure to come to an agreement with the “big four” economies of the US, Canada, Japan and Mexico. “The sad thing is, 98% is concluded,” he said.
“While we didn’t quite get there, we are definitely on the cusp.”
Concerns around automotives, data protection of biologics, dairy and sugar remain sticking points, but they are not impossible to resolve, Robb said.
“From my reading, the issues are not intractable and there remains a real determination to conclude the TPP among all parties.”
Farmers were disappointed by the outcome but said it was important to get a good deal. National Farmers Federation deputy chief Tony Mahar told Sky News: “We really hope that we can get a successful agreement for farmers within the next few months.”
Robb faces a tussle at home over the deal, with Nationals MPs demanding a decent deal for sugar farmers. Half a dozen federal Nationals indicated they would cross the floor when the agreement comes before the parliament if only a token result is achieved.
The US allows sugar imports based on a quota system, with Australian cane farmers now allowed to send about 100,000 tonnes there a year. The farmers would like to raise this to more than 500,000 tonnes but the Americans are holding out.
The agreement involves 12 nations including the US, New Zealand, Japan and Canada, and covers about 40% of the global economy. Talks are expected to resume in November.
Failure to seal the agreement will be a setback for the US president, Barack Obama, given the trade pact’s stance as the economic arm of the administration’s pivot to Asia and an opportunity to balance out China’s influence in the region.
The talks, which drew about 650 negotiators, 150 journalists and hundreds of stakeholders to the Hawaiian island of Maui, had been billed as the last chance to get a deal in time to pass the US Congress this year, before 2016 presidential elections muddy the waters.
The deal seeks to meld bilateral questions of market access for exports with one-size-fits-all standards on issues ranging from workers’ rights to environmental protection and dispute settlement between governments and foreign investors.
Negotiators from the 12 TPP members had worked through the night and officials said great strides were made in many contentious areas.

Jon Stewart Delivers the Final Death Blow to Fox News — and the Koch Brothers

Heroes
Jon Stewart bye Fox News

I work at the US Senate ...

I shouldn’t have to dance at strip clubs to feed my son
Man at a strip club (Shutterstock)
I’m a single mother and I struggle to support my son on the $10.33 an hour I make at one of the most exclusive clubs in America – the US Senate. I’m a cashier employed by the British-owned contractor that runs the cafeterias in the Senate office buildings. But even though I serve some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world, I can’t afford to buy my son school supplies or clothes.
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After paying all my bills and providing for the needs of my son, I’m $600 in the hole every month. On top of the low wages, I get a lay-off notice every time the US Senate goes on recess, which means that I don’t get a paycheck for 8-10 weeks a year.
When I realized that I couldn’t survive on what I was making at the Senate, I made a difficult decision. Faced with eviction notices and unpaid bills, I decided to dance at a strip club a few nights a week to earn extra money. It was the only job I could find that let me work a flexible schedule and earn a living wage.
I don’t want to be a stripper: it can be demeaning to dance for men who show no respect for women. I only do it out of necessity, because I have to support my son. He gets As and Bs on his report card and my shelves are full of his football trophies. My son makes me proud and I want to give him everything that my mother couldn’t give me. The wages I make at my day job just don’t leave me much choice.
During the day, I make sure that senators and their staffs get their coffee quickly and efficiently as they run from meeting to meeting or to the Senate floor to cast votes – and I’ve served the nine current and former US senators who are running to become the next president of the United States. But while my customers give speeches in Iowa and New Hampshire promising to deliver the American Dream to hard-working people, they aren’t lifting a finger to help the workers like me who serve them every day; not everyone has another job, but it’s almost impossible to support even a small family without one.
I only want what every mother wants: to provide my child with a life that’s better than my own. My childhood was emotionally, physically and sexually abusive; my mother was addicted to crack cocaine and, not only did she do drugs in front of me, she neglected to feed or bathe me for days. I soon realized she loved drugs and the fast life more than me. When I turned 12, the authorities intervened and almost sent me into the foster-care system.
Luckily, my grandparents stepped in and allowed me to live with them. But a couple of years later, they moved away and left me with my aunt. She didn’t have patience for another child under her roof, so she kicked me out. I was 14 years old and forced to survive on the streets of Washington DC.
I eventually met a man who said he loved me and would help me out. He was a pimp. He was physically and sexually abusive and forced me into prostitution. I only managed to escape from his control when I was 17. I told myself that if I ever became a mother I would do everything in my power to make sure my child would not have to suffer like I did.
The birth of my son was a turning point in my life. I found a full-time job at the US Senate, and I was so proud to be able to work in such an important place. During that time, I went back to school and I got my GED. I thought that I was doing great, but it didn’t take long for me to learn that even a job in the Senate wasn’t enough to give me and my son a shot at a better life.
As all the current and former senators running for the White House prepare to hit the campaign trail during the August recess, I hope they remember the people they are leaving behind without a paycheck. And when they sit down with the primary voters and listen to their problems, I hope they’ll be thinking about my story too – and the tough decisions the workers who serve them every day have to make for the people they love.

Foe of Limits on Political Spending Likens Big Donors to Owners, Making Opponents' Point

Fascism

The biggest lie in the federal budget is that all spending is the same

by Ezra Klein
Here's the problem: the federal budget makes no distinction between money the government spends and money it invests.
But there is a difference. A dollar spent on Social Security is a dollar that the federal government no longer has. That's different from a dollar spent building, say, a federal courthouse, where the government trades a dollar worth of currency for a dollar worth of courthouse. These kinds of spending are not the same, and the government shouldn't treat them as if they are.
TREATING INVESTMENT AND SPENDING AS IDENTICAL CAN LEAD TO SOME REALLY DUMB DECISIONS
Treating investment and spending as identical can lead to some really dumb decisions. If the government cuts spending on Social Security by $10 billion then it really has saved $10 billion.
But if the government cuts spending on infrastructure repairs by $10 billion then it looks like it's saved $10 billion, but really it's just pushed $10 billion worth of infrastructure repairs into the future — and because the bridges may crumble and the water pipes might break, deferring that $10 billion in spending might mean the government has to spend $20 billion instead.
Enter a capital budget: the idea that the federal budget should treat capital investments differently than other kinds of spending.
This isn't some crazed concept dreamed up by FDR nostalgics. It's how most businesses run their budgets, too. They keep an eye on annual cash flow, which is basically what the federal budget tracks now, but they're interested in more than that: they're interested in future profits and losses, and so they try, as best they can, to break out the investments that are meant to generate those future profits and stem those future losses.
The hard part there is they also estimate how much value their capital assets are losing each year, and they treat that, correctly, like a hit to the company's value. You don't lose money when you initially buy a machine for your company — after all, that was simply an exchange of money for machine, and the machine was presumably worth the money you paid for it. You lose money when the machine stops working, because then you don't have the money or the machine.
So, to use the government as an example, capital budgeting would make clear that if our roads are degrading to the tune of $20 billion a year, then we need to be spending $20 billion a year on repairs just to stay even. Spending nothing means losing $20 billion in value, not holding even.

Republicans Hate President's Historic Iran Speech - Which Means It's A Success

GOPers Hate President's Historic Iran Speech -- Which Means It's A Success
"This deal is not just the best choice among alternatives," he said. "This is the strongest non-proliferation agreement ever negotiated."

Obama Strongly Urges Democrats To Watch The Republican cabal Debates, And Why You Should

(Image courtesy of WikiMedia)How can Democrats effectively counter Republican garbage if they don’t even know what it is beyond a sound bite?

Bernie Sanders Shreds republican Cabal Science Deniers While Applauding Obama Climate Change Initiative

Bernie-Sanders-point
Bernie Sanders went where the media won’t while supporting President Obama’s climate change initiative. Sanders bluntly called out the Republican cabal for being owned by the Koch brothers, and the oil companies.
In a statement, Senator Sanders said:
I applaud President Obama for recognizing that climate change is the great planetary crisis facing our country and the world. I support his plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants and to promote more wind and solar power and other sources of renewable energy.
It is time for Republicans in Congress to stop obstructing efforts to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.
I understand that Republicans, including many of those running for president, are dependent on the Koch brothers, oil companies, and other fossil-fuel contributors. Maybe for once they can overcome the needs of their campaign contributors and worry instead about the planet they are leaving their kids and grandchildren and young people all over the world.
That was an effective call out of the real reason Republicans are opposed to doing anything to combat climate change by Senator Sanders. The media won’t go there, and many Democrats are afraid to say it out loud, but the truth is that Republicans oppose any effort to combat climate change because they are owned by the Koch brothers, the oil companies, and the fossil fuel industry.
Congress has become an institution that only serves those who write the biggest checks to fund their campaigns. The actual process of governing operates through a filter of donor whims and needs. The Republican-misled Congress does not respond to desires of the majority because cash comes before constituents.
President Obama is taking bold and historic action to deal with climate change, and he needs the support of every moderate, progressive, and liberal in this country. Senator Sanders is standing with the president. Hillary Clinton has pledged to defend Obama’s plan if she becomes the next president, and now it is up to the American people to fight back against the Koch controlled republican cabal to preserve the planet.

President Obama Obliterates Republican Lies With A Clean Energy Plan Fact Bomb

obama clean energy plan
President Obama is wise to Republican tactics which was why he preemptively destroyed their lies and misinformation about his clean energy plan during his speech.
During his speech announcing his clean power plant plan, President Obama said:
There will be critics of what we’re trying to do. There will be cynics who say it can not be done. Long before the details of this clean energy plan were even decided, the special interests and their allies in Congress were already mobilizing to oppose it with everything they got.

They will claim that this plan will cost you money. Even though this plan the analysis shows long-term will save the average American eighty-five dollars a month on their energy bills.

They’ll claim that we need to slash our investments in clean energy. It’s a waste of money. Even though, they are happy to spend billions of dollars a year in subsidizing oil companies.
They’ll claim this plan will kill jobs. Even though our transition to a cleaner energy economy has the solar industry to just name one example creating jobs ten times faster than the rest of the economy.
They’ll claim this plan is a war on coal to scare up votes. Even as they ignore my plan to actually invest in revitalizing coal country and supporting healthcare and retirement for coal miners and their families and retraining those workers for better-paying jobs and healthier jobs.
Communities across America have been losing coal jobs for decades. I want to work with Congress to help them, not to use them as a political football.
Partisan press releases aren’t going to help those families.
Even more cynical, we’ve got critics of this plan who actually claiming that this will harm minority and low-income communities. Even though climate change hurts those Americans the most, who are the most vulnerable.
Today an African-American child is more than twice as likely to be hospitalized from asthma. A Latino child is forty percent more likely to die from asthma.

So if you care about low-income minority communities start protecting the air that they breathe and stop trying to rob them of their healthcare.
President Obama isn’t waiting for Republicans and their Koch masters to get their attack machine into high gear. The criticisms that are certain to come to the surface have been floating around wingnut media for months. The Koch brothers have been using their vast organizational network to spread misinformation, and wingnut blogs and websites have quickly jumped on board.
The reality is that Republicans are opposed to clean air and human beings having a healthy environment to live in. Obama was correct. There is no “war on coal.” Coal jobs have been declining for decades due in large part to the rise of the natural gas industry.
The tactics that Republicans and their allies are utilizing should seem familiar because this is the same strategy that they have used in their attempts to destroy Obamacare. Republicans want to scare people away from a plan that will help them through a barrage of lies and misinformation.
President Obama is ready to beat them at their own game by derailing the misinformation express before it has a chance to get rolling.

What To Expect From Republicans And The Coal Industry Now That Obama’s Climate Plan Is Final

What To Expect From Republicans And The Coal Industry Now That Obama’s Climate Plan Is Final
Let's see: Lies, Faux Fury, More Lies, Phony Outrage, Still More Lies, Attempts to Destroy Plan, Yet More Lies ...
That about covers it.

Business Leaders And Republican Voters Support Obama’s Climate Plan. What Will Republican cabal Candidates Do?

Several new polls find swing state voters and early state Republican cabal primary voters support the Clean Power Plan. But Republican candidates aren't listening.

Partisan Hack Chuck Todd Is Mad At Trump For Ruining The ‘Strongest’ Republican cabal Field ‘In 36 Years’

Partisan Hack Chuck Todd Is Mad At Trump For Ruining The ‘Strongest’ GOP Field ‘In 36 Years’ (VIDEO)
What the fuck, Chuck?
Fox News might be a better fit for you.
Read more

Trump Has Commandeered The Republican Cabal Crazy Train And Republicans Are Going Off The Rails With Him

Trump has a big lead, and right now nobody in the Republican cabal knows how to stop the runaway crazy train.…

Trump Thinks You Should Be Able To Bring Guns Anywhere, Except His Own Hotels

Hypocrite Much? 

Trump Thinks You Should Be Able To Bring Guns Anywhere, Except His Own Hotels

Fox News’ Plan Backfires As Their Viewers Reject The Phony Republican Debate Criteria

No-Fox-newsFox News thought they could bring some order to the chaos of the Republican primary by imposing debate rules that limited the number of candidates. Instead, their plan has backfired as Republicans oppose the network’s plan for the Republican debate.
According to the new Monmouth University Poll:
The top ten candidates in the field, based on a national polling average, will make it into the first sanctioned Republican cabal debate later this week. Few Republican voters are on board with this idea. When presented with three possible scenarios to determine who gets into the first debate, nearly half (45%) prefer to have two back-to-back debates with the field randomly split in half. Another 29% say it would be better to put all the declared candidates together on one stage. Just 23% favor using polls to select a “top ten” group of candidates for the main debate while having the remaining candidates participate in a separate debate.
….
“I suppose Fox hoped that a top tier would emerge by the time the first debate rolled around. But based on current polling, there’s no good rationale for arbitrarily selecting a top ten,” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.
The problem is that after Trump (26%), Jeb (12.2%), and Walker (11.1%) all of the other Republican candidates are bunched together. Fox News has claimed that they will be using the five polls to pick the ten candidates who will make it to the main debate stage, but nobody seems to know which polls Fox is going to use.
What’s even worse is that Fox News appears to be making up the rules as they go along. New York Magazine reported, “Inside Fox, the debate is generating controversy among Ailes’s senior ranks. ‘There’s total confusion about all of it. The Second Floor is making it up as they go along,’ one Fox personality told me, referring to Ailes’s executive suite. According to sources, Fox executives are still undecided about which polls to use and who will be allowed on the stage.”
Fox News has added fuel to the chaos within the Republican primary, and even their viewers can sense the unfairness of the entire situation. Fox has been changing the rules of the debate seemingly at the whim of Roger Ailes.
The upside to this drama is that Fox News has eliminated any pretense of being a news organization. It is clear that Fox is actively trying to pick the Republican nominee. Legitimate news organizations don’t set the debate rules and then change their minds based on which candidates they would like to see included. The Fox debate criteria was a phony sham that is so obvious that even their brainwashed viewers can see what is really going on.

Fox News In Hot Water As Candidate Files Federal Complaint Over Republican Debate Rules

fox-debate
The Fox News debate became the circus that many thought it would be after Republican pretender candidate Mark Everson filed a complaint with the FEC asking that the network’s rules for participation in the “pre-show” debate be declared illegal.
Everson is arguing that election law requires debate organizers to set “pre-established and objective standards” for inclusion and that Fox News has not met that requirement for Thursday’s debate in Cleveland.
….
Fox announced earlier this year that it would limit the debate to the top 10 candidates in “an average of the five most recent national polls” as of Aug. 4 at 5 p.m. ET. The network later announced that it would hold a separate on-air forum earlier Thursday for candidates who did not crack the top 10 but “score 1% or higher in an average of the five most recent national polls.” That was the same standard Fox set for inclusion in its GOP debates in the 2012 campaign cycle.
Last week the network scrapped the 1% requirement for the early event, with Executive Vice President for News Michael Clemente saying it will instead include “all declared candidates whose names are consistently being offered to respondents in major national polls, as recognized by Fox News.”
Everson believes that Fox News is violating election law, and while the network shouldn’t be overly worried about his FEC complaint, the door has been opened for even bigger issues to come. The problem is that Fox is making up the rules as they go along. No one knows what five polls they are going to be using to determine candidate inclusion. What happens if one of the candidates loses out on the final spot in the main debate? Kasich, Christie, and Perry are separated by less than a point for ninth, tenth, and eleventh place. One of these three is going to miss the debate.
Does the candidate who gets left out sue Fox News for inclusion? What about the dozens of other candidates who are being left out of the “pre-show” debate? Since Fox has dropped the 1% threshold, theoretically any of the other declared candidates could view themselves as eligible.
Fox News has made such a mess of this debate that it shouldn’t surprise anyone if they end up in court. Everson’s federal complaint is just the tip of the iceberg. Fox News is in some very hot water.

Rachel Maddow Fact Checks Cruz On His ‘Machine Gun Bacon’

Rachel Maddow Fact Checks Ted Cruz On His ‘Machine Gun Bacon’ – Cruz Responds With New Video
Ever been curious about what a psychopath might look like?
Read more 

Wing Nut Daily Catches Obama's 'Demonic Spirit' In Kenya

Welcome to the Outer Limits of the Twilight Zone
Wing Nut Daily, the same wingnut 'outlet' that broke the earth shattering story about how a housefly that landed on President Obama proved that he is possessed by demons, has found new evidence of Obama’s Satanic nature: a grey blur, likely a boom mic, seen in a video of Obama exiting Air Force... MORE

Here are 5 frightening ways radical lunatic fringe wingnuts are trying to control the way we teach US history

Scared student (Shutterstock)
Wingnuts want to make our educational system even more wingnut and parochial.

6 things to say to your wingnuts relatives buying into the anti-Planned Parenthood propaganda

Crazy old man (Shutterstock)
Some tips on how to respond to some of the most common arguments.

The Pill Has Prevented 400,000 Cases Of Cancer, But The Republican cabal Wants To Ban Birth Control

The Pill Has Prevented 400,000 Cases Of Cancer, But The GOP Wants To Ban Birth Control
A new study reveals that oral contraceptives drastically reduce cancer risk in women, which officially makes the Republican cabal’s War on Women deadly.

When An NBA Investor Gave Walker’s PAC Money, A $250M Stadium Deal Appeared

Coincidence? 
Coincidence? When An NBA Investor Gave Walker’s PAC Money, A $250M Stadium Deal AppearedWalker’s office claims there’s nothing to see here, move along.

Rush Limbaugh Just Told Us When He’s Throwing A Hissy Fit Over ‘Wingnut Harassment’

Rush Limbaugh Just Told Us When He’s Throwing A Hissy Fit Over ‘Conservative Harassment’ (TWEETS)
Trollapalooza 2015!
Read more

Republican Idiot: End Choice Because Women’s Reproductive Rights Is A ‘Men’s Issue'

Featured image by Øyvind Holmstad. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia CommonsA Republican idiot had the gall to claim that he is allowed to mansplain to women about their reproductive rights because abortion is a “men’s...

Wingnuts Force College Board To Revise History Classes To Fit Wingnut Ideology

Republicans are opposed to an educated populace as a means of sustaining their ignorant electoral base and one particular subject has evoked outrage among wingnuts because it…
RepublicanRevisionistHistory-620x330
Education is valued in most cultures and societies around the world and although every subject is important for a well-rounded education, history is particularly important as both a deterrent against making bad choices and a benefit of knowing what is successful. Republicans are opposed to an educated populace as a means of sustaining their ignorant electoral base and one particular subject has evoked outrage among wingnuts because it is impossible to deny.
Just about one year ago, an 'educated' Republican candidate for pretender,  Ben Carson, lashed out at one high school curriculum subject and stated categorically that “most people who take the course would be ready to sign up for ISIL.” On first blush one would imagine some islamic extremists had infiltrated a public school district and changed it into a muslim madrassa specializing in terrorism to annihilate America and wipe any memory of the nation off the face of the Earth; but that would be false.
In fact, it is Carson and Republicans who want to wipe out any memory, or knowledge, of the nation’s history that does not advance the Koch, evangelical, and Republican vision of and for America. Sadly, wingnuts were very successful in pressuring the non-profit, non-partisan College Board to revise American history standards to fit Republican and social wingnuts’ version of this country’s history. The College Board’s acquiescence to wingnuts will serve the Republicans’ purpose of keeping yet another generation of Americans uninformed and indoctrinated in the wingnut version of American history no matter how obscenely false and incomplete it is.
Last year when the College Board released its guidelines for AP (advanced placement) history courses for high school students, wingnuts were apoplectic that the standards did not include high praise and endorsement of Republican standards; what they concluded was that AP history classes were despicably unpatriotic. That is why Carson claimed that most high school AP students would be “ready to sign up for ISIL” after the horror of learning about America’s history as it really happened. Since, like most organizations in America, the College Board is terrified of standing up to wingnuts, the new AP standards, which are effective immediately, will more frequently use and heavily promote that religio-wingnut phrase, “American exceptionalism;” Republicans consider those two words more important than anything jesus christ, dog almighty, or the Founding Fathers ever said. The wingnuts also pressured the College Board to place much more emphasis on the phrase “founding fathers;” a subject the College Board said it “assumed wasn’t something it needed to spell out as part of what would be taught in an American history course.”
Wingnuts leveled mountains of criticism at the College Board’s AP guidelines including; there was not nearly enough emphasis on, or repetition of, the term founding fathers; there was too much emphasis on slavery; there was too accurate an accounting of violence against Native Americans, and there was not nearly enough focus on the blessing of the wingnut’s influence in creating and sustaining “exceptionalism of America.” The wingnuts also had a serious problem that there was insufficient time spent on the four-year period of World War II, so the College Board caved and set new standards that focus on, and devote more time to, America’s greatest military victories.
The new standards will hardly mention the nation’s history of slavery because even though the issue nearly tore the nation in two, it pales in comparison to the important role wingnuttery had in establishing “American exceptionalism.” Wingnuts reserved extra criticism for the AP history standards that included any mention of, or contributions by, women, African-Americans and immigrants; American exceptionalism is borne of its white male European roots.
One area that wingnuts took particular issue with was the framework’s description of the term “manifest destiny.” The concept of Manifest Destiny historically asserts that the United States military power in the Western hemisphere justified its imperialism and expansion, and was based on a belief in white racial superiority. That still existing sense of American cultural superiority that shaped the era’s political debates and warmongering policy still drives the wingnut movement’s foreign policy around the world and subjection of minorities domestically.
The issue of revising American history according to wingnuts’ imagination began when a retired history teacher (seriously), Larry Krieger, took issue with everything in the AP history standards that did not adhere to the wingnuts’ revisionist take on American history. The republican national coven were alerted to Krieger’s opposition to factual American history and began applying heavy pressure on Congress to abolish the College Board. Republicans were livid because the College Board’s AP history standards held fast to actual historical events that Republicans still claim “omitted America’s positive aspects” and did not portray America as exceptional. Republicans demanded eliminating any mention of slavery, Jim Crow laws, slaughter of Native Americans, Japanese internment camps, segregation, and the struggle for Civil Rights that contradict the wingnut claim that America is and always has been exceptional among nations.
Once the rnc was officially invested in revising American history as a platform and major wingnut goal, the College Board and AP classes became a prime target of “Republican patriots” in state legislatures. For example, in Oklahoma a legislative committee voted to ban AP history classes and Oklahoma moron Dan Fisher (R) introduced legislation that “prohibited the expenditure of funds on the Advanced Placement United States History course.” The Jefferson City County school board In Colorado created a “special committee” to review and revise the AP history course until student protests against wingnut revisionism garnered national media attention that pressured the school board to cancel the review and revision of the standards.
Part of the reason wingnuts have been on a tear to abolish AP history classes besides they teach America’s history, good and bad alike, is because the head of the College Board setting the AP standards had a hand in developing the Common Core standards. Remember, Common Core was an effort to “standardize” curriculum across the nation so red state students would not be mentally handicapped and frankly, stupid compared to their counterparts in states devoted to educating their children. In Republican states across the South, there is a concerted effort to use the christian bible as science curriculum; religio-wingnuts already claim the bible was the model the Framers used to write the Constitution; including crucial input from biblical Moses. In fact, Texas just changed its academic guidelines for history to focus on the experiences of successful white, landowning, religious men and omit any mention of Jim Crow laws, the Ku Klux Klan, or suppression of people of color because Republicans actively repeating that abominable era have to appear groundbreaking and not repetitive.
There is a famous quote from George Santayana in The Life of Reason that says, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” It explains exactly why Republicans, and particularly Lunatic fringe wingnuts, want high school students to remain ignorant of the nation’s history that Republicans are intent on perpetuating, not repeating regardless the detriment to the nation or its people. The events of the past four years should be evidence enough for most Americans to comprehend that Republicans deliberately repeat past failures and to make matters worse, it is not because they “cannot remember their past” debacles or how devastating to the nation and the people their actions were, they just do not care. What Republicans care most about is having a new generation ignorant of the nation’s past mistakes so they can repeat them; it is what makes America exceptional.

Dirty Liar Charles Koch Campaigns As An Advocate For the Poor

The only regard Charles or David Koch have for the poor is keeping them in poverty and subjugated to the rich at any cost…
Charles_Koch_Billionaire_Boys_ClubFor the poor, disparaged souls who make it their business to observe and comment on America’s woeful political circus, it is glaringly obvious that the Republican cabal is wholly-owned and operated by the billionaire oil magnates the Koch brothers. The republicans are not just the mouthpiece of Charles and David Koch, it is a surrogate and plainly speaking, every vote for any Republican is a vote for the Koch brothers regardless the political office. This past weekend at a political strategy conference administered by the Kochs, Charles Koch launched into campaign mode and “compared ‘his’ influence over U.S. elections to America’s historical freedom movements.
As the Republican cabal’s lead oligarch, Charles Koch did what all Republicans are trained to do from an early age and lied about why he is crusading to buy and then abolish America’s government. He said, “Look at the American revolution, the anti-slavery movement, the women’s suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, all of these struck a moral chord with the American people. They all sought to overcome an injustice. And we, too, are seeking to right injustices that are holding our country back.” In the Koch brothers’ warped libertarian minds, the injustice holding “their” country back is a functioning government; the same government that ended slavery, gave women the right to vote, enacted civil rights laws, and protect Americans’ freedoms from monsters like the Kochs.
According to the Kochs, their “crusade to eliminate government” is founded on their intense desire to protect Americans’ freedoms by giving a precious gift to the nation’s poorest Americans. It is likely why the billionaire fascists direct Republicans to “correct injustices” by eliminating the minimum wage, ending overtime pay, wiping out education, abolishing healthcare, eliminating pensions, annihilating workplace protections, eradicating voting rights, and abolishing all regulatory agencies. However, the Kochs are not only about obliterating government, because they do support and direct their Republican representatives to use federal and state governments to privatize the criminal justice system, ban women’s reproductive health choices, and restrict participation in the electoral process to white evangelicals too stupid to understand they are voting for their own demise; unless they are filthy rich and own corporations. That is the Kochs’ idea of restoring “freedoms” to Americans and “helping” America’s poor population overcome injustices and why they are campaigning as “advocates for the poor” being held back by an unjust government.
Everything Charles Koch said is a lie, and infuriating, but maybe none more than comparing the Kochs’ drive to eradicate government to the Civil Rights movement. The Kochs and their legislative arm the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have long wanted to put an end to free and fair elections, including abolishing the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) and campaign finance laws. Since 2010 they have led and funded the Republican effort to “disproportionately suppress” voting rights of students, the elderly, the poor, and particularly people of color; because they do not support Republicans panting to put an end to the government. In fact, through their political arm Americans for Prosperity, the Kochs have pushed Republican-misled states to reject Medicaid expansion because it predominately affects poor and low-wage African Americans in predominately Southern states from having access to medical care; it is the Koch way of advocating for the poor.
As part of their “gift” to poor Americans, the Kochs have also heavily-funded Republican efforts to oppose raising the minimum wage, or championing abolishing it outright; even though raising the minimum will certainly lift millions upon millions of African Americans and Latino workers out of poverty. However, that is not what the Kochs’ advocacy of the poor, especially poor people of color, is about because the Kochs are blatant racists. In fact, in past Koch political strategy conferences, the billionaire white brothers hosted speakers renowned for their “explicitly racist views” which is why the Koch’s comparing their libertarian crusade against the government to the Civil Rights movement is an outrage they are fortunate does not evoke a well-warranted violent reaction from any decent human being.
At the Koch summit just last year, the brothers celebrated their special keynote speaker, Charles Murray, who achieved notoriety and high praise for arguing vehemently that African Americans and Latinos are “genetically inferior to white people” and deserve second-class status Republicans work tirelessly to condemn them to; another Koch gift to America’s poor they are willing to spend nearly a billion dollars to see reaches fruition.
This is not the first time Charles Koch promoted him and his brother’s effort to dismantle government, and everything it provides for Americans, as the billionaire’s altruistic attempt to help the poor. Last year Charles Koch penned a “woe is me” op-ed and complained bitterly that President Barack Obama is “stealing his freedom” because the wealthy oil magnate is a tireless advocate for the poor. The only regard Charles or David Koch have for the poor is keeping them in poverty and subjugated to the rich at any cost. The new cost is $889 billion to install a Koch surrogate in the White House to rubber-stamp Koch legislation abolishing every aspect of government; beginning with agencies and programs created specifically to help the poor.
The fact that Koch openly boasted he is campaigning to influence government based on his advocacy for the poor, something he claims that he, and he alone, understands is an affront to common decency. According to the Kochs, only they advance principles that enable people to improve their lives and that fundamental concepts of dignity, respect, equality before the law, and personal freedom are under attack by the government with an African American as President.
It is why he, Charles Koch, is campaigning lead America and “restore a free society and create greater well-being and opportunity for all Americans;” something he claims he has fought valiantly to restore for more than 50 years. Last year Koch said, “A truly free society is based on a vision of respect for people and what they value,” and that “any government should fail that disrespects its citizens.” The only people who disrespect Americans, particularly people of color, the poor, elderly, and middle class Americans, are the Koch brothers and their surrogates in the Republican cabal who crusade to fulfill the Kochs’ goal of unrestricted injustice that is precisely what America without a government will be.

‘Saint Charles Koch’ Gives His Sermon On The Mount

From Complex.comAt his latest wingnut gathering, Charles Koch declared that the attendees were in “a life-or-death struggle for our country.”

Koch Political Machine Focuses on “Freedom” to Pollute and Pay Less Taxes