The Daily Drift

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Bernie Sanders Rocks Wall Street and The Kochs By Vowing To Never Retreat

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders sent shockwaves through the billionaire class and corporate interests by vowing never to retreat in his campaign against them.
Senator Sanders’ speech illustrated why Wall Street and the Koch brothers fear him:
Climate change is real. It is caused by human activity and it already is causing massive devastation all across our planet. It is a very sad moment in American history when almost all Republicans running for president reject science and the need for bold action to combat climate change. Sadly, they prefer to take the super PAC campaign contributions from the Koch brothers and the fossil fuel industry rather than to protect the planet for our kids and grandchildren.
….
And today those Wall Street interests are trying to buy the government of the United States with their bundled contributions and their super PACs. Well I don’t take their money and I never will. And I don’t have a super PAC either. Telling the big banks to cut it out is not going to work unless we cut it out. We have to cut out our reliance on their money if we expect to rein them in. That is why we have built a campaign that has received more than a million contributions from hundreds of thousands of contributors. It is unprecedented, and it is a real-world demonstration that together we can beat the old, corrupt and toxic system of campaign finance that is keeping in place a rigged economy that sends all the new wealth to the top. It’s time to break the link between money and special interest favors in politics, and as your president I will.
….

So my friends, those are the choices I made when I came to the forks in the road. I think they tell you a lot about the choices I will make as president. And my message to you today is the same as it was yesterday, and will be tomorrow.
I promise you tonight as your president I will govern based on principle not poll numbers. I pledge to you that every day I will fight for the public interest not the corporate interests. I will not abandon any segment of American society – whether you’re gay or black or Latino or poor or working class – just because it is politically expedient at a given time.
So as we go forth tonight, our job in this election is to build a winning coalition of voters beginning here in Iowa and spreading across this nation who will elect the next Democratic president. I believe I can build that coalition because I know we have begun to build it in huge rallies and small gathering. People are excited to be part of a political revolution that will change this nation and give us a future to believe in.
In conclusion, let me leave you with words that have inspired me and I think fit our circumstances today. The abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison wrote them when attacking the evils of slavery: I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard.
The Sanders campaign is a serious attempt to win the Democratic nomination, but in an ever larger context, Bernie Sanders is out to change the United States.
Corporate interests fear Senator Sanders because he is building a political movement that will continue long after the 2016 presidential campaign ends. The movement that Sanders is championing is a long overdue pushback against the powerful interests who are trying to purchase the federal government.
Sen. Sanders is pushing back against the forces that benefit from income inequality and have created a system where people work harder but have less. Bernie Sanders is leading a revolution for real change.
What terrifies Wall Street and the Koch brothers most is that he is succeeding.

Cher Comically Trolls Republican Cabal Candidates By Ranking Their Stupidity And It’s Fabulous

Nothing seems to get the goat of wingnuts more than a huge celebrity tearing them down. This is due, largely in part, to the fact that most celebrities are liberals...

Cher Comically Trolls Republican Cabal Candidates By Ranking Their Stupidity And It’s Fabulous

Why Hillary Makes Wingnuts So Crazy

Why Hillary Makes Wingnuts So Crazy

House Republicans Are Targeting Scientists For Harassment and Intimidation

Armed with "suspicious subpoena power," the House Science Committee is using its authority to conduct a witch hunt against NOAA scientists for doing the job they are paid for…

Science is broadly defined as a systematic enterprise that gathers, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. No matter how one looks at science, it is curious that anyone of even reasonable intelligence could possibly find a cause to consider it as a devious tool to advance a dangerous ideology. However, according to Republicans beholden to the Koch brothers and fossil fuel industry, that is precisely what science entails and they have launched yet another taxpayer funded assault on scientific research about weather and oceans.

When a noted climate denier funded by the Kochs and the oil industry became chairman of the House Science Committee, it was feared Smith (R-TX) would do serious damage to any scientific organization remotely related to the Earth’s climate. Smith found an easy target in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tasked with studying and reporting on the condition of climate, weather, oceans, and coasts. Armed with “suspicious subpoena power,” the House Science Committee is using its authority to conduct a witch hunt against NOAA scientists for doing the job they are paid to do; study the oceans and atmosphere and publish the results.
The Koch committee is harassing individual scientists and, in particular, is launching an investigation into the actions of one specific climate scientist who committed a mortal sin by having the “temerity to express his personal views that fossil fuel companies should be held accountable for climate change.” Although the committee has not formally issued subpoenas an investigation has been initiated. Like the Republican Benghazi, Clinton email, and I.R.S. investigations, it is just another witch hunt. It is also a monumental waste of taxpayer money on several levels that is driven by the Koch brothers and the dirty energy industry.
Now, the committee is ramping up its harassment of government agencies that conduct scientific research and last week subpoenaed seven years of internal deliberations and communications among scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; including “any and all documents and communications” related to NOAA’s measurements and documentation regarding the atmosphere, oceans, weather patterns and how they relate to the Earth’s climate. Based on past Republican witch hunts, “all documents and communications” means every single email, preliminary draft, peer review comment, notes, audio recordings, and a “treasure trove” of other material. What that also means is that taxpayers will pay for federal employees who are not scientists to study and analyze literally hundreds-of-thousands of pages of empirical data and scientists’ records for no stated purpose whatsoever. The NOAA was given two weeks to comply or face sanctions. Here is the issue that should incite rage in the public; besides a cabal of Koch acolytes wasting taxpayers’ time and money harassing scientists, any and every last piece of that data under subpoena is already accessible to the public.
Since it is obvious the Koch committee is using its authority, and taxpayer money, for the sole purpose of harassing scientists unwilling to give the Koch’s and fossil fuel industry the results they want, one Democrat on the committee issued a letter outlining the true purpose of the demand for 7 years’ worth of data and NOAA scientists’ personal communications. Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) is the ranking Democrat on the committee and wrote;
“Obtaining all of the data and methods used in this study seemingly was not enough for the majority. You also demanded internal communications by NOAA scientists regarding their scientific research. NOAA, rightfully, has been reluctant to waste their time and resources, not to mention break confidence with their superb research scientists by responding to this demand.

I cannot help but note that your requests in this case echo the tactics of notable climate change skeptics, who frequently submit similar FOIA requests of climate scientists in both the federal government and in state universities. One of the most publicized occasions of harassment occurred when then-Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and the American Tradition Institute (ATI) sought email communications of former University of Virginia climate scientist Michael Mann.”
Johnson is referring to the case where Cuccinelli issued Civil Investigative Demands (subpoenas) under Virginia’s Fraud Against Taxpayers Act for information that even other climate change skeptics labeled a witch hunt. In fact, the lawyers working with Cuccinelli representing the American Tradition Institute were being paid by the coal industry and followed Cuccinelli’s official subpoenas with open records requests of their own for precisely the same personal communications and information from a University of Virginia scientist. Representative Johnson noted that like the UVA case, the Koch’s House Science Committee has not made one specific allegation of fraud or scientific misconduct because they know there is none; their intent is a fishing expedition to harass scientists and burden the NOAA by wasting its time.
This witch hunt under Chairman Lamar Smith’s supervision is not out of character for the climate denier who has taken to the floor of the House in the past to rant and criticize scientists and journalists he claims are on a crusade to falsely “advance the idea of human-made global warming.” In a 2009 speech Smith said,
“We now know that prominent scientists were so determined to advance the idea of human-made global warming that they worked together to hide contradictory temperature data. But for two weeks, none of the networks gave the scandal any coverage on their evening news programs. And when they finally did cover it, their reporting was largely slanted in favor of global warming alarmists. The networks have shown a steady pattern of bias on climate change. During a six-month period, four out of five network news reports failed to acknowledge any dissenting opinions about global warming. The networks should tell Americans the truth, rather than hide the facts.”
Of course, several independent reviews discovered that “climate scientists neither hid nor tampered with data;” that is what the Koch brothers pay their so-called ‘scientists’ and activists to do. It is also noteworthy that when 97 percent of climate scientists concur that climate change is ongoing and anthropogenic, the networks will hardly feel inclined to report on the 3 percent of outliers who, oh by the way, are likely on the fossil fuel industry payroll; not unlike Lamar Smith and other Republicans on the committee.
There is no doubt the Koch’s House Science Committee is on a witch hunt and wasting precious taxpayer resources at best. As other pundits have remarked, “It used to be tobacco and chemical companies, and the Church that harassed scientists.” Now, with the Kochs asserting their control over Republicans, Congress is embracing the anti-science playbook to harass, demoralize, and intimidate scientists guilty of measuring and reporting on the conditions of the oceans and atmosphere.
It is a sad state of affairs that in 21st Century America Republicans are using a government entity to specifically target scientists for doing their jobs and, by the way, helping to protect Americans. It is looking more and more like when Republicans scream they want to take their country back, it is to the Dark Ages and all that remains is for them to start burning scientists at the stake.

Islamophobic Lunatic Goes On Insane Rampage After Being Told To Shut Up

This anti-muslim racist is completely batshit…

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The Religio-Wingnut 'Christian' Fundamentalists' Plot Against the Constitution

Religio-Wingnut 'Christian' Fundamentalists' Plot Against the Constitution: What Kim Davis’ Newly Unearthed Emails Reveal

Republican Cabal Ready For Another Defeat as Blackburn Will Lead Abortion Investigation

Blackburn (TN-7) will head a select investigative panel on “big abortion providers”. House Speaker John Boehner announced on Friday that Blackburn would be tasked with the leading the inquiry.

Boehner stated:

Chairman Blackburn and our members will have the resources and the subpoena power to get to the bottom of these horrific practices, and build on our work to protect the sanctity of all human life.

As with the Benghazi investigation, Republicans attempted to describe the panel as embarking upon a fact-finding mission rather than a political witch hunt. Blackburn opined:

This will be a broad-based, information gathering, fact finding mission to answer questions about how we treat and protect life in this country.

Despite her innocuous rhetoric, the panel will be stacked with religio- wingnut anti choice zealots. Blackburn will be joined on the committee by fellow wingnuts Buschon (IN-8), Harris (MD-1), Hartzler (MO-4), Pitts (PA-16), Love (UT-4) and Duffy (WI-7).

The Republicans do not seem to have learned any lessons from the thumping they took from Hillary Clinton during the Benghazi hearings. Rather than lick their wounds and devise a new political approach, they have decided to continue creating investigative panels to grill people they disagree with. Republicans keep desperately hoping to manufacture a scandal that they can use to hurt liberals and Democrats.
Instead, however, the Republican cabal is setting up another politically embarrassing inquest that will end up backfiring against them, much like the Benghazi panel boomeranged against the Republicans on Thursday. Blackburn is an extremist and a “birther”, who isn’t known for her command of factual information, so putting her in charge of a fact-finding expedition is fraught with peril for the Republican cabal. The odds of the committee looking foolish are astronomically high with Blackburn at the helm.
If the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results, then the House Republican cabal must be regarded as insane. Just one day after getting humiliated in a marathon Benghazi hearing, the House has decided to launch an investigation against abortion providers. Good luck with that.

The Republican Cabal Caves

One of the best moments for Democrats of the triumph of Hillary Clinton over the Benghazi witch hunters was when Representative Elijah Cummings gave Committee...

The Republican Cabal Caves: Full Benghazi Committee Transcripts To Be Released Thanks To Democrats Pressure

O’Reilly Says Benghazi Committee Should Have Listened to Him

O'Reilly thinks he knows how to question Hillary Clinton, as though he is any better with facts than the Benghazi Committee…

So O’Reilly, while busily writing fake biographies of famous people and applauding himself for inventing the term “Feminazi,” says the Benghazi Committee could have hurt Hillary Clinton – if they had listened to him.

It is hard to find somebody more in love with himself than Swill-O, but really? Ironically, O’Reilly had just defended Hillary Clinton in an interview with The Daily Caller, saying the media hadn’t been fair to her:

“I think they’ve been aggressive toward Hillary because they don’t much like her,” the Fox News hack told The Daily Caller, while discussing how he thinks the media have so far covered the 2016 presidential race. “They would prefer [Vice President Joe] Biden and, I mean, [Vermont Sen.] Bernie Sanders, my dog. There’s a lot of agendas running around. I don’t like that.”

But that’s only because they’re not YOUR agendas, right Swill-O?
O’REILLY: Do you think Secretary Clinton hurt or helped herself yesterday?

CHRISTIE: She helped herself yesterday.
O’REILLY: You think so?
CHRISTIE: I do. Because, you know, they didn’t uncover anything new. They allowed her get her talking points out over and over again. And they were falling over each other looking ineffective.
O’REILLY: All right, but her talking points —
CHRISTIE: This is why people don’t like Congress, I mean, you know.
O’REILLY: Yeah, I mean look, her talking points were essentially this, though, and this is what I said last night. “I don’t know anything about it. Because it’s not my job. [It’s] the security professional’s job.” So you got a hot spot. You’re deeply involved in the Libyan situation because you wanted to remove Gadhafi. Your ambassador writes a cable to you, which you say you never saw, saying “we need more security, it’s not provided.” And he winds up dead. Do you really think [the] American people are going to buy “it’s not my job to protect my people?”
CHRISTIE: Absolutely not.
O’REILLY: Well, then, how can you say it didn’t hurt her?
CHRISTIE: Well, you said yesterday — it’s going to hurt her in the long-term, Bill. [CROSSTALK]
O’REILLY: Right.
CHRISTIE: But you got to get somebody who can effectively question her and hold her to account. We didn’t have anyone on that congressional committee … who could do that.
O’REILLY: Why do you think that is? Because I told them what to do.
CHRISTIE: They didn’t listen.
So much hot air comes out of his mouth that it is impossible at this point for Bill-O to keep track of reality. And we do know another Fox News host who disagrees that Bill is the one to get answers from Hillary Clinton: Megyn Kelly. Kelly said this spring about the prospect of O’Reilly getting to interview Clinton:

“O’Reilly — what?” Kelly said. “She should sit with me and I’ll tell you why, with all due respect to Swill. Because Swill — and I love him — does macro … and I’ll go micro. And she needs to be asked the specific questions. You need to be able to go ten layers deep with her because that’s the only way you get answers.”

In Kelly’s favor is that she scares the hell out of Trump, and that she can correctly identify that math Republicans do to feel better about themselves. What’s funny is that they both work for the network that invented the Benghazi Hoax in the first place.
And this is the same O’Reilly, mind you, who first compared Black Lives Matter to Nazis, saying on October 22,
“But they are an extreme group, the Nazi Party. The Black Lives Matter is also an extreme group as you have heard.”
And then denying he ever said it the next day:
“[I] did not make that comparison, Talli. Didn’t make it.”
But you did, Bill, you did.
So despite – or perhaps because of – living in a reality of his own devising, he thinks the Benghazi Committee should listen to him, as though they are any worse with facts than he is. He can’t even effectively relate what he has and has not said, let alone relate what happened to historical people (so much more to just invent your biographies, isn’t it, Swill-O?) or develop an effective line of questioning of an actual living, breathing person.
Anyone who has seen O’Reilly try to interview Barack Obama knows – and has seen – Obama take his lunch. Repeatedly. At will. Hillary Clinton, no less intelligent or articulate than Obama, would have done the same.
Swill-O, like other wingnut shrieking heads, is inhabiting an alternative universe where stuff happens as he imagines it happens rather than how it is actually happening. I don’t know how he experienced his Obama interviews but you can be sure it was not how the rest of us experienced it.
We have been deprived of a great television spectacle, O’Reilly questioning Hillary Clinton on Benghazi, either in person or in just devising the line of questioning.
Swill-O thinks he was deprived too, but the truth is, Swill-O hasn’t been deprived; he has been saved.

Libertarian Idiot Paul Gets Desperate

Libertarian Idiot Paul Gets Desperate, Wildly Misrepresents Bernie Sanders' Democratic Socialism

Bob Woodward Gushes Praise For Ryan's Assault On The Poor

Bob Woodward, what has happened to you? 

Why Hate Talk Radio Will Destroy Ryan

 All you have to do is listen to Limbaugh or Levin and you'll swear on your …

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Rubio Turns Into A Giant Fail Pile When Asked About His Missed Vote Record

Rubio sounded like a child who was caught skipping school.
Read more 

Christie Gets Kicked Out Of Amtrak Car For Throwing Massive Tantrum, Being An Asshole

What an embarrassment.
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Nurse Sues Christie

Nurse quarantined in NJ for Ebola is back to sue Christie

Christie Thinks Black Lives Matter Wants Cops To Get Murdered, Blames President Obama

Chris Christie, once again, proved that he is nothing less than a complete buffoon. While he isn’t getting kicked out of Amtrak cars ...

Chris Christie Thinks Black Lives Matter Wants Cops To Get Murdered, Blames President Obama

Welcome to the Wholly Owned Koch Subsidiary Formerly Known as Wisconsin

Welcome to the Wholly Owned Koch Subsidiary Formerly Known as Wisconsin

Pro-Austerity Teabagger Caught Funneling Nearly A Billion Tax Dollars To Military Industrial Complex

The excesses of the military industrial complex and the arms contractors that profit off it go a long way for accounting for our nation’s gluttonous defense budget, which is accounts for more than half a trillion dollars – more than the next six countries combined. While the so-called “Freedom Caucus” rails against government spending and obstinately demands cuts for food stamps and the social safety net, they sing a very different tune when it comes to spending on armaments, especially when it’s for their own district.We can thank Republican Jordan of Ohio’s 4th Congressional District for bringing this all to light. Jordon has been virulently opposed to federal spending, but when it’s going to benefit his own district, the five-term Republican doesn’t think twice about it. As it turns out, Jordan has influenced the government to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a factory located in his district for the sole purpose of making Abrams tanks for the U.S. Army – tanks the Army didn’t want or need. Mandy Smithberger, director of the Straus Military Reform Project, even called the factory “a favorite program for Ohio delegation earmarks, against the needs of the Army” and said the plant was “one of the poster children for Congress adding funding for programs the military neither wants nor needs, for parochial reasons.”
As a result, the factory has been a complete burden on both our budget and our national security because vital programs are unable to get adequate funding while we produce highly expensive combat vehicles that we don’t need. Still, Jordan continues to portray himself as a budget slashing champion of austerity. According to the teabagger’s website, “federal government spending is out of control, and it is the responsibility of Congress to fix the problem.”
To put this into perspective, here are just a few things Jordan has done to unravel government spending:

• Oppose federal funding for Planned Parenthood
• Refer to the Export-Import Bank, which finances foreign purchases of American goods, a “waste of money.”
• Co-sponsored a bill to cut food stamps to “move our country away from a culture of dependency and back toward a culture of work and upward mobility.”
• Lead the 2011 Budget Control Act to mandate federal spending cuts.

And yet, he still managed to put almost a billion dollars into creating unneeded tanks for the Army, even though the budget didn’t account for them. It is beginning to be very clear that there is a strong link between Congress, defense spending, and profiteering corporations in America making billions off of taxpayer dollars- the armed forces have too much stuff, and keep buying more anyway. “We have about $14 billion of inventory for lots of reasons, and probably half of that is excess to what we need” says Navy Vice Admiral Mark Harnitchek. In 2012, a report found that the military had “$733 million worth of supplies and equipment on order that was already stocked in excess amounts on warehouse shelves. That figure was up 21% from $609 million a year earlier. The Defense Department defines “excess inventory” as anything more than a three-year supply.”Jordan justified this in an op-ed when he wrote:

“We have long advocated for policies that put our fiscal house in order, and reducing our massive national debt should be one of our nation’s highest priorities. But we shouldn’t do so by putting our national defense at risk.”

“This year’s appropriation of $120 million in additional funding for the Abrams tank program will go a long way towards doing that.”

What Jordan left out was that the money that went to the tanks wasn’t “additional” at all. Jordan and his fellow pro-tank lawmakers used money from other scaled-back initiatives such as training. Earlier this year, Army chief of staff Gen. Raymond Odierno said:

“We are still having to procure systems we don’t need. Excess tanks is an example in the Army, hundreds of millions of dollars spent on tanks that we simply don’t have the structure for anymore.”

But thanks to Jordan, there are now hundreds of extra tanks laying around. The lunatic wingnut loves to argue that they’re absolutely necessary to national security, even when the Department of Defense has indicated they don’t want or need them. It is very clear that there is a link between Congress, defense spending, and profiteering corporations in America making billions off of taxpayer dollars- the armed forces have too much stuff, and keep buying more anyway. “We have about $14 billion of inventory for lots of reasons, and probably half of that is excess to what we need” says Navy Vice Admiral Mark Harnitchek.
In 2012, a report found that the military had “$733 million worth of supplies and equipment on order that was already stocked in excess amounts on warehouse shelves. That figure was up 21% from $609 million a year earlier. The Defense Department defines “excess inventory” as anything more than a three-year supply.” It’s an example of Republican fiscal hypocrisy at its worst – always money for arms dealers, but never any money for hungry children or families in need.

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Facing 65 Criminal Charges, New Mexico’s Republican Cabal Secretary Of State Cops A Guilty Plea On 6

Facing 65 criminal counts, embattled New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran (R) resigned early Friday morning, and then pleaded guilty to 6 of the 65 charges. Duran pleaded guilty to two felony counts of embezzlement and four misdemeanor offenses.

Duran ran into legal trouble over allegations that she embezzled campaign funds for her own personal use, and spent those funds gambling at eight different casinos. She apparently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at casinos, of which 19 transactions totaling around 13,000 dollars were traced back to money she pilfered from her campaign account.
On Friday morning, however, Duran chose not to gamble with her freedom, by sticking with a risky high stakes “not guilty” plea. Instead, she recognized she was playing a losing hand, and cut her losses by pleading guilty to just a handful of the 65 charges she faced.
The agreement could permit Duran to avoid jail time and to keep her pension. As a convicted felon she will be barred from voting. The Attorney General’s office has recommended a sentence of five years supervised probation. In addition, she will be required to pay back nearly 14,000 dollars to the political donors she ripped off.
Ironically, Duran was first elected in 2010, by running on a promise to fight corruption and to run “a scandal-free Secretary of State’s office.” Instead, she only reinforced New Mexico’s reputation for political corruption, eclipsing the misdeeds of her political predecessors.
In response to Duran’s resignation and guilty plea, New Mexico’s Attorney General Hector Balderas (D) stated:

After today, citizens can be confident that Dianna Duran will no longer have supervisory control of public funds or the reporting process within the Secretary of State’s Office. I am hopeful that this resolution will begin to rebuild the public trust and compel the new leadership to improve oversight and compliance in our campaign finance system and electoral process.

Republican Idiot Governor Susana Martinez will appoint a replacement for Duran. Then in November of 2016, New Mexico will have an opportunity to elect a new Secretary of State. Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver (D), who narrowly lost to Duran in 2014, would be an ideal candidate for Democrats to get behind in 2016. Hopefully, New Mexico voters will have the good sense to elect her on the second go around, because obviously voting for Duran was a colossal mistake.