GOP Anti-Abortion Language Threatens to Kill Human Trafficking Bill

The Justice for Victims of Human Trafficking Act creates a fund for victims and provides grants to help local governments create programs that will benefit victims and prosecute human traffickers.  On its face, this is a bill that deserves the bipartisan support it had until Democrats found out that Republicans added Hyde Language (anti-abortion language) to the bill without their knowledge.  The problem is that Republicans did what Republicans do.  They said one thing and did another.  In this case, they said the Hyde Amendment would be excluded from this bill then they included it – without telling Democrats.

Moreover, Senator Dick Durbin says, the inclusion of the Hyde language is in direct contradiction to an agreement the two political parties made a year ago.

Senator Durbin told Politico: “there was a representation made”  that the Hyde language would be excluded from the bill.

Senator Chuck Schumer said  that a list of changes to the version of the trafficking bill that was passed in committee last year was provided to Senators.  Surprise!  The Hyde language wasn’t among those provisions. Somehow, it just popped into the law like magic.

Of course, John Cornyn insisted that Democrats are making much ado about nothing.  He also went on to suggest the language was always there, Democrats just didn’t notice it. Oh and besides, the Hyde language is standard stuff.

“All this does is maintain the status quo by making sure that this crime victims compensation fund, the funds available from that fund, are constrained by the same constraint that exists under all other federal law,”

However, as Democrats pointed out the inclusion of Hyde language in this case, actually amounts to a sneaky way of expanding restrictions on women’s reproductive rights, this time in the case of women and girls who were forced into sex slavery. One reason is money for the restitution fund comes from fines, not taxes.

However, there is another feature in this bill that, contrary to Cornyn’s claim is not about merely maintaining the status quo.  Cornyn’s bill authorizes the abortion restrictions for five years – without congressional review. Usually, when the Hyde Amended is attached to an appropriation bill, those are approved annually.

Nothing says let’s get the bad guys like forcing victims of human trafficking to bear children conceived through a sex crime with the added bonus of authorizing this restriction for five years.

It’s such a wonderful way to celebrate women’s history month too.

Democrats are less than pleased by the Republican deceptions. Though when we consider the fact that Republicans are now in the business of sabotaging sensitive diplomatic negotiations, this shouldn’t surprise anyone.  Ok, I digress.

A bill intended to help survivors of human trafficking, in fact, has the very real potential of hurting and possibly killing them because it denies them access to safe and legal abortions.

As Cecil Richards said: ”The majority of human trafficking victims are women and girls, and they need access to the full range of reproductive health care services without barriers.”

Senator Patty Murray described the Republican shenanigans as “shameful.”

Harry Reid, made it abundantly clear that Republicans are not going to get away with shafting victims of crime in the name of continuing their ideological war on women.

“You can blame it on staff, blame it on whoever you want to blame,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday. “But we didn’t know it was in the bill, and … the bill will not come off this floor as long as that language is in the bill.”

When the bill passed in committee last month, John Cornyn said the following:

“Too often we see partisan politics divide Congress, but today as we move forward with a bill to eliminate human trafficking, we see that doesn’t always have to be the case,”

Of course not, as long as Republican ideology comes first.  The fact is, Republicans can’t help themselves.  Their ideology will always be the first priority especially when it comes to women’s reproductive health.

America’s Worst Republican’s Reason for Giving Daughters to a Rapist

When we learned that Arkansas' Justin Harris (R) “rehomed” his adopted daughters to a man who raped one of them, we thought this story couldn’t possibly…

‘Possessed by Demons'

The Truth Be Told

GOP Iran Letter Was A Push For A Regime Change War And Defense Industry Profits

The truth, and true purpose of the letter, has really never been in question; specifically because the filthy little neo-con who originated it has broadcast the purpose …

While many Americans are still outraged over the 47 Republican senators’ “open letter” to Iran, there are a new batch of idiots asking to join the “propaganda ploy.” Shortly after the “press release” was made public, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and former Texas governor Rick Perry nearly wet themselves asking to join the children posing as U.S. senators. Likely, Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, and Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson will be begging to sign the letter soon.

There has been a raging chorus clamoring for legal action against the mentally-challenged 47 for everything from violating the Logan Act to sedition to treason and nearly everything in-between. However, there will be no charges filed because as painful as it is to admit; the 47 are not guilty of treason or sedition or violating the Logan Act. As obvious as it may seem that they are traitors, according to the U.S. Code even that charge is doubtful. Although their goal was interfering with “measures of the United States,” the Iranians are smart and took the open letter for exactly what it was; pathetic propaganda and a gross display of Republican ignorance of the Constitution and international law. It is what one expects from a bunch of petulant punks who are too stupid to understand they embarrassed themselves by lacking even an eighth-grader’s understanding of the document the swore to uphold.

First, the letter was a press release; it was not a personal communication sent to Iran’s leaders. It is also not evident their goal was causing harm to the United States or overthrowing the government. What they are guilty of is hubris and being cretins, and although they seriously deserve to be harshly punished for having the audacity to think they have power over the President leading America’s participation in United Nations Security Council negotiations; the best Americans can hope for is they are humiliated. But that is not likely though because childish malcontents, and Republicans, are never embarrassed.

What is also curious, is the various pundits asking what the 47 hoped to accomplish. Even Hillary Clinton said, “one has to ask, what was the purpose of this letter?” Clinton proffered what she said were “two logical answers. Either these senators were trying to be helpful to the Iranians or harmful to the commander-in-chief in the midst of high-stakes international diplomacy. Either answer does discredit to the letters’ signatories.” The truth, and true purpose of the letter, has really never been in question; specifically because the filthy little neo-con who originated it has broadcast the purpose for the world to hear for months.

Freshman Tom Cotton, the neo-con Senator from Arkansas admitted openly the purpose in organizing the “open letter” to Iran is derailing the United Nations P5+1 negotiations to expedite an Israeli-started war with Iran for “regime change.” In fact, in January while addressing other neo-cons at an event hosted by the advocacy group Heritage Action for America he said; “The end of these negotiations isn’t an unintended consequence of congressional action. It is very much an intended consequence. A feature, not a bug, so to speak.” Cotton has made no secret that he wants and is working to see that the negotiations fail which is why corrupt John Boehner invited Netanyahu to fear-monger Congress into passing legislation to derail the negotiations.

Fear mongering Cheney, Bush, and Netanyahu-style is not unique to Cotton. He won his Senate seat in Arkansas by telling frightened imbeciles that he would fight for their very survival as their senator because “ISIS and Mexican drug cartels joining forces to attack Arkansas is an urgent problem.” He also made sure to inspire really scary images of Nazis for conservatives when he went on to compare American participation in international negotiations with Iran to the appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

In fact, Cotton is a Cheney, McCain, Cruz, Graham, and George W. Bush perpetual war supporter on steroids. He is as staunch an advocate for incredibly higher defense spending and pre-emptive war everywhere as he is for cutting all domestic spending. He subscribes to the Bush aggressive foreign policy agenda and as The New Republic noted, no matter the geographical region in question, whether it is Syria, Iran, Russia, ISIS, or apparently Mexico, “Cotton can be found at the hawkish outer edge of the debate.” To say there is never a war he would not support is a gross understatement. In fact, Cotton has made perpetual calls for immediate military intervention in Iran for regime change a la Bush and Iraq.  In December, a month before being sworn in as a senator, he called for America to supply Israel with B-52s and bunker busting bombs to use in their imminent strike against Iran; a strike that guarantees America’s entrance in a war on Iran for regime change and to heap untold wealth on the defense and oil industry.

It should come as no surprise then, that after issuing the “open letter” to derail talks with Iran, the very next day Cotton made an appearance at an “Off the Record and strictly Non-Attribution” event with the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA). NDIA is a very powerful conservative lobbying and professional group for defense contractors advocating for America’s next Middle East war. The Arkansas warmonger met with leaders of the military industrial complex made up of executives from all the major military businesses such as Northrop Grumman, L-3 Communications, ManTech International, Boeing, Oshkosh Defense, and Booz Allen Hamilton, among other many other firms. It is noteworthy that the B-52s and bunker-busting bombs Cotton wants America to ‘give’ to Israel to bomb Iran are both items manufactured by  Boeing; a major NDIA member.

When the NDIA director of legislative policy, Jimmy Thomas, was asked if Cotton was going talk about the success and progress toward war with his open letter to Iran he said “Most members talk about everything from the defense budget to Iran…so it’s highly likely that he will address that in his remarks.”  What should be frightening to Americans is that the NDIA helps shape conservative legislative policy and gets regular updates on conservatives’ progress in serving Israel’s push for an American war with Iran. Thomas said bringing Cotton in to apprise the defense industry of progress on a war with Iran was scheduled in January, and that “certainly we bring people to the platform that have influence directly on our issues.”

Maybe even stupid Americans can think back to the last neo-con who wanted “regime change” in another Middle East country (Iraq) at Benjamin Netanyahu’s urging. That turned out so well for the nation that America’s debt will increase another $4 trillion over the next decade for the “regime change” war, 655 thousand innocent Iraqi civilians were massacred, and it created the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, IS) extremists that the Islamic Republican of Iran is helping America fight. Through it all, the Koch brothers, Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, and the military industrial complex earned hundreds of billions over a war neo-cons pushed for regime change. In fact, creating profit for the defense industry is part and parcel of Cotton’s purpose in organizing the “open letter” press release everyone is up-in-arms over.

It is too bad there is no punitive damage to wreak on the Republican signatories to Cotton’s “open letter.” Whether they are traitors is dependent on how one perceives a group of neo-con warmongers that had to be taken to school by Iran’s foreign minister for a 2nd grade lesson in international law and how the Constitution works at the most basic level. There have been calls to “summarily arrest the punks and throw em’ in slam” to “assembling a Seal Team to regulate their traitorous asses.” As appealing as those actions might be to many, many Americans, it is reasonable to assume that having a foreigner teach them the ‘nuances of their own Constitution‘ and the basic premise of ‘international agreements‘ would suffice…for now.

Senate Historian Can’t Find Anything In History That Matches GOP Iran Sabotage Letter

Republicans who are already reeling from the letter that 47 of their senators sent to Iran were dealt another blow as the U.S. Senate Historian’s Office can’t find another example of this type of behavior anywhere in Senate history.

McClatchy reported:

The U.S. Senate Historian’s Office has so far been unable to find another example in the chamber’s history where one political party openly tried to deal with a foreign power against a presidential policy, as Republicans have attempted in their open letter to Iran this week.

….

We haven’t found a precedent,” said Senate Historian Donald Ritchie. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t a precedent. After 200 years. It’s hard to find anything that unprecedented.”

In the past, Ritchie said, “what usually happened is a senator would sign a ’round robin’ letter or a sense of the Senate resolution, or write a letter to the president or secretary of State voicing objections to some particular policy.”

The historian left the door open to a letter surfacing that could lend precedent to the Republicans’ actions, but it isn’t a good sign for Republicans that one hasn’t been found. Congressional Republicans are fond of accusing President Obama of overreaching and overstepping his bounds, but the letter sent to the Iranian government was a clear case of overreach.

As Rmuse pointed out, the letter most likely was not a crime, because it was a public letter, and not an official negotiation with a foreign country. The letter was an act of political sabotage by a group of senators who may not have legally committed treason, but who were acting with the intent of treasonous undermining the Commander In Chief.

Republicans were hoping that the Hillary Clinton email “scandal” would dominate the headlines, and for the desperate Beltway media types who are addicted to Clinton speculation like kittens to catnip, it has. However, the rest of the country has been outraged by the behavior of the 47 Republican senators.

The fact that the Senate can’t find a comparable example to the Iran letter demonstrates that the level of hatred that Republicans have for President Obama is also unprecedented. The level of partisan contempt for the man who occupies the White House is so extreme that Republicans are willing to sabotage global security and world peace in an attempt to politically wound the president.

The Iran letter was bad enough, but the intent behind the letter was even worse. Republicans have gone from wrecking their government at home to making the world less safe for all humankind.

Bernie Sanders Explains How 47 Treasonous GOP Senators Tried To Sabotage World Peace

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) explained that the treasonous behavior of the forty-seven Iran letter senators is a danger to world peace.

Video:

Video Link

Al Sharpton asked Senator Sanders about the We The People petition to have the Iran letter senators charged under the Logan Act.

Sanders said:

Look, I think it says that people all over the country understand that this is outrageous behavior. It shows the continuing contempt that Republicans have for the president. They invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress and they forgot to tell the president. Now, they are trying to undermine these negotiations, but the most significant point is, Al, I want these negotiations to succeed. I want to see a situation where Iran does not get a nuclear weapon, but that conclusion is reached in a peaceful way. I do not want to see a war in Iran. The American people do not want to see a war in Iran, and to try and undermine the president’s work, not only with our country, but with the U.K, France, China, Russia, and Germany.

To try to undermine that effort for a peaceful resolution, and then what? What happens then? Well if this doesn’t work, I think these guys will be hot to trot for a war, and that frightens me very much.

Millions of Americans are outraged by the Republican attempt to sabotage diplomacy while engaging in the ultimate act of disrespect towards the nation’s Commander in Chief, but there is a global consequence to the Republican behavior. The forty-seven Republican senators were not only undermining the president. They were also undermining world peace.

These Republican Senators were willing to jeopardize global security in order to disrespect President Obama. The letter to Iran is evidence of how detached and radicalized the Republican Party has become from the rest of the world.

The only sure way that the Republicans are going to be stopped is at the ballot box. The American people have the power to make sure that Republicans never get their war with Iran. By keeping the White House in Democratic hands and returning control of Congress to Democrats, Republicans will be denied their war and the neocon assault on peace will be defeated.

National Outrage Grows As 22 Newspaper Editorials Blast Senate Republican Letter To Iran

Newspapers all across the country are ripping the 47 Senate Republicans who attempted to sabotage President Obama by writing a letter to Iran. Here is a sampling of the criticism from no less than 22 newspaper editorial boards.

The Concord Monitor in New Hampshire took Sen. Kelly Ayotte to task for signing the letter, “Ayotte and the rest of the gang of 47 would like nothing more than for the American people to view the letter as a necessary defense against misguided negotiations and flawed policies, a comeuppance for an arrogant commander in chief who flaunts his contempt for the Constitution. They want you to know, America, that they wrote the letter for you because Obama must be stopped. In reality, they are playing a political game dangerously out of bounds.”

The editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette wrote that the senators who signed the letter should be ashamed, “America’s partners in the talks are among the world’s most important nations — China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom. They can only be appalled at seeing Secretary of State John Kerry and the president, who are charged with making the nation’s foreign policy, hit from behind by one house of the federal legislature. The senators who signed the letter should be ashamed.”

The Sacramento Bee wrote that Senate Republicans need a civics lesson, “It’s the Republican senators who signed the letter – including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and potential presidential candidates Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida – who could use a remedial civics class. The Constitution gives the president broad authority to conduct foreign policy. The Senate’s “advise and consent” role covers formal treaties. The potential deal on Iran’s nuclear weapons program is not a treaty. It is a multinational agreement that involves Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, as well as the United States and Iran.”

The Baltimore Sun pulled no punches, “The poison pen note was a shocking example of just how far President Barack Obama’s GOP critics in Congress are willing to go in an effort to undercut his foreign policy goals…The GOP senators might just as well have put up a big sign over their chamber warning the mullahs in Tehran to prepare for war because that’s the practical import of rejecting any possibility of a negotiated resolution of the two countries’ differences. Republican lawmakers in effect have adopted the hard-line agenda of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who offered a similarly uncompromising view of Iranian intentions when he addressed a joint meeting of Congress last week.”

The Boston Globe accused Senate Republicans of winning sympathy for Iran, “WINNING SYMPATHY for the renegade Islamic Republic of Iran is no easy trick. But Republicans in the US Senate seem to be accomplishing it with their breathtakingly reckless intrusion into international diplomacy….The letter not only undercuts the president’s traditional authority to oversee the shaping of foreign policy but badly undermines America’s credibility in the international community.”

The Kansas City Star wondered if it was the Iran letter, or the Republican senators who were treacherous, “Given the Republicans’ pure hatred of Obama, it also seemed extra personal, yet another politically motivated attempt to stop him from doing anything that might be perceived as a victory for his administration.”

The Salt Lake City Tribune referred to Utah’s two Republican senators as foolish for joining the campaign, “It will be up to history to judge whether the latest partisan stunt joined by Utah Sens. Mike Lee and Orrin Hatch amounts to an act of End Times warmongering or merely another bit of cringe-worthy buffoonery on the global stage. Chances are that the foolish, dangerous and arguably felonious attempt by the Obama Derangement Caucus of the Senate will soon be forgotten. Unless, as President Obama himself muttered the other day, the Senate Republicans make common cause with the hard-liners in Iran to push the region, and the world, that much closer to nuclear war.”

The quotes above from editorial boards around the country are a small taste of the backlash that is growing against the Senate Republicans. Anger is growing from coast to coast.

It is not an understatement to suggest that the outrage over the Senate Republican letter is national. In this time of great partisan divide, Republicans managed to unify the country with an act that was as blatantly unpatriotic as it was blindingly stupid. The tea partiers who turned the House of Representatives into a three ring circus have invaded the Senate, and the letter to Iran is their most high profile bit of handiwork.

Republicans are desperately trying to convert Hillary Clinton’s emails into a 2016 campaign story, but the irony is that with their Iran letter, the Senate GOP might have just handed Democrats a powerful issue that could put an end to their fragile Senate majority.

Even Fox News Is Attacking The 47 Treasonous Republicans Over Iran

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. This Fox Host makes fun of Senator Tom Cotton to his face and he doesn’t even realize it.

Read more 

Watch Jon Stewart Hilariously Rip Apart Republicans’ Letter To Iran

Stewart nails the hypocrisy of the GOP in this hilarious segment.
Read more

Something Republicans do not have ...

Rush Limbaugh: Your 5 Years Are Up, So ‘Bon Voyage’

In 2010, Rush Limbaugh vowed to leave the U.S. if Obamacare went fully into effect. Al Sharpton reminds us that Limbaugh’s five years are up.

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Morning Joe Says Black Rappers Are To Blame For White SAE Frat Boys’ Racist Chants

During a panel discussion on Morning Joe Wednesday morning, co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, along with guest panelist Bill Kristol, came to the defense of the white University of Oklahoma fraternity members who were caught on video singing a racist song. In the minds of all three of them, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon frat brothers who sang “there will never be a n*gger SAE” were influenced by profane lyrics in rap music. Specifically, they Mika placed blame on Waka Flocka Flame, a hip-hop artist who had performed for the frat in the past and pulled out of a future performance after video of the chant was made public Sunday.

After presenting a news report about the racism flap, the hosts brought on Urban League president Marc Morial to discuss the incident and what needs to happen moving forward. After a bit of a discussion, Brzezinski brought up Waka Flocka Flame and some of the lyrics from his song. She then asserted that he and the rest of hip=hop were really to blame for a bunch of young, white, privileged men chanting a song about not allowing a black member in their frat and preferring they hang from a tree.

“If you look at every single song, I guess you call these, that he’s written, it’s a bunch of garbage. It’s full of n-words, it’s full of f-words. It’s wrong. And he shouldn’t be disgusted with them, he should be disgusted with himself.”

From watching the segment, it seemed that Mika nearly passed out from the vapors after reading a sample of a black rapper’s lyrics. She was not alone in demonizing hip-hop culture and laying the blame squarely on its shoulders for the SAE controversy.  Both Kristol and Scarborough, two rich, middle-aged white guys, jumped headlong in the “blame blacks for whites being racist” pool. Kristol pointed out that “popular culture is a cesspool” and nobody should be surprised “when a bunch of drunk 19-year-olds repeat what they’ve been hearing.”

Meanwhile, Scarborough used that as a jumping point to insist that white kids aren’t learning racism from their parents, friends or neighborhoods, but instead it is being instilled in them by black rap music.

“The kids that are buying hip-hop or gangster rap, it’s a white audience, and they hear this over and over again. So do they hear this at home? Well, chances are good, no, they heard a lot of this from guys like this who are now acting shocked.”

Just to hammer home their point a little more, Mika ended the segment by smugly stating that she wishes Waka Flocka Flame wouldn’t be so self-righteous when criticizing the OU students, implying that he is as much to blame due to his music’s content. By the end of the discussion, you would have thought it was the SAE frat bros who are the real victims in all of this.

Obviously, context is lost on Mika, Joe and Kristol in regards to this incident and why it has absolutely NOTHING to do with hip-hop culture. In the infamous video, we saw young, white males proudly chanting a song where they declared “there will never be a n*gger SAE” and “you can hang ‘em from a tree, but they’ll never sign with me,” all to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It”. It had nothing to do with rap or blacks being able to say the n-word with impunity. They weren’t repeating what they heard from a black rapper. Trying to conflate the two is a huge leap and logic and nothing more than shameless victim-blaming.

.Employers are paying less, and workers are getting screwed.

Workers' compensation is yet another of the basic worker protections that have been gutted in recent years, a ProPublica and NPR investigation finds. The details are horrifying:Since 2003, legislators in 33 states have passed workers' comp laws that reduce benefits or make it more difficult for those with certain injuries and diseases to qualify for them. Florida has cut benefits to its most severely disabled workers by 65 percent since 1994.
Where a worker gets hurt matters. Because each state has developed its own system, an amputated arm can literally be worth two or three times as much on one side of a state line than the other. The maximum compensation for the loss of an eye is $27,280 in Alabama, but $261,525 in Pennsylvania.
Many states have not only shrunk the payments to injured workers, they've also cut them off after an arbitrary time limit - even if workers haven't recovered. After John Coffell hurt his back at an Oklahoma tire plant last year, his wages dropped so dramatically that he and his family were evicted from their home.
Employers and insurers increasingly control medical decisions, such as whether an injured worker needs surgery. In 37 states, workers can't pick their own doctor or are restricted to a list provided by their employers.
In California, insurers can now reopen old cases and deny medical care based on the opinions of doctors who never see the patient and don't even have to be licensed in the state. Joel Ramirez, who was paralyzed in a warehouse accident, had his home health aide taken away, leaving him to sit in his own feces for up to eight hours.
With all these cuts, employers and insurance companies are making out like bandits-the former paying the lowest workers' comp insurance rates in decades, and the latter raking in profits-while injured workers are left without care and forced to rely on government assistance to provide for them what their workers' comp should have provided. Read the whole article-it's another terrifying look into how badly American workers can expect to be treated by their employers and by lawmakers.

States slash workers' comp protections, leaving workers broke and suffering

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Obama Wins Again: Projected Health Care Costs Drop Another $400 Billion

Remember when Republicans SWORE that Obamacare would break the economy and destroy America? Are you even slightly surprised they were 100% wrong?

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Hillary Clinton Uses Email Press Conference To Annihilate Republicans Over Iran Letter

Former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton turned the tables on Republicans by using the press conference about her emails to obliterate the 47 Republican senators who tried to undermine President Obama with their letter to Iran.

Clinton said:

I want to comment on a matter in the news today regarding Iran. The president and his team are in the midst of intense negotiations. Their goal is a diplomatic solution that would close off Iran’s pathways to a nuclear bomb and give us unprecedented access and insight into Iran’s nuclear program.

Now, reasonable people can disagree about what exactly it will take to accomplish this objective, and we all must judge any final agreement on its merits.

But the recent letter from Republican senators was out of step with the best traditions of American leadership. And one has to ask, what was the purpose of this letter?

There appear to be two logical answers. Either these senators were trying to be helpful to the Iranians or harmful to the commander- in-chief in the midst of high-stakes international diplomacy. Either answer does discredit to the letters’ signatories.

Former Sec. Clinton came out and immediately turned an event where the media tried to put her on the defensive into a platform where she called out Senate Republicans on their potentially illegal letter to a foreign government.

Clinton’s logic was flawless. There are only two potential reasons for the Republican letter. Either the Republicans were trying to help a regime that they claim to hate, or they were actively trying to undermine the President Of The United States.

The email obsessed Beltway media will likely ignore what Clinton did in her press conference, but her statement was a significant warning shot to Republicans who are thinking about making 2016 a campaign about foreign policy.

If Republicans think that they can beat Hillary Clinton on foreign policy, they are flirting with disaster. Clinton masterfully led the American people to the conclusion that Republicans are either siding with a country that sponsors terrorism, or they are working against their Commander In Chief.

Clinton’s answers in terms of the email flap were what was expected. The State Department will make all of her work emails public, and the American people will be able to read them for themselves. The long-term issue that will have a greater impact on 2016 is the foolish Republican decision to challenge Hillary Clinton on foreign policy.

Hillary Clinton looks ready to run, and her performance at the press conference gave Republicans plenty to worry about.

Democrats Short Circuit Bogus GOP Scandal By Demanding State Dept. Release Clinton Emails

House Democrats who sit on the Benghazi Select Committee has taken the air out of the Republican attempt to turn Benghazi into something by demanding that the State Department make public all Clinton emails related to Benghazi.

In a brief two-paragraph letter to Sec. of State John Kerry, all five Democrats on the Benghazi committee wrote, “Since the Department has already produced approximately 850 pages of these documents to the Select Committee on Benghazi, we request that the Department begin its review for public release with this subset of 850 pages of Benghazi-related documents in order to make them available to the public first without waiting for the full review of all 55,000 pages of documents.”

Democrats are calling the Republican bluff on the Clinton emails. If the Republicans think that there is anything in the 850 pages of emails related to Benghazi, why won’t they release them? If Republicans had any evidence of wrongdoing by former Sec. Clinton, they would have made the information public. Since they won’t release the emails, it is a safe bet that the Republicans have nothing.

By tying the emails to Benghazi, House Republicans are looking for a way to take a scandal that no one cares about outside of Republicans and the chattering Beltway media and inject it into the mainstream. Republicans know that people don’t care about emails, so they are trying to invent a Benghazi “smoking gun.”

The Democrats on the Benghazi Select Committee aren’t going to play along with this ruse. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who is the ranking member of the Select Committee, spent years calling out Darrell Issa’s endless stream of lies and mythmaking during his time as the ranking member on the House Oversight committee. Cummings and his fellow Democratic members are stopping the Republicans dead in their tracks.

Democrats are putting the brakes on the Republican attempt to link the Clinton emails to Benghazi. It is put up or shut up time for Republicans. Since they don’t have any evidence to back up their claims, the Clinton emails are looking like another empty path down the Benghazi conspiracy road.

Republican Judge Deploys Extraordinary New Method Of Politicizing The Federal Judiciary

by Ian Millhiser 

A federal judge opposed to President Obama’s immigration policy tossed a new roadblock in front of that policy on Monday evening, in an order that may be designed to prevent a higher court from staying his decision.
When Republican state officials opposed to the immigration policy learned that George W. Bush-appointed Judge Andrew Hanen would hear their lawsuit challenging much of that policy, it was obvious that they had hit the jackpot. Hanen has a history of handing down opinions calling for harsher treatment of immigrants in cases that have only a tangential relationship to the views Hanen expresses in those opinions. In one case, he called the federal government’s decision to permit an undocumented mother to be reunited with her child without facing criminal charges a “dangerous course of action.”
So when Hanen ordered President Obama’s recently announced immigration policies halted, policies that include the Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) program and that could enable nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants to temporarily live openly in the United States for a period of time, that decision was not a surprise.
Hanen did not stay his February 16 decision halting the new immigration policies, which was handed down just over a day before immigrants were supposed to begin registering to benefits from one of these policies (a stay would put a hold on his decision and allow these policies to take effect). As a result, a single judge in Texas who holds no elected office and who few Americans have ever heard of effectively prevented the United States of America from implementing a policy impacting millions of people. When the Justice Department requested a stay from Hanen, Hanen gave the plaintiffs seven days to respond to that request. On Monday evening, he handed down yet another order delaying resolution of that stay request — declaring that he would “not rule on any other pending motions” until he conducts a hearing on a different motion filed by the state officials. That hearing won’t take place until March 19.
Stay requests are subject to a multi-factor test, but the primary inquiry when a party requests a stay is whether that party has demonstrated a “substantial case on the merits.” The remaining factors overlap considerably with matters Hanen already considered in deciding to halt DAPA in the first place. For this reason, Hanen’s request for additional briefing and a considerable amount of time to consider the Justice Department’s motion for a stay is an odd request, as he is already familiar with the issues presented in the case and has, indeed, already decided several questions that are relevant to the issue of whether his original order should be stayed.
There is, however, a practical reason why a judge like Hanen, who appears to feel very strongly about thwarting President Obama in this particular case, would want to delay his resolution of the government’s stay request for as long as possible: Hanen may be able to prevent a higher court from ruling on the Justice Department’s stay request if he simply sits on that request and refuses to decide it.
Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 8(a)(1) provides that “[a] party must ordinarily move first in the district court” for “a stay of the judgment or order of a district court pending appeal.” Thus, under normal circumstances, the Justice Department may not seek a stay of Hanen’s order from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, if necessary, the Supreme Court, until after they first ask Hanen to stay his own order. Moreover, in a normal case, when DOJ does request a stay from an appellate court, they must first show that the trial judge denied that request.
Rule 8 does account for certain unusual circumstances where an appeals court may bypass a trial judge and stay that judge’s order before the judge weighs in on the stay request — Hanen can be bypassed if “moving first in the district court would be impracticable” or if DOJ can show that Hanen “failed to afford the relief requested.” But motions asking an appeals court to bypass a trial judge are extraordinary motions. We searched the legal database Lexis and were only able to find one Fifth Circuit opinion where the court permitted such a bypass.
Nevertheless, given Hanen’s indication that he will delay resolution of the Justice Department’s stay request indefinitely, it is likely that DOJ will file a stay request in the Fifth Circuit soon — where they could argue that Hanen’s repeated decisions to delay resolution of their stay request amounts to a failure to “afford the relief requested.”
When DOJ does seek relief in the Fifth Circuit, they may want to consider making another, even more unusual request. Federal law provides that “[a]ny justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” and federal appeals courts have, on very rare occasions, relied on this provision to remove judges from cases where their actions create an “appearance of partiality.”
Smart attorneys are reluctant to file a motion asking an appeals court to remove the trial judge from their case, as such motions typically are not granted and they anger the judge. In this case, however, Hanen has already displayed such disdain for the Obama administration’s policies that DOJ may have nothing to lose if they ask for him to be removed.

Same Old Shit

Obama Is 50% White, 46.75% Arabic, And 6.26% Black, Says 100.01% Idiotic RNC Member

Another insight from the “not racist” party.
Read more 

Iran’s Foreign Minister Schools GOP Traitors on Constitution and International Law

Many Americans are rightly incensed at the revelation that 47 Republican Senators signed on to an open letter to hardliners in Iran warning them that according to their pledge of loyalty to a foreigner leading the nation of Israel, they will make sure that America does not abide by its international agreements. Although there is no doubt the Republicans’ goal is sabotaging American efforts for a peaceful resolution with Iran over its alleged nuclear ambitions, it is somewhat surprising so many Americans were stunned at the news. After all, the only reason corrupt John Boehner brought Benjamin Netanyahu to America was to lobby the full Congress to pass a piece of neo-con  war power legislation to sabotage the United Nation’s (P5+1) attempt to avoid another American Middle East war Netanyahu is desperate to start.

The reason Boehner appeared to violate the Logan Act was not necessarily for communicating with a foreigner, but because he summoned the foreigner to help the GOP “influence the measures or conduct of a foreign government (Iran), and defeat the measures of the United States.”

Having failed in the first Netanyahu ploy, Senate Republicans displayed their fealty to the Israeli foreigner by warning Iran that despite the Constitution or international law, Republicans and Netanyahu set America’s Middle East policy; not the leader of the Executive branch President Obama. It is something that astonished Iran’s Foreign Minister Zarif who took time out of his busy schedule to inform “the letter’s authors” that they are as ignorant of their own Constitution as their stupid Confederate base of supporters.

Zarif said, “in our view, this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy.  It is very interesting that while negotiations are still in progress and while no agreement has been reached, some political pressure groups are so afraid even of the prospect of an agreement that they resort to unconventional methods, unprecedented in diplomatic history.  This indicates that like Netanyahu, who considers peace an existential threat, some are opposed to any agreement, regardless of its content.” Republican and Netanyahu war mongering is certainly not a secret, but it is a very prescient statement coming from so-called “warmongering” Iranians.

Last week, two Republican traitors, war mongers Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, pledged to “derail Iran negotiations,” and the treasonous 47’s letter was an attempt to fulfill that promise. Graham told an audience at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that besides killing the Iranian negotiations, he will defund the United Nations because the P5+1 (permanent members of U.N. Security Council plus Germany) are the principles negotiating with Iran. It is not, as the GOP traitors’ letter asserted, a negotiation between Barack Obama (America) and the Ayatollah Khomeini (Iran).

In fact, that GOP assertion puzzled the Iranian Foreign Minister and incited him to school the traitors. First Zarif said he was astonished that “some members of US Congress find it appropriate to write to leaders of another country against their own President and administration” at all, but particularly over a multi-national negotiation effort. So he took the GOP traitors back to eighth grade history class. An Iranian had to point out that “from reading the open letter, it seems that the authors not only do not understand international law, but are not fully cognizant of the nuances of their own Constitution when it comes to presidential powers in the conduct of foreign policy.” Republicans have not been fully cognizant of any presidential powers since January 2009 because Barack Obama is not white; a fact likely not lost on the savvy Iranian.

Zarif added that “I should bring one important point to the attention of the authors and that is, the world is not the United States, and the conduct of inter-state relations is governed by international law; not US domestic law. The authors may not fully understand that in international law, governments represent the entirety of their respective states, are responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, are required to fulfill the obligations they undertake with other states, and may not invoke their internal law as justification for failure to perform their international obligations.”

The Iranian Foreign Minister also reminded the GOP traitors that regardless their allegiance to foreigner Netanyahu, a “change of administration does not in any way relieve the next administration from international obligations undertaken by its predecessor in a possible agreement about Iran’s peaceful nuclear program. I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next administration revokes any agreement with ‘the stroke of a pen,’ as they boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law.” However, in the same manner that Republicans violated the Logan Act, they have blatantly violated international laws forbidding discrimination, inhumane treatment of American citizens, and torture; it is something the United Nations should be very cognizant of in monitoring America to ensure it honors any Security Council agreement with Iran.

As the Iranian had to remind  the 47 traitors, “the current negotiation with P5+1 [Britain, China, France, Germany Russia and the United States] will result in a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It is not a bilateral agreement between Iran and the US, but one concluded with five other countries including all permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and endorsed by a Security Council resolution.” It is also not a treaty regardless what the traitors contend. That moronic idea was proposed by John McCain to give Republicans in the Senate power to scuttle any proposed deal; all to expedite and ensure Netanyahu’s plan for an American-Iranian war stayed on schedule. As an aside, Netanyahu has already pledged to bomb Iran in protest if the P5+1 and Iran negotiations are successful and reach a peaceful agreement.

The Iranian may know the Constitution and international law better than the treasonous 47, but it seems he does not understand that in America, Republicans are not bound to any law; domestic or international. Still, he hoped to “enrich the knowledge of the authors to recognize that according to international law, Congress may not ‘modify the terms of the agreement at any time’ as they claim, and if Congress adopts any measure to impede its implementation, it will have committed a material breach of US obligations.” Since January 2009, Republicans have done nothing but breach their obligations as legislators and have no desire to adhere to any American obligation implemented under an African American President.

The Iranian Foreign Minister stated “the Islamic Republic of Iran has entered these negotiations in good faith and with the political will to reach an agreement, and it is imperative for our counterparts to prove similar good faith and political will in order to make an agreement possible.” Mr. Zarif can rest assured that America, as part of the so-called P5+1, will act in good faith regardless the gang of 47 Republicans effort to sabotage their own government. What remains to be seen, is if their government will take any punitive action against them for aligning with a foreign enemy (Netanyahu) to derail a U.N. Security Council agreement to maintain peace with Iran. With Netanyahu now a powerful member of America’s government, it is highly doubtful there will be any negative consequences for yet another blatant act of Republicans conspiring with a foreigner to sabotage America.

Time to Question the GOP’s Patriotism

VIDEO: Time to Question the GOP’s Patriotism

Forty-seven Republican senators sent an “open letter” to Iran Monday to tell the Islamic Republic any deal it makes with President Obama may not be permanent. … 

Republicans Are Worried That Treasonous Tom Cotton’s Iran Letter Is Backfiring

Republicans are starting to realize that trying to sabotage the President Of The United States might not have been such a good idea. Republicans are openly worrying that Tom Cotton’s letter to Iran may end up backfiring by uniting Democrats around their president.

Politico reported:

Not every Senate Republican signed on to Tom Cotton’s extraordinary letter to Iran’s leaders, and several of those who didn’t are fuming about the freshman senator’s Monday-morning foray into nuclear diplomacy.

….

With Republicans needing significant Democratic support to achieve their goal of derailing the talks — or at least altering the emerging deal — some senators said Cotton’s effort could backfire by injecting excessive partisanship into the debate over how best to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.

What Cotton, and the Republicans who signed his letter really want is war with Iran. During his interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Cotton said, “I think we need to have a credible threat of military force on the table.” Republicans don’t want any agreement that could be viewed as a victory for diplomacy. Republican foreign policy is still straight out of the George W. Bush playbook of shoot first and figure the rest of it out later.

It is common sense that an attempt to sabotage the president would do the exact opposite of what the Republicans intended. Democrats are now free to make sure that Republicans don’t have the ability to override any presidential veto of bills related to a potential agreement with Iran.

Cotton’s letter has made Republican priorities clear. They hate this president more than they love their country.

Instead of killing a deal with Iran on their nuclear program, Cotton’s letter may have guaranteed that Democrats will support it.

GOP Senators Who Signed Treasonous Iran Letter Called “Traitors” By New York Daily News

On the cover of its Tuesday edition, the New York Daily News featured a picture of four Republican Senators with the caption “Traitors” in huge bold letters underneath in response to the letter 47 GOP Senators sent to Iran undermining President Obama’s negotiations with the country. The four Senators represented in the picture were Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR). Paul and Cruz are 2016 Presidential candidates while Cotton is the freshman Senator who came up with the bright idea to write a letter to Iranian leadership informing them that any agreement reached with Obama could easily be revoked by either another President or Congress.

Accompanying the Daily News’ provocative headline was a scathing editorial calling all 47 Republicans who signed the letter “un-patriotic” and an “embarrassment to our nation.” The paper’s editorial board stated that while they aren’t in total agreement with the White House regarding the potential nuclear pact with Iran, they condemn the Republican Senate’s betrayal of the Constitution.

They are an embarrassment to the Senate and to the nation.

How the executive and legislative branches come to terms in the event that Obama presents his version of a done deal to America will be of grave national and international concern. There will be no place for juvenilia, and there should not have been at this expectant juncture.

Rather than offer objections domestically in robust debate, as is their obligation, ringleader Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and his band trespassed on presidential turf by patronizing Iran’s leaders with the suggestion “that you may not fully understand our constitutional system.”

…

The plain intent was to sabotage Obama by pushing the Iranians into balking at a deal out of fear that a turn of the U.S. political wheel could doom the pact in the not-so-distant future.

Late Monday evening, Vice President Joe Biden released a blistering statement through the White House attacking the Republicans who took part in this treasonous stunt. He took special umbrage with Cotton for authoring the letter, pointing out that if this sabotages talks with Iran, then the very real possibility of war is on the horizon.

The author of this letter has been explicit that he is seeking to take any action that will end President Obama’s diplomatic negotiations with Iran. But to what end? If talks collapse because of Congressional intervention, the United States will be blamed, leaving us with the worst of all worlds. Iran’s nuclear program, currently frozen, would race forward again. We would lack the international unity necessary just to enforce existing sanctions, let alone put in place new ones. Without diplomacy or increased pressure, the need to resort to military force becomes much more likely—at a time when our forces are already engaged in the fight against ISIL.

The President has committed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. He has made clear that no deal is preferable to a bad deal that fails to achieve this objective, and he has made clear that all options remain on the table. The current negotiations offer the best prospect in many years to address the serious threat posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It would be a dangerous mistake to scuttle a peaceful resolution, especially while diplomacy is still underway.

Cotton appeared on Morning Joe Tuesday morning to address Biden’s statement and defend the letter he wrote to Iran. Of course, he personally attacked Biden, claiming he’s been wrong on “nearly every foreign policy and security decision in the last 40 years” and telling the Veep to “respect the dignity of the Senate” by telling POTUS to submit any deal with Iran to Congress for approval. Cotton also told the hosts that he would only agree to total nuclear disarmament of Iran — ummmm, they don’t have nuclear weapons yet — while stating Iran could not be negotiated with.

With those statements, Cotton was pressed by the panel that no diplomatic solutions or options would only leave military intervention. He finally copped to the fact that he would be completely fine with that, stating that Israel has done a good job with air strikes on facilities in Iran and America could join in with that.

To Joe Scarborough’s credit, he pointed out during Tuesday’s broadcast that if he were still in Congress, he would not have signed on to this letter. Regardless of your personal feeling about the President or the philosophical disagreements you may have over foreign policy or tactics, you do not undercut the nation’s leader in their dealings with other countries. That is way beyond the pale and potentially in violation of federal law. Many have already pointed out that the 47 GOP Senators may very well have violated the Logan Act with their actions.

While I am not positive that is the case, one thing I do know is they violated the trust of the American people. They decided it was more important for them to act like petulant children in an attempt to embarrass the President of the United States than to allow him to find peaceful solutions to real-world issues.

Crazy GOP “Reform” Forces EPA to Ignore Science

Crazy GOP “Reform” Forces EPA to Ignore Science

Can we all agree that the House Republicans have lost their ever-loving minds? How else can we explain their efforts to pass two anti-science bills (again) that will…

Michigan Republicans Re-Introduce Plan To Rig State’s Electoral Votes To Favor GOP

GOP lawmakers in the Michigan Legislature, have re-hatched a plan to divvy up the state's electoral votes to help the Republicans in 2016.…

Republicans in the Michigan State Legislature have re-hatched a plan to divvy up the state’s electoral votes to give an advantage to the Republican presidential candidate in 2016. Michigan House Bill 4310 would change the way the state assigns its 16 electoral votes. The proposal was introduced by Cindy Gamrat, Thomas Hooker, Gary Glenn, and Todd Courser. All four are Republican lawmakers.

The proposal, referred to the Committee on Elections, would award one electoral vote for each of the 14 congressional districts carried by a presidential candidate. The candidate who wins the state’s popular vote would receive the remaining two electoral votes.

Under the present system, all 16 electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who wins the state. Democrats have carried Michigan’s 16 electoral votes for six consecutive presidential elections. The last Republican to win Michigan was George H.W. Bush, back in 1988.

A similar bill to rig the state’s electoral votes to help Republicans was introduced in the previous legislative session, but it never came up for a vote. In 2011, Republicans in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Virginia all hatched schemes to rig the Electoral College for their advantage, but backed down because of fear of a public backlash. In 2008, California Republicans tried to put together a ballot initiative to divide up their state’s 55 electoral votes, but those plans proved unsuccessful.

While most electoral vote rigging plots have been launched by Republicans, Democrats’ hands aren’t completely clean either. In 2004, Democrats in Colorado tried to advance a ballot measure to split up Colorado’s electoral votes. That proposition was crushed by Colorado voters 65-35. Ironically, Colorado has gone blue in the last two presidential elections, so had Democrats been successful in their efforts, Republicans would have been the unintended beneficiaries.

The Michigan proposal is legal, as state’s are allowed to determine how to allocate their electoral votes. Two-low population states, Maine and Nebraska, already divide their electoral votes by congressional district. However, the winner of each of those states usually carries all of the congressional district’s within the state, and gerrymandering isn’t a significant factor, so it has been uncontroversial. Barack Obama did actually manage to eke out an improbable victory over John McCain in Nebraska’s, Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District in 2008, but in 2012, that district voted Republican with the rest of the state.

Although gaming the electoral votes in a state, to secure a partisan advantage, may be constitutionally legal, the Michigan plan is fundamentally undemocratic. In 2012, Democrat Barack Obama carried Michigan by a decisive 54.3-44.8 margin over Republican Mitt Romney. If the current Republican proposal had been in place in 2012, Romney would have earned 9 electoral votes to Barack Obama’s 7, in the state of Michigan, despite losing the state by over 400,000 votes. That is a fundamentally undemocratic way to allocate electoral votes in a democracy.

The Michigan plan would essentially multiply the effects of partisan gerrymandering. The way districts are drawn already creates skewed representation in Congress. There is no need to inject the same level of partisan rigging into presidential contests. Indeed, blatantly self-serving schemes like the Michigan proposal, will further undermine American faith in the democratic process by producing more undemocratic outcomes. Republicans don’t care however, because voter cynicism plays to their advantage anyway.

Ideally, the president should be chosen by popular vote. However, the electoral college, as it presently exists, has served the nation reasonably well. To alter the formula, so that state legislatures can thwart the will of the people, and game the system to the advantage of their party is unconscionable. The Michigan scheme, and any plan in another state that seeks to imitate it, should be killed by the legislature on arrival.